Grandmother’s Violin

When we were children and sometimes cried, our grandmother used to say, “Let them cry.” She didn’t mean that we should be left alone with our sorrow, but that we shouldn’t rush to stop it, shouldn’t immediately try to silence the crying or make it go away. I remembered her words today, after reading Yehuda Amichai’s poem “Three Sons”, and suddenly they appeared in a different light.

When we listen to a baby crying and allow the crying to continue, we can begin to hear what kind of cry it is. Is it pain, anger, loss, frustration? If we don’t immediately silence it with a sweet, a present, or some other distraction, we might actually hear what is going on, what the cry is expressing, and find a way to respond to it. Perhaps the crying needs first of all to be heard.

The Babylonian Talmud, in the chapter of blessings, says that since the destruction of the Temple, the gates of prayer have been closed, but the gates of tears are always open. Perhaps there is something in crying that precedes words, something that has not yet found its way into articulated speech. Why should we try to silence that unformed sound? Why not let those sounds be?

Painting – Norman Rockwell’s ‘Shuffleton’s Barbershop’ 1950