Beyond Orthodox Conversion to Judaism

"Shimon his son said, 'All my life I have been brought up among the sages, and I have found nothing better for a person than silence;; study is not the most important thing but practice and whoever talks too much brings about sin"

Rabbenu Yonah tells us that there is no greater character trait than silence. The problem he tells us is that when a person speaks they could help themselves in one way but could damage themselves at the same time by saying something inappropriate. Even if a person speaks about something that they have to like about livelihood  or other things, nonetheless a person should minimize what they speak about.

The reason is that a person even if speaking about things that they have to, one should be careful and not go beyond what they speak about because it could turn out to be something that they would regret. This would go against conventional wisdom because after all, everyone has to talk, otherwise how do you accomplish what you need to do.

The Chofetz Chaim when he wrote his work on Shemiras Halashon (the laws of Loshon Hara) did not tell people they weren't allowed to talk but rather the purpose of his book was to teach people how to talk. Here the Mishna tells us that if you have to speak and get information, the best way is to minimize it in the best way possible.

The next part of the Mishna tells us an important idea in Judaism and that is the idea of action, not just thoughts. We learn here that the purpose of study is to put what one learns into action. There is no better way than to show and display to others good character traits than by the actions of the person himself.

Many people say that as long as they are Jewish in their heart and are good people, then that is enough. Judaism demands much more than that. Learn, continue to learn and put what you learn into action because otherwise it is like mental gymnastics. We are here in this world not to be philosophers but rather as doers who accomplish.

The last part of the Mishna explains that one should not speak too much when it comes to things of halacha. This means that when answering questions in halacha one should be careful and get to the specific idea that needs to be addressed because if there are others miscellaneous things added, it could confuse a person and come up with the wrong answer.

This is where talking too much will bring a person to the wrong conclusion. This doesn't mean that one should not talk things out to make sure that the conclusion is accurate but to ensure that no extraneous ideas come in that would confuse the issue.

We must learn that many times the best thing to do is be quiet, rather than answer and say things that one shouldn't. Not only that, we have to know that we need to do more and act rather than philosophize since we will take our good deeds and actions to the next world to testify for us to our benefit in the next world!