Edwin Friedman is a well respected Jewish Rabbi. He has written several leadership books. I started reading “Friedman’s Fables,” which is a series of short stories that share a great deal of insight into the complexity of relationships & communication. The fables are separated into four parts & Dr. Friedman desires to reveal these four wrong ideas:

That communication is a cerebral phenomenon rather than an emotional process.
That insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change.
That resistance to your message can be overcome by trying harder.
That seriousness is deeper than playfulness.

Here is the intro to the first set of fables. I thought it was pretty cool!

“Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, & they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech. “