If You Wouldn’t Say it….

Rabbi Yossi is quoted as effectively saying that he wouldn’t say anything about someone that he wouldn’t say directly to that person himself.

The fact is that he never actually said it this way.  What he actually said, as quoted in the Gemara, was that Never once in my life did I have to retract anything that I said to anyone, but nevertheless, by wrenching his words totally out of their context a popular misconception has arisen that assumes that it’s permissible to speak loshon hora if one is speaking directly to the victim of said loshon hora.

In the commentary of the Be’er Mayim Chaim to the first Halacha in Klal Gimmel, the Chofetz Chaim devotes close to a dozen pages to vaporize this misconception.

For those lacking the staying power to attend to the Chofetz Chaim’s detailed and cogent analysis, the dozen pages of the Be’er Mayim Chayim can be summed up in one word:

Fuggedaboutit!

Like most things in life, there’s also a flip side to Rabbi Yossi’s words, be they actually said, be they supposedly said or otherwise, that the Chofetz Chaim didn’t deal with, and if made into a rule of thumb it would spike the vast majority of one’s loshon hora from the get go.

Success in holding the line on loshon hora is a matter of attitude and focus, and if the attitude is that the laws of loshon hora are an obstacle to one’s desired discourse then the focus will be on trying to dance around them. Those who cite, or rather miss cite, Rabbi Yossi do so because they are seeking wiggle room to say what needn’t be said and more often than not shouldn’t be said altogether.  Those, however, who hearken to the converse of what Rabbi Yossi was purported to have said focus on Hashem’s desires, as opposed to their own, so as to not say anything other than what should be said.

So how can we slice and dice Rabbi Yossi’s words so as to morph them into verbal body armor?

It’s a simple fact of life that most of the baali loshon hora amongst us are not so brazen as to exercise their tongues in the presence of those who they are attempting to run down with their speech, and all the more so for the casual speakers of loshon hora.  If one thinks his next door neighbor is a jerk it’s not likely that he will so express himself when the neighbor is in hearing range.  It’s basic human nature.

Therefore, if you wouldn’t say it in front of yenem don’t say it behind his back.  

And if you would?

For everyone but the fewest of the arrogant few, who in any case are reading neither this, nor Sefer Chofetz Chaim, there is no such thing as and if you would because you wouldn’t.

The difference between this statement and that of Rabbi Yossi is small and somewhat subtle, but bottom line it’s all the difference in the world.

If one internalizes these fifteen words, then ninety per cent of the loshon hora scenarios that one would normally encounter in his war with the Yetzer Hora will be removed from the battlefield.

It’s simplicity itself.

There are no conditions and rules to remember and no inferences to be drawn.  At the end of the day there’s nothing but these fifteen words standing between you and ninety percent of all of the loshon hora that you would otherwise speak over the course of the rest of your life.

It’s as simple and as difficult as that.

You Can’t Believe a Word of it

Shemiras HaLoshon is in today.

The words, Shemiras HaLoshon, that is.  What those words are meant to represent can be quite another story.

Did you ever notice that there are several halachas listed in Sefer Chofetz Chaim that tend to be generally ignored, as if by prior agreement, with the majority of Klal Yisroel in on the conspiracy?

Who has not witnessed, at least once in his life, not to mention the more likely scenario of dozens of times, if not more, the trashing of a people of impeccable character, including great rabbis who were universally considered to be great tzaddikim with usually only the speaker’s camp, group, sect, or whatever, opting out of the adulation?

And speaker wise, (re: the baali loshon hora), we’re not talking pygmies here.  Many of them are great men in their own right, and the information that they are giving over they in turn heard from the lips of other great men.

So what gives here anyway?

Most, if not all of it that’s not actually out right slander (motzi shem ra) is spoken under the rubric of toellis (speech that is necessary for a specific purpose).  One avails himself of this heter, as per the guidelines laid out in Sefer Chofetz Chaim, so as to make known something that would be important for the listener to hear, such as negative information concerning a shidduch or perhaps a potential business partnership.

The truth is that one man’s tzaddik can be another’s apikoris, so given the elasticity of the heter of toellis where the line between objective and subjective necessity of one’s words tends to get subconsciously blurred, it would be more productive to shift our focus elsewhere.

We said above that many of them are great men in their own right, and the information that they are giving over they in turn heard from the lips of other great men.  While everyone and his uncle who has a negative comment to make about someone will do their best to morph their words into pristine examples of speech bursting forth with positive purpose, if what they are saying they in turn heard from the lips of others then they have a serious problem.

Where exactly is the heter that would permit one to believe this stuff?

