"Shimon his son [the son of Rabban Gamliel of the previous mishna] said: All my life I have been raised among the Sages, and I have not found anything better for oneself than silence. Study is not the primary thing but action. Whoever talks excessively brings about sin."
After all the mishnayos praising study of Torah, it must seem jarring to read one that says that silence is the best thing for oneself, and study is not the primary thing, but action is. How can this be? How can we make sense of this?
This mishna teaches us that the purpose of study of Torah is to guide our actions, to G-d and to man. When we talk excessively, we are publishing the noise from our minds. When we are silent, we could be thinking about the teachings of Torah and how they apply to action in the world surrounding us. Applying the teachings of Torah to the people and things around us takes concentration. It is the art of listening, which is really the art of hearing what is going on around us and the people around us, and applying what we have learned in our study to them. When we chatter, we can't listen and think about how we should act toward G-d and toward others. Toward G-d we owe appreciation for the miracles of daily life: our awakening in the morning, our functioning during the day, and our ability to rejuvenate ourselves at night. Toward others we owe the appreciation of their magnificent humanity, vision, striving and creation as other beings like ourselves. When we chatter, we shut that out. When we are silent, we can let it in, and then act with awareness of that appreciation.
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