The Lost Art of Paying Attention

At first glance, it feels strangely

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familiar. Haven’t we heard these stories before? The Exodus,

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Sinai, the spies, the wilderness, wanderings. It’s all

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repetition. But maybe repetition isn’t a flaw.

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Maybe it’s the point. Why does Moses spend his

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final weeks retelling a story everyone already knows? Why do

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the rabbis praise the student who reviews a lesson

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101 times? And why does Ben Bag

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Bag famously teach turn it over and turn it over,

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for everything is in it? Two thousand years ago, the

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Roman philosopher Seneca warned that reading too many

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scrolls too quickly would leave us distracted, restless, and

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unable to think deeply. Sound familiar? In an

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age of endless scrolling and shrinking attention spans,

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perhaps Deuteronomy has something surprising to teach

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us about the art of paying attention.

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Welcome to Madly. My name is Geoffrey Stern, and at Madlik, we light a

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spark or shed some light on a Jewish text or tradition. Along with

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Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on your favorite

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podcast platform and now on YouTube and

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Substack. We also publish a source sheet on Sefaria,

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and a link is included in the show notes. This week’s Parasha is

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Devarim. Join us as we explore Deuteronomy and

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the Art of Attention and discover why Moses

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final retelling of the Torah may offer the oldest and

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perhaps the best antidote to our modern

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epidemic of distraction. Well,

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welcome back, Rabbi. We missed you last week, but it’s nice to be

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back. But you had a great conversation. It was truly

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illuminating. And one of the things that he said towards the end

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was, we’re finishing the Torah. And of course, he was right, because

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Numbers ends the Torah. And Mishneh Torah, the

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name for Deuteronomy, really means a copy

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of the Torah. And that’s where the Greek

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Deuteronomy comes from. Second law.

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So it really is a review, it’s a repetition. And

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that’s what we’re going to focus on today.

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In the yeshiva, we called it Chazorah. And

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in Yeshiva, Chazorah was important. And I think when it comes to

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the book of. The Book of Deuteronomy, that’s also important.

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I mean, to give you a sense of what Chazorah was. And I think I

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did come across it a little bit in college where you would have a

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professor give a class and then there was a TA and the teacher’s

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assistant would come out later and meet and smaller groups.

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But in the yeshiva, you would prepare for a

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shiur, a class bechavrusa. And then you would

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go over it, Bechavrusa. And at least my experience

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was, for instance, in Be’er Yaakov, where the

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Mashgiach gave most of his really exciting

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shmoozin on Shabbat, you couldn’t write it down. You couldn’t write it down.

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So you literally had to review it. And many of the

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great books that we have, for instance, on many of

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of the Hasidic great leaders, they never wrote it down. It’s their students who

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kind of wrote it down. So this is a big part of our tradition. Very

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important. Okay, let’s go for it. Okay, so it’s

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only in Deuteronomy 18, where it actually

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uses this word, Mishneh Torah. And there, of course, it

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is talking about the rules of the kings,

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and they shall have a copy of this teaching

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written for him, for the king. But again, this

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has been the traditional exploration, explanation of

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what Mishneh Torah is, this fifth book of

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the Torah. And of course, a lot of time is spent,

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Rabbi, on nitpicking and seeing how

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in the repetition, maybe the story changes,

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maybe how a different phrase is used, word is

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used. We’re going to explore just the story of the

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scouts in a few minutes. But of course, and I’m quoting

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from a Sefaria, a wonderful source that I discover,

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where he gives an introduction. And he says, the people, the scholars

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from the critical theory, obviously,

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who believe that Torah was written by many

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different authors, they will argue that that’s not a big

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surprise. Deuteronomy was edited by a different

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editor and different sources got inside.

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We find that even in the Mishnah, where

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we have the Mishnah and then we have a Beraita, and the Beraita

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maybe didn’t make the Mishna, but it’s a variation of it.

