Of Words and Worlds

By Orli Katz

 

Words hurt. Words heal. Words move worlds, but until recently that impact was not quantifiable in scientific terms. My spouse once told me that I was precious. No one had ever said those particular words to me before. To my dying day I will never forget how his gentle voice sounded at that moment, how it impacted my heart with an audible thud, wove its way through my soul and settled in the pit of my belly, curling itself up like a contented cat before a fire, whispering softly ‘I have worth’. Like a flawless star sapphire or a fiery opal, I had value to another human being. Now, whenever self recrimination rears its ugly head, I simply pull out his words, spoken with soft conviction, and I am whole again.

I have read with great interest recently about a man conducting experiments with water. His name is Masaru Emoto and he has written a book entitled; The Message from Water. This book chronicles his journey to discover the latent power hidden within speech.

As a writer, I can well appreciate the power of words. With the astonishing results of Mr. Emoto’s experiments, however, even a layman can see how truly impactful each and every word is.

Essentially, his experiments went like this; Mr. Emoto took a glass of ordinary tap water and affixed a word to it. The word was “Love”. Then he took another glass of water and taped a different word to it. This word was “Hate”. He left the glasses in this state for a period of time and then froze them. After that he studied the patterns that the water crystals had formed under a microscope. Although both samples had been taken from the exact same source, the differences in their results were absolutely astonishing. The first sample, “Love”, had produced a magnificent crystal pattern, beautiful to look upon and lovely to behold. Like a perfect snowflake, its icy arms radiated outward harmoniously from a central axis. The second crystal sample, however, did not even resemble a snowflake at all. Misshapen and oddly formed, it was chaos, personified.

Mr. Emoto* went on to continue his experimentations with water patterns and he found that, without exception, positive words produced beautiful crystal patterns , whereas negative words produced ugly, disharmonious blips on his slides. It did not matter which languages the words were written in. All that mattered was the intent behind the meaning of the words. Words, it seems, do, indeed, have measurable weight and power, even in the physical realm.

In an effort to teach my child the koach of making brachos with kavanah, I went online with her and showed her the results of Mr.Emoto’s experiments. We saw, first hand, the heart- wrenchingly beautiful crystal formed by the word “Give” and also the frightening, ugly blotch that accompanied the word “Hitler.”  We both watched in rapt fascination as water crystals were subjected to different types of music as well. The Star-Spangled Banner produced a strong, bold patterned piece of art that literally grew before our eyes in tempo to the beat of the song. What an incredibly potent way to demonstrate the power of our words!

 

“Davar” in Hebrew is a thing and “Daber” is to speak. God spoke, and the world came into being. We too are miniature creators, every day reconstructing our realities and impacting the lives of those around us with our words. Every day, in infinite ways, we must choose to either build or, chalilah, destroy this beautiful world that God has given to us. If simple English words can alter the physical reality of tap water, imagine the latent power in uttering a tefillah, established by the Anshe Knesses Hagedolah-some of the greatest men who ever lived- in the very language of Creation? The results must be earth-shattering! Perhaps our brachos are even making the water we drink potable, removing bacteria from it and rendering it fit for consumption for our lofty neshamos?

Mr. Emoto ended his discourse by urging his listeners to try their own experiments at home. Fancy microscopes or laboratories are not necessary. All one has to do is take three containers filled with rice and water, place them at a distance of approximately 1 foot from each other and tape words onto them. The first container should have a positive word affixed to it such as “Peace” or “Harmony”. The second container, the control group, should have nothing written on it. And the third container should have a negative word placed on it such as “Cruelty” or “Fear”. Each day for one month, the person conducting the experiment should make a point of approaching the containers and saying out loud the words written on each one. Thus one would say “Peace” to the first container, nothing at all to the second container, and “Fear” to the third container.

After a month, the results are intriguing. I tracked the homemade experiments and watched in mute awe as, one by one, people from all walks of life proudly showed the results of their tests. The first container,which had been subjected to a positive word, invariably showed the rice much as it had been at the beginning of the experiment, white and mostly unchanged. The second container, the control group, showed rice that had begun to exhibit slight signs of decomposition. The third container, the one that had had negative words thrown at it, was the most remarkable of all. It showed black, yellow or completely moldy rice that was unrecognizable from its original state!

 

‘This is only rice’ I thought to myself, soberly. ‘And see how terribly it suffers from the effects of one negative word each day. Our children, who are the most precious things in this entire world, often hear much more than one negative word a day- yet how do we hope that they will turn out?’…

 

How wonderful it would be to approach our lives with this newfound appreciation for the true power of words. To decide, once and for all to create only positive energy through our speech.  And with this harnessed energy to finally pull down into the physical realm that which dwells only in Shamayim, the culmination of all our collective dreams, Hashem’s permanent abode, here on earth, for all eternity…

 

Thank you Hashem, for helping me learn this lesson of love,

May You enable its message to be spread both here and above….

 

*It should be noted that Mr. Emoto’s experiments, while compelling, have not been entirely accepted by the scientific world because they lack the rigid criteria by which Modern Science judges all new discoveries.