The Devar Torah as a Written Form

Some Reflections on How Divrei Torah Are Written And a Statement of Artistic Purpose

So a while back I read an article about things you shouldn’t do in a devar torah. To my consternation, a lot of the things listed in the article were things I had done, many of them as a matter of habit. Some things I scrapped as a result of that article. Some things I didn’t, and continue doing out of defiance. Like starting a devar torah off with the word “so”.¹

But I have always been a nerd (for lack of a better term) about devar torah construction. I’ve been writing and giving divrei torah since I was 11. I wrote my own bar mitzvah speeches. I have always found the art of it fascinating, how to introduce your question, give your answer, and explain its relevance. In semikha public speaking classes, after each person spoke they would go around the room for comments. I became known for my detailed and specific critiques, kind of against my will; I didn’t want to be a jerk, I just thought everyone thought about these things as much as I did. It got to the point that I skipped class when it was my turn because I worried that my own speech would not be good enough to justify my supposed expertise, and that everyone would just see me as a fraud and feel resentment for how I can critique but not do it myself. But I never meant any harm, I’m just a nerd about this.

Still, some aspects of public speaking and homiletics classes bugged me, and it wasn’t until I voiced some frustrations in earshot of my sister-in-law; that they said I made too little eye contact², that I wasn’t polished, that my presentation was more like a college professor than a rabbi. She said “Seriously, you’re fine. They’re just trying to make you sound and act like everyone else. But they all sound the same, and it gets boring. You have a different style. That’s fine.”

And, regardless of its relevance to myself and the value judgement in the word “boring”, I think she has a really good point, that Modern Orthodox institutions put out public speakers that are a very specific product with very little variation in style. Loud confident, voice, use hands for emphasis, start with an anecdote or joke, raise a question on the Parsha, answer it, make it relevant by talking about a communal issue in a way that doesn’t piss off any donors. The content may differ but in Modern Orthodox shuls the style is remarkably consistent, especially among younger rabbis who have gone through the system at its most formalized.

I think part of why this is the case is that the devar torah is seen as a rhetorical art, not a written art. In other words, it is not meant to be read, it is meant to be heard.³ So the focus gets put on the safe choices for what works in that setting. Get them comfortable with a joke or anecdote. Raise one question for them to focus on. Give an answer that answers that question. Easy to structure, easy to listen to, easy to digest. Those are good guidelines for an effective public speech, especially for those starting out.

But I am not a pulpit rabbi. This newsletter is my pulpit, and my divrei torah must survive not on personal charisma and polish, but on whether I can keep people reading it. And once you free yourself from seeing divrei torah as written down versions of speeches, that frees you up to be creative in ways that speeches can’t. I’ve recently gotten into Jorge Luis Borges, and one of the things I love about him is that he genuinely does not care about fitting into genres or conventions, not in a look at me sort of way, but in a way of “I’m going to write this thing the way I want to write it even if it nobody’s sure what I’m doing”. He writes book reviews of imaginary books, short stories that sound more like encyclopedia entries, stories that can’t seem to make up their mind whether they’re fiction or not. That’s all possible in a written form in a way that’s not possible in a rhetorical form.