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It’s at the most basic level, this is varying

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texts. And that truly is something

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that is part of our tradition as well. We understood

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way back when there was no only recording. There were

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variations on everything. It’s really baked into our tradition.

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Amazing. Really good. So I do

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think, though, that even the classical commentators clearly, and

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I’ve always argued this, nothing that modern scholarship

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has brought up by way of a question or a problem that the

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classical commentaries didn’t already identify. And so,

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for instance, they will ask, so why were

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they repeated? What laws were repeated? So by way of

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example, Ramban Nachmanides says

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this book is known to constitute a review of the

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Torah. He uses that same

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word, hasefer hazeh yadushu, Mishneh Torah,

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in which Moses, our teacher, explains to the generation

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entering the land most of the commandments of the

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Torah that pertain to Israelites. And he distinguishes that

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from the priests. The priests. Nachmanides, for

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some reason, says, they don’t need that much Chazorah. They got it the first

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time. But the rest of us, Pashut Yisraelim, we

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need to be repeatedly admonished.

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And he uses this word, yahzir otam,

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this word from Chazarah. We have to be reminded.

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Sometimes you have to repeat the things. Multiple warnings,

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so forth and so on. So again, Nachmanides

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recognizes what is going on. And his take is,

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this is like Cliff Notes. Before you go into

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the land, you know your mom told you everything. Then as you’re at the

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door about to go, she gives you the short version. Don’t forget this,

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don’t forget that. Interesting. Well, I

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mean, interesting and logical. I mean, it makes sense that that’s what

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they need. Especially. You see, repetition is important

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because Moshe is going to die. He’s not going to

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be there. And they’re on the banks of Moab, and they’re moving.

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It’s part of the transmission process. It’s part of creating

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something that lasts beyond you. I love that. So

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we’re going to take one example, but there will be many examples in the

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Book of Devorim where there are variations. So we’re

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going to talk about the seminal moment of sending

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the scouts. In Deuteronomy 1:22, part of our

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parasha, it says, then all of you came to me,

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says Moses, and said, let us send agents

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ahead to reconnoiter the land for us and bring back word.

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In 23, he says, I approved of the plan, and So

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I selected 12 of you, one representative from

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each tribe. So first of all, it just us. Right from the beginning,

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it tells us what we already know, which is the whole Book of Devorim is

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written in the first person. It’s Moses speaking. This is novel. This is

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not something that we’ve had. But more to that, you could say

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that Moses is looking at it from his perspective, right? Means he changes

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the story and gives it from the way he remembers it,

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or this is the way it was. And the other version is a different

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variation. That’s correct. It’s not. In numbers 13,

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this is the. The fourth book of the Torah, it says, God

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spoke to Moses, saying, sent agents to scout

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the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelite

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people and someone of each tribe. In verse 3.

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So Moses, by God’s command sent them out from

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the wilderness of Paran. Rabbi, this is not a

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slight of hand. It’s clear in the Devorim text.

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It’s I, I, I. Moses is the one who’s taking

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responsibility, authority approach

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Moses. And in Numbers, God

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is the one who commands Moses to send the spies. The

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whole story is different. So just to give you an example

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of how these variations stimulate thought, I’m

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going to quote Rashi, not because I think he’s convincing, but because

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again, he shows you the type of,

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I think, gymnastics that have to be done if

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you want to reconcile the two texts.

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So Rashi in numbers says, according to your

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own judgment, I do not command

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you, but if you wish to do so, send them. So

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he’s caging here. He’s saying God didn’t tell Moses to do

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it. He simply gave Moses permission to do it.

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And that, of course, reconciles it with our verse

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in Deuteronomy. But I would argue

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that in fact, what we are seeing in front of us is two

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variations. And those variations elicit different

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approaches. And maybe you can say elu v’elu, that this

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one and this one, they’re both, both true from a certain perspective.

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Good. Okay. That’s an interesting approach, that they’re

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both true. It just depends how you look at it.

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They, you know, now it’s hard because God commands Moshe to send the

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spies and the people approach Moshe, you need to tell a different

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story. You need to say the people initiated it.

