The Most Important Question Nobody Asks

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By I receive a lot of marriage reference calls and people ask all kinds of questions.
• Is he kind?
• Is she easygoing?
• Is he a serious scholar?
• Is she growth-oriented?
• Is he responsible?
• Does she have good personality traits?

These are all important questions, but there is one question I almost never get asked, even though I believe it is one of the greatest predictors not only of whether someone will have a healthy marriage, but whether they will have a successful life: Can this person be influenced?

Can he hear an opinion different from his own without immediately becoming defensive? Can she receive feedback without experiencing it as an attack? Can he say, “I was wrong”? Can she say, “I never thought of it that way”? Can this person encounter a perspective, an experience, another person, or a piece of Torah and emerge different because of it? We spend a lot of time trying to determine who someone is. Perhaps we should spend more time trying to discover whether they are capable of becoming.

This isn't only a dating question. The quality of our marriages depends on whether our spouse can influence us. Our friendships depend on whether our friends can get through to us. Our effectiveness as parents depends on whether our children can teach us something about what they need. Our success at work depends on whether we can receive feedback. Our spiritual lives depend on whether a religious mentor, an experience, or the quiet voice of our conscience can penetrate our assumptions and move us to change. A person who cannot be influenced cannot grow.

Deuteronomy introduces us to the ben sorer u'moreh, the wayward and rebellious son: “Ki yihyeh l'ish ben sorer u'moreh, einenu shomei'a b'kol aviv u'v'kol imo, If a man has a wayward and rebellious son who does not listen to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother.” The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 71b) teaches that the ben sorer u'moreh is nidon al shem sofo, judged based on his end. He is punished not merely for what he has already done, but because the Torah anticipates where his behavior will lead.

But this seems to contradict a fundamental principle taught elsewhere. When Ishmael was expelled from Abraham's home and was dying of thirst, the Divine saved him. The Torah tells us, “Ki shama Elokim el kol hana'ar ba'asher hu sham,” “The Lord heard the voice of the boy where he was.”

Rashi, the foremost commentator (d. 1105) quotes the Midrash that the angels objected: How could He save Ishmael when his descendants would one day cause terrible suffering to the Jewish people? Hashem responded that at that moment Ishmael was innocent. Ein danin es ha'adam ela l'fi ma'asav shel osah sha'ah, a person is judged according to his present conduct.

So which is it? Do we judge a person ba'asher hu sham, for who he is right now, or al shem sofo , based upon where he is heading? Rav Yisroel Meir Druck, in Eish Tamid, offers an approach that contains an extraordinary lesson for this religious season and for life.

The key to understanding the ben sorer u'moreh is hiding in plain sight. Listen to the Torah's repeated language: einenu shomei'a b'kol aviv u'v'kol imo, he does not listen to his father or mother; v'lo yishma aleihem he will not listen to them; inenu shomei'a b'koleinu, he does not listen to our voice. The Torah doesn't simply describe what he does wrong. It emphasizes who he has become: he doesn't listen. Perhaps that is why his future can seemingly be predicted with certainty.

Rabbeinu Yonah (d. 1263 ) writes in Shaarei Teshuvah (2:10) that a fundamental prerequisite for teshuvah is the willingness to listen. Before we can change, we must remain reachable. We must be capable of hearing something we don't already believe, considering something that makes us uncomfortable, and allowing another person to influence us. A person who makes terrible mistakes can still have an extraordinary future. Someone heading in the wrong direction can turn around. But only if they can hear. If no rebbe, spouse, parent, child, friend, shiur, sefer, experience, failure, or voice of conscience can penetrate our certainty, what mechanism remains through which we can change?

That may explain the difference between Ishmael and the ben sorer u'moreh. Ishmael is judged ba'asher hu sham because his future is still open. The ben sorer u'moreh is judged al shem sofo not simply because he has done something wrong, but because he has rejected the very mechanism through which wrong becomes right. He is hopeless because he cannot listen.

Dr. John Gottman, who has spent decades studying marriage, describes a remarkably similar concept. One of the important indicators of marital health to emerge from his research is the ability to “accept influence” from one's spouse. A healthy marriage doesn't mean agreeing about everything. It means that when your spouse raises a concern or sees something differently, you don't automatically experience that input as a threat. You can say, “You might be right,” “I hadn't considered that,” or “I understand why you experienced it that way.” What Gottman identifies as essential to marriage is really essential to all of life.

It is striking that the Torah concludes the section of the i>ben sorer u'moreh with “V'chol Yisrael yishme'u v'yira'u,” “All of Israel shall hear and fear.” The story of the person who refuses to listen concludes with a charge to everyone else: You listen. Perhaps this is also what we mean when we say each day, “Ashrei ish sheyishma l'mitzvosecha.” Fortunate is the person who listens to Your mitzvos. It isn't enough to fulfill our Judaic duties; we must allow them to speak to us, shape us, and change us.

There is a particular urgency to this message as we enter the season of teshuvah (repentance). Teshuvah doesn't begin with changing, it begins with being changeable. Before asking what resolution we will make this year, we should ask whether anyone can tell us something we don't want to hear. When was the last time somebody changed my mind? When was the last time I received criticism without immediately explaining it away? When was the last time I genuinely allowed a spouse, child, friend, teacher, or sefer to influence me?

Perhaps this is also why we blow the shofar each morning during Elul. Every morning of Elul we begin our day by exercising and conditioning our capacity to hear. Before we speak, before we defend ourselves, before we explain why we are right, we listen.

Before Him asks us to confess on Yom Kippur, we spend a month conditioning ourselves to hear. Each morning the shofar asks: Are you still reachable? Can something penetrate? Can another person get through to you? Can Torah get through to you? Can He get through to you?

Our Sages famously tell us, ben sorer u'moreh lo hayah v'lo asid lihyos, the ben sorer u'morehnever actually existed and never will. Why, then, does the Torah teach it?

Derosh v'kabel sechar, study it and receive reward. The Torah isn't ultimately telling us about a hopeless teenager. It is warning us not to become hopeless adults. Nobody's future is truly sealed. But we move in that direction when we stop listening, and we move in the opposite direction every time we allow ourselves to be influenced.

So perhaps we should ask that question on dating reference calls, but more importantly, we should ask it of ourselves: Am I influenceable? Can my spouse change my mind? Can my children teach me something? Can a friend tell me I am wrong? Can a rebbe challenge me? Can Torah change not only what I know, but who I am?

Being influenced is not weakness. Changing your mind is not surrender. The ben sorer u'moreh is doomed not because he has made mistakes, but because he refuses to hear anything that could help him correct them. As long as we can listen, we can learn. As long as we can learn, we can grow. And as long as we can grow, no matter who we are today, our future remains wide open.

Rabbi Efrem Goldberg is the spiritual leader of the Boca Raton Synagogue.