August 24, 2024
Author(s): Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger,
Parashat Eikev
You Had Me At Hello
August 24, 2024 — 20 Av 5784
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
Our ice maker in our fridge broke again. I called the service line. You know the drill: obnoxious faux classical music, repeated robotic recordings, “we care about your business and will answer your call as soon as possible. Please stay on the line.” Finally my call was answered by a woman who said her name was Jennifer and sounded like she was answering from South Asia. I told her our ice maker saga and once she had gotten all the information, she sai,d “thank you ma’am, I just submitted this request and am waiting for a response from my manager.”
“Ok, thanks,” I said. There was silence. Then, since we were waiting on the phone together, I asked, “how’s your day going?”
There was no response.
“Are you there?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m here ma’am.”
“Oh good,” I said, “How’s your day going?”
“Ma’am, are you talking to me?”
“Yes, of course, who else would I be talking to? I figured as long as we were waiting, we could chat.”
“Oh, ma’am, I am so sorry. No one ever talks to me, I just thought that you were talking to someone else. My day is going alright. How is yours?”
I was caught off-guard. “Wait, is that true? No one ever asks you about your day? Ever?”
“No ma’am. People just call to talk about their refrigerator and most of the time they are very upset.”
After the call, and after Jennifer had helpfully sorted my broken ice maker, I couldn’t stop thinking about our conversation. What would it be like to be Jennifer? What would it be like to sit in a call center for 12 hours straight, answering calls from angry people who are uniformly short-tempered in a language that is not your own? What would it be like to be called a different name—something that’s easier for Americans to pronounce—and to exist unseen—where you literally can only respond with the scripted responses that the company has green-lighted? What would it be like to work in an environment where you never get to share your passions, your interests, or your dreams? Where you are so divorced from amiable human connection that when you hear, “how’s your day,” you don’t even consider the possibility that someone might be speaking to you?
After I got off the phone, I ended up listening to a fascinating podcast on Hidden Brain where Shankar Vidantam was interviewing a social scientist, Nick Epley, about the challenge of undersociality—whereby humans undervalue the potential gain of social interaction and close themselves off from the possibility of connection.
In the podcast, Shankar invites Epley to share about his research and it’s fascinating. Epley did several studies. In one study, he asked people riding public transportation to do one of three things—they were either in the solitude context where their task was to avoid interacting with anyone around them, the control context where they did whatever they normally would do on the train, or the connection context where they were invited to have a meaningful conversation with a stranger. After riding the train, they had to send in a survey about how they felt and how the experience impacted their mood and their day. Across the board, people who were forced to have conversations and interactions with others on the train felt happier and had a better experience than those who simply read on their phones or listened to music.
Epley did another study where he asked people to think about how they would feel if they interacted with others randomly on the train, and then to report back. Interestingly, in these experiments, people worried about whether others would want to talk to them, they consistently undervalued the experience and thought that talking to strangers would not make them any happier or contribute any significant meaning to their lives, and they were consistently surprised by how much they learned and by how much their mood was improved simply by talking to a stranger. Over and over again, his research has shown that humans are, by nature, social animals. Whether we are introverted or extroverted, most humans feel better about themselves and the world when we connect with others.
This is something that I have experienced personally. Being the parent of a toddler means that I am constantly interacting with people in a way I never have before. Eder doesn’t understand the concept of strangers or personal space. In his eyes, every human he comes across is a friend and someone who will smile at him and play with him. That means that when we go outside, he waves at every person he meets. At the grocery store, he tries to take food out of people’s carts and wants to redecorate all of the displays. Because of him, I end up talking with people everywhere. We talk with construction workers and mail carriers; we talk to grocery checkers and florists, we talk with people in every aisle of every store and often talk beyond the typical “how are you.” Because of him, I stop and look at pictures of strangers’ grandkids and learn about people I might have overlooked previously.
And, like the subjects in Epley’s research, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how this practice of greeting and chatting with every person I come across has impacted my mood. When I call medical insurance or to fix an appliance, it makes the call so much more pleasant. A trip to the store is so much more than the groceries I buy. These random conversations make me feel connected much more than I ever did before.
Our rabbis understood the magic of connection. In the Talmud (Brachot 6b), we are taught again and again the importance of greeting every person we come across. Rabbi Shimon ben Azzai, and some say Rabbi Shimon ben Zoma, teach that the whole world is created specifically to enable us to connect with others. That’s why Rabbi Helbo teaches in the name of Rav Huna that when we know someone is accustomed to greet us, we must pre-empt them and greet them first in the name of peace. If we don’t greet them first, or worse, if we ignore their greeting, we have stolen from them. We have stolen their dignity and we have stolen the opportunity for connection. And, we have taken away from the world’s purpose.
On the other hand, when you move through the world through the lens of Rabbi Shimon ben Azzai and Rabbi Helbo, it radically changes your experience. Every person you come across is a blessing. Wow, you think, I wonder why the universe conspired to put this person in my path? What is it that I will get to learn? A line at UPS is not the same obstacle, instead it’s an invitation to meet someone new. A person walking down the sidewalk across the way isn’t just a coincidence, they are a gift just for you. This outlook doesn’t just make other people happier, either. The more we work to see other people, the more we feel seen, and the happier we become.
How do we change the world? One smile, one hello, one decent conversation at a time. Each of us has the power to say hello. Each of us has the power to make someone else’s day. And if it doesn’t change the world, at least it would change our world. That’s at least a good place to start.