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And then because the people initiated it, God commanded

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Moses to send the spies. That’s a twist. And again,

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I’m sure if this was the subject matter of today’s

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discussion, we would find 5, 10, 15 other

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variations on this which were trying to

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reconcile. And maybe they would say, like me, that they’re different, but

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they’re both true. The point is that reading

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a story, or I would say telling a story at

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least twice, you’re going to get some variation. And

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that, I think, is the point. And that, I

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think, has gotten our attention. And today we’re talking about how

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do you keep attention and how. What is the

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best defense against attention disorder where you

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stop being attentive and you stop growing with the texts.

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So we’re going to go to the Mishnah in Avot, and

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I’ve quoted this before, it says, ben Bog

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Bog said, I’ll get to his name in a second, turn it over

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and turn it over for all is therein, and

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look into it and become gray and old therein and do not

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move away from it, for you have no better portion than

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it. So first of all, I could not but be amazed.

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Rabbi, I think I’m going to quote another Gemara

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from Hagigah in a second. And there we quote a Bar Hei.

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Hei. It is kind of funny that the two

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scholars who are talking about repetition, they’re not

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funny name not only funny, but the name repeats

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itself, right? It’s fascinating. But in any case,

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what does he say? He says a few things. He says hafachbo v’

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hofachbo, which really means to go in it over and over, turn

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it over, look at it anew each time. And then he

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talks about this being a life endeavor, grow gray and

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old with it. And then something that I had tried to ignore last

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time I mentioned this Mishnah, he says, don’t go to other sources,

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stay with this source and keep at it.

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Keep constantly going back to it. And I think again,

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this is part of the Mishneh Torah tradition

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that we are exploring today. But it’s a

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wonderful seminal expression, is it not? Yeah,

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well, and don’t move away from it, tell, you know, because that’s,

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that’s people’s, that’s what generally you do after

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you go through something and once or a few times you tend

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to move on to the next thing. And what they say is when it comes

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to Torah, don’t move on to the next thing, but continue to

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focus on this. Absolutely, absolutely. And

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I think that we are going to see and it is going to blow us

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away. I hope that Seneca, the Roman

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philosopher, said something very similar. And I’m curious

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to know whether anyone listening or you, Rabbi, think that there might

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have been some influence. But let’s continue. In Hagiga, the

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Gmorra records another discussion between Bar Hei Hei

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and Hillel. Bar Hei Hei said to Hillel, what is the

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meaning of that which is written? Then you shall again discern between

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the righteous and the wicked, between he who serves God and he who does

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not serve him. This is a verse in Malachi. There are

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two redundancies, the righteous who serves and the wicked.

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So what does he answer? He says one who

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reviews his studies 100 times is

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not comparable to one who reviews his studies

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101 times. And then I love the

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fact that they use the modern day equivalent

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of an Uber driver, the donkey

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drivers, as proof. And what they say is if

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you buy a pack of tickets from the donkey

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driver for 10 and you need to get an 11th

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ride, you’ve got to buy 20. So what they’re trying to say is

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it’s not incrementally. One more now you’re

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going into the next hundred of studying.

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But I think what they’re also saying, and I might be going out on a

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ledge here, is that this is practical. You can learn it

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from real life. You can learn it from donkey drivers.

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This need to repeat stuff is

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powerful tool for pedagogy and for learning.

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The idea is, of course, if you buy the extra, if you

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need the extra ride, you have to buy the extra. Tag is that you should

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always be looking forward, you know, always study more. You may not

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know yet that you need to study more, but always be looking

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forward to studying more. It’s a great image, right? It’s the Uber driver

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image. It’s a good image, though. We don’t buy Uber tickets. We don’t buy

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Uber tickets by the 10. No, not that. If they listen to

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the podcast, they might come out with that idea. It’ll be a new subscription

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model. But, you know, I didn’t put it in the show notes, but I think

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Malcolm Gladwell once talked about the difference

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between good to great is practice, practice. And he actually kind

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of documented how many times the Beatles practiced, how many times

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musicians and actors practice. There is no question

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that repetition is something that

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is coming across loud and clear in our

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tradition. And it’s worth stopping and focusing on, I

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believe so. In the Talmud, In Avodah Zarah 19A,

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it says the Gemara cites other statements relating

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to Torah study. Rava said that Rav Sephora said that

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Rav Huna says, what is the meaning of that which is written?

