What “No Comment” Reveals
Spirits are high in our brightly-lit classroom turned art makerspace. I feel the carbonated delight that comes from a good chevruta (partnered learning) session: minds melding, excited exclamations bubbling to a din, texts opening portals to new ways of seeing. I announce that now we’ll transition from text-based learning to art-making, and just a few rules apply. (Many of these rules Rabbi Jay has introduced in preceding newsletters!) Perhaps the guideline most subject to skepticism is the friendly silence the Jewish Studio Process calls “No Comment”. For the entirety of our use of materials, participants refrain from chatting about, interpreting, or in any way interjecting about what another is doing in their art. We also refrain from commenting on our own work, benching our inner critics if only for the allotted twenty to thirty minutes. Inevitably, eyebrows furrow in protest and hands raise to ask about exceptions. (Yes, you can ask someone to pass the scissors.)
The silence invoked in the Jewish Studio Project creative process is a gift, not a punishment. For a moment it can seem awkward or even rude not to pepper our communal art-making with the compliments and constructive feedback. Creativity is vulnerable, and I am no stranger to the glow and relief that can come from a kind reflection - a validation that what I’m daring to put out has worth, or at least, that I chose a cool color to make marks with.
Yet the absence of commentary or any expectation of it in a shared space can create a new way of listening inward that is, dare I say, revelatory. In those quiet ‘alone-together’ moments, we return to a way of knowing evoked in the wilderness at Sinai - that unique transmission of Divine wisdom that we celebrate this week on Shavuot. However you interpret revelation, the Torah’s account of Sinai offers us a radical, accessible vision of communal transformation that celebrates the wilderness within each of us, and allows for a transmission of wisdom that benefits the collective without stifling the individual.
The Rabbinic midrash Shemot Rabbah 5:9 relates:
Come and see how [God’s] voice would go out among all of Israel - to each and every one according to their strength: the elders according to their strength; the young men according to their strength;... the babies according to their strength; the women according to their strength; and even Moshe according to his strength…(Exodus 19:19)
Implied in this midrash are the conditions that allow each and every individual standing at Sinai to have an unfiltered, uninterrupted experience of receiving the Divine wisdom. Only by holding a reverent silence together could each human be receptive to hearing the unique way that Divine wisdom wanted to be channeled through them.
The “No-Comment” rule creates a container of trust and solidarity among creative souls so they can hear the unique revelation intended for them. Critically, though the Israelites each receive according to their unique capacities and needs, they do not stand indifferent to one another in this space of holy transformation. A teaching transmitted by David Elcott relates that when Israelites stood at Sinai, God resided in their midst only when the people looked “into each other's eyes” (Numbers 14:14). Sinai’s revelatory delivery does not happen until the people communicate to one another (inaudibly) that they are in this awesome moment together. Silently, but potently, the people shared their readiness to receive God’s word, alone-together, and only then did each hear what they needed to, as they were able to.
Similarly in the JSP studio, just because we’re not commenting doesn’t mean that we feel an absence of Presence. Quite the opposite - to collectively agree to be vessels open to giving and receiving creativity together is profound in a way that amplifies a simple solo experience. We are conscious witness-bearers, we are courage-stokers, we affirm that each of us belongs here as much as the next person.
Infinite creative seeds of wisdom were planted at Sinai. Rather than expect each to grow identically, God saw to it that each could act on their own unique potential. Rabbi Hilly Haber notes, “As Jews, we celebrate the particular joy of Jewish unity that was forged at Sinai - a unity that is the very opposite of uniformity, for, as Audre Lord teaches, our diversity is our source of power.”
She continues:
“At Sinai we learned who we were and who we would become in the world: a border-crossing people, confined to no single territory, no single language, no single expression of Jewish identity; a multi-vocal, multi-racial, multi-ethnic movement still trying to live out the radical lessons of revelation.”
Rabbi Haber reminds us that the potency of ‘No Comment’ is not only felt at the individual level, but it undeniably strengthens the potential of the whole.
When we meet each others’ eyes in the studio, on the dance-floor, in sanctuary and in navigating life’s challenges with the commitment to ‘No Comment’, we restoke the creative fires of Sinai that allow us all to go where we’re called intuitively, and learn by getting lost and finding our way home. The comment-free freedom we give each other, even for a few moments, allows us to emerge with a more resilient roadmap for navigating the wilderness ahead.
Chag Sameach!
Rabbi Laura Rumpf
Guest written by Rabbi Laura Rumpf, Director of Project Kavod at Jewish Family Services and Jewish Studio Project Facilitator