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Wealth gotten through vanity,

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Mehevl shall be diminished, but he who gathers little

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by little shall increase. It’s a verse

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in Proverbs. It says, what is the meaning if a

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person turns his Torah into many bundles,

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they take the word hevel and they change it into

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chavilot, which is in modern day Hebrew, when you come back from the

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grocery store with a bunch of packages, you’re carrying

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chavilot. By studying large amount in short

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period of time without reviewing his Torah will

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diminish. But if he gathers his knowledge little by

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little, by studying slowly and reviewing his

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knowledge, that shall increase. So here

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again, what they’re looking at in, in the yeshiva, we

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would call bekiyus and b’iyun

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a normal nomenclature we would call

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encyclopedic study and a study in

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depth. And that’s a good translation

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of terms that you really never ever translate.

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And now a word from our Sponsor.

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Thanks. And now back to our podcast.

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So it really is, I must say I tried to do Daf

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Yomi for about a year and a half. That’s all I lasted. You didn’t enjoy

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it because you couldn’t really understand it, right? I love to dive

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deep. I love to dive deep and not so wide. Me too. And

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that’s, and that’s what we do on Madlik week in and week

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out. But I love the fact that the rabbis are

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talking about pedagogy and they’re talking about

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it in a very profound way and

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they’re saying that you have to, you have

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to take your study in little bite

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sized pieces and then savor them and go over them and

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review them. And that is in fact

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the biggest, I think, way to ensure

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that they affect you and they change the way your life

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is. And you know, I have a friend who’s a,

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a defense lawyer for criminals and

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when it comes to the police and lawyers, they have

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techniques about making the

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potential criminal repeat the story over and over again.

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We all know they divide the people if there were two culprits

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to get variations of the story.

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But just having the same person repeat the story

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over again is to look for consistency

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they have getting new details. Asking an

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individual to walk through an event again often

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leads to reminiscence, remembering minor details that didn’t

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seem important in the first telling. I love this

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increasing cognitive load. So

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by by asking someone to recount the subject and

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write it over again, maybe outside of

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chronological order, increases the mental

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effort required, which makes people say things that they might not

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thought of before or make them slip. I think that it’s

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a fascinating mirror to look at how

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lawyers and police use

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repetition to try to get to

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the truth. And clearly there’s always going to be cross

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examination. But you have all of this in the way

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that our texts are studied. And I think what comes clear from this,

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I’d love to know your take is that we have nothing to hide. In other

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words, we are willing to

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project and to enable our texts to be

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looked at in multiple ways. We are not afraid of

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the variant readings. If you go back to that concept

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of different texts make it into the canon,

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I just think it’s a wonderful lens to look at this through

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in terms of the techniques we use.

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Torah is a. Is an old famous idea, right? There are 70

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faces to the Torah. So that’s interesting. Rabbi Lamb, who was the president

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of Yeshiva University, his book is called 70 Faces of

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the Torah, his collection of his sermons, because there are so many different

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ways to look at it. And that’s what’s so great. You know, Madlik is like

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the rabbi sermon. He gives a sermon on the same portion every

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single year. And the good rabbi knows how to turn it over and

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over 70 different, different ways. But again,

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I think the shivim panim l’Torah, that there were 70

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faces to the Torah. And the other phrase that I used

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that this and this. And what of course you’re referring to is,

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you know, the joke about the rabbi who talks to a husband and wife or

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having an argument, and he comes out and he goes, well, the wife is

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right. And then he listens to the husband and he goes, the husband is right.

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So his rebbitzin asks him, how can they both be right? And he goes, you’re

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right. Also, you’re. The point is that

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by saying shivim panimla Torah, especially

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when it comes to a sacred text, I think is

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radical because what we’re saying is that there,

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at least from our perspective, there is

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no ultimate truth. There are different faces,

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different lenses that we can look at and different

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reflections that. That reflect maybe the same kernel.

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But clearly, we submit is

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the word I was looking for. We submit our texts

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to the same type of critical review that I think

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is in a court of law, even if that’s capital punishment and

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criminal law. Fantastic. So

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what I discovered, and I discovered it from a

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amazing article. It was an op ed in

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the New York Times this past week. And

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what the Op ed was called is There’s an ancient

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solution to our modern crisis of attention.

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It was written BY A professor, S.J. Murray, who is a

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professor of great texts and creative writing at

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Baylor University. And he quotes

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Seneca. I had Never realized that Lucius

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Aeneas Seneca was. He lived in. He

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was born in Cordova, Spain in 4 B.C. i

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mean, Cordova is. You didn’t know that anybody was in Cordova Spain

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in 4 BC he wasn’t. And maybe what. He left

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a few things in the water because Cordova, what is.

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Is. Is a key city.

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Many great scholars passed through many. The Rambam was

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there from southern Spain. That’s where the Rambam was born. Yeah, it’s very

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important there. Okay, so there was something in the water.

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But again, putting it into context, this is before

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the rabbis of the Talmud. And I would say

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that Seneca could have been fairly widely read. Listen to what

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he says. And now I’m quoting from

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letters from a Stoic. Letter number two.

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Judging from what you tell me and from what I hear, I feel that you

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show great promise. I think he’s writing to a student.

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You do not tear from place to place and unsettle yourself with

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one move after another another restlessness of that sort

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is symptomatic of a sick mind. Nothing

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to my way of thinking is a better proof of a well

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ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop

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just where he is and pass some time in his own

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company. Be careful, however, that there is no element

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of discursiveness and desulteriness about his. This reading

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you refer to this reading of many different authors

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and books of every every description.

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You should be extending your stay among writers whose

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genius is unquestionable, deriving constant nourishment

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from them. If you wish to gain anything from your reading that will

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find a lasting place in your mind. To be everywhere

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00:25:43.650 –> 00:25:46.050
is to be nowhere. It’s a great phrase.

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People. He could have been an

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existentialist. People who spend their whole life traveling

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abroad end up having plenty of places where they can find

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hospitality, but no real friendships. The

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same must needs be the case with people who never set about

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acquiring an intimate acquaintanceship with any one

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great writer, but skip from one to another,

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paying flying visits to all of them. I mean, this

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is the second part of Hofach bo or Hofach bo

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that he says you’ve got even until your old age.

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These are your friends and you’ve got to come back to them

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over and over again. And then he says something

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that this op ed picks up on. And actually the

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professor says he literally uses it. And Rabbi, I

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have to say, because I prepare for Madlik every

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week, I end up doing this organically.

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He says each day to acquire

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something which will help you to face poverty or death

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and other ills as well. After running over a lot of different

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thoughts, pick out one. One to be digested

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throughout that day. This is what I do myself, he

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says. Out of the many bits I have been reading,

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I lay hold of one. So fantastic.

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So it’s like every week I tried to pick a nugget and

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I’ve got to say, you’re thinking about it. You have to do that.

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Because to be everywhere is to be nowhere. So if you

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just say I want to study the Entire Parsha, you won’t be anywhere.

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You have to pick out one thing.

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It’s truly amazing. So this is what this

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professor writes in the New York Times. He says

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Seneca’s concept corresponds to what psychologists call

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deep processing. By returning to the same idea

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repeatedly, we signal to our brain that the idea is

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worth moving into the architecture of long term

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memory. Each time we retrieve an idea from memory,

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we also wrap wrap it in new associations, a process

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known as reconsolidation, which ensures that

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those ideas remain relevant to our life as time

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00:28:06.070 –> 00:28:09.750
goes on. About 2,000 years ago, the

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Roman philosopher Seneca warned of a crisis of attention.

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The problem wasn’t caused by smartphones or TikTok, writes

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this professor. It was because papyrus had become more

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widely available. As a result, scrolls became

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plentiful and wealthy leaders had access more

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texts than ever before. Seneca

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observed that the minds of those who read too many

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scrolls too quickly became restless and

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unsteady. This kind of mind was less able, he

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00:28:41.170 –> 00:28:44.610
noted, to stay in one place and spend time with

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itself. Seneca did not have access to modern

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scientific studies or survey data. But he would

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not have been surprised by our plight. Professors

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00:28:55.290 –> 00:28:58.970
report that students now have difficulty watching feature length

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films, let alone finishing books.

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Fantastic. And it’s right of course. So

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I just feel there were parts of the Talmud that

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00:29:10.630 –> 00:29:14.110
I didn’t even reference. I think it was in Avodah

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00:29:14.110 –> 00:29:17.670
Zora where they had different of the rabbis saying they

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00:29:17.670 –> 00:29:21.510
finished reading the Parasha and one of them wanted to read Tehillim and

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00:29:21.510 –> 00:29:24.990
another one wanted to read Mishle. And they were really

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00:29:24.990 –> 00:29:27.870
talking. And I think the overwhelming

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00:29:28.670 –> 00:29:32.170
approach was stick that you really

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00:29:32.250 –> 00:29:35.850
believe in. Don’t go from book to book. But the

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00:29:35.850 –> 00:29:39.010
parallelism of these two of

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00:29:39.010 –> 00:29:42.730
Seneca and the Talmudic

477
00:29:42.730 –> 00:29:46.490
rabbis is amazing. One thing I will say for

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00:29:46.490 –> 00:29:49.930
the rabbis that as much or as little

479
00:29:50.090 –> 00:29:53.450
as they reflected what they read in Seneca,

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00:29:53.690 –> 00:29:57.090
their traditions have stayed the test of time. Whereas

481
00:29:57.090 –> 00:30:00.930
Seneca needs a New York op ed to

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00:30:00.930 –> 00:30:04.720
remind him back. Because truly what

483
00:30:04.720 –> 00:30:08.400
we do week in and week out is truly that it’s to

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00:30:08.560 –> 00:30:12.240
review the same material over again, to hold it

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00:30:12.240 –> 00:30:15.840
close to us, to discover who we are, to meet old

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00:30:15.840 –> 00:30:19.640
friends again. And of course that’s what keeps

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00:30:19.640 –> 00:30:23.440
our tradition alive, which is why it’s why it keeps going from

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00:30:23.440 –> 00:30:27.000
generation to generation. Okay, so that’s

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00:30:27.000 –> 00:30:30.330
amazing. This is great. Great. Enjoy Devarim, everybody.

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00:30:30.890 –> 00:30:34.450
Have a meaningful Tisha Bav and we will see you guys all next

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00:30:34.450 –> 00:30:38.210
week. Be well. Enjoy Mishneh Torah. Read it

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00:30:38.210 –> 00:30:41.930
again and read it once more. Shabbat Shalom. We’ll see you

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00:30:41.930 –> 00:30:43.370
all next week.

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00:30:46.090 –> 00:30:49.730
Before you go, I’d love to hear from you. Ben Bag Bag

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00:30:49.730 –> 00:30:53.290
tells us to turn it over. Turn it over. Turn it over.

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00:30:54.020 –> 00:30:57.660
What’s one book, one Torah passage, one prayer or even

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00:30:57.660 –> 00:31:00.820
one song that you’ve returned to again and again?

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00:31:01.380 –> 00:31:05.140
What did you discover the 10th time that you completely missed the first?

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00:31:05.620 –> 00:31:08.900
Share it in the comments. I promise to read every one of them.