It may be all fine and dandy to either actually sanitize one’s negative comments under the ultra-violet exception of toellis or to fool oneself into thinking that he did, but neither scenario is going to fly in the realm of being mekabel (accepting) someone else’s words because what most of us forgot, or maybe never knew, or better yet don’t want to know, is that there is no mention anyplace in Sefer Chofetz Chaim of any kind of heter to be mekabel loshon hora l’toellis.

What this means in English is that you can’t believe anything you are told about anyone for any reason whatsoever, and if doesn’t concern you in some way you can’t even listen to it. 

Unlike the speaking of loshon hora, there’s no wiggle room here on the mekabel end within which to drey.  So how is it that so many of us seem to be running on what amounts to permanent chutzpah cruise control in the realm of believing loshon hora that more often than not we shouldn't even be listening to in the first place ?

When we said that you can’t believe anything you are told about anyone for any reason whatsoever, we omitted to mention that there two exceptions to this no, nada, nicht, never rule of being mekabel loshon hora, which is that if a person is an established apikoris or a rasha then you are allowed to believe what’s said about him.

And these are the only exceptions, so we ask again in reference to those who are mekabel loshon hora about our great rabbis and other upstanding people:

Where’s the heter?

Could it be that the taiva to speak loshon hora is so great that they have to morph tzaddikim, with which they have disagreements that amount to no more than chaluki deos (differences of opinion), into apikorsim just to be able to speak about them?

How can one posit such a possibility?

Great rabbis or just plain fine upstanding Jews are exactly that.  What you see is what you get.  It isn’t likely that one would find any of them doubling as apikorsim or reshoim on their night job.  And it’s just as unlikely that you’ll ever encounter an exception to the rule that forbids you to be mekabel loshon hora from someone. 

What we are looking at here is simply gross ignorance of the Halacha that is unfortunately not limited to the ignorant.

There are a number of exceptions to many of the rules laid down in Sefer Chofetz Chaim, and many of those exceptions have to run a gauntlet of five or sometimes even seven conditions. 

This isn’t one of them.

The Halacha of not believing loshon hora that’s told to you is about as clear as things get vis á vis the laws of loshon hora.

You can’t believe a word of it.

The Clarity of Context

In the wonderful world of average people a.k.a. our world, we the people, the Beinonim who occupy the great center that fills in the divide between the Tzaddikim from the Reshoim all tend to stumble in very similar ways.

Whatever you see your neighbor do you also did once upon a time or may well do tomorrow with but a slight variation on the theme, not enough to take it out of whatever aveira was the touchstone between your two neshamos at different points in time.

So why is it that there is a Grand Canyon disconnect between the understanding with which you view your actions and the jaundiced eye that you cast upon the missteps of your friend, sufficient to ignite within you a desire to talk about it?

When assessing the doings of our friend we have nothing in front of us but the bare bones of undefined actions which by themselves are meaningless without the benefit of the what, why and who of the matter.

Where’s that back story that would flesh out the possible motivation for whatever it was that ran afoul your perception of right and wrong? 

Better yet, what happened to the mitzvah aseh of one must love his fellow Jew as he loves himself?

The Chofetz Chaim tells us that someone who speaks loshon hora or gossips about a fellow Jew, or someone who listens to these remarks and accepts them as the truth, even if the remarks are truthful, clearly demonstrates that he has no love at all for his fellow Jew and most certainly not fulfilling his obligation from the Torah “to love your fellow Jew as you love yourself.”

But by us, by our faults, foibles, speed bumps, and sometimes blatant aveiros, it’s a different story because when we shine the light on our less than gallant doings we dust off a different pair of eyes of a somewhat softer variety.

The irony of course is that while we are only privy to a mere smattering of our friend’s left turns, the complete and very detailed accounting of our own rebelliousness against what the Torah demands of us is constantly in our face.  Given the enormity of our debit balance in contradistinction to the little we know of our friend’s red ink, how is it possible for our eye (and then tongue) to be drawn in the direction of our friend’s weaknesses?

The Chofetz Chaim lets us know that even though we are aware of our many sins, far more than have been disclosed about our friend, we push them all aside because we love ourselves.

We are more accepting of ourselves because we possess the clarity that comes from being cognizant of the context from which all of our mistakes flow, which in turn enhances our understanding of all of our shortcomings.

In keeping with the mitzvah of “love your fellow Jew as yourself, the Torah demands that we deal with our fellow Jew in exactly the same manner, to zealously guard and protect his honor and interests to the best of our abilities.

And this can only happen if his comings and goings are assessed within their natural context.  Then and only then can we obtain the clarity necessary to see ourselves in him.

Don’t Even Think About It

You know how it is.

We see someone do or say something that we don’t approve of, and right away he’s guilty of whatever it is we’re charging him with in our minds.  We didn’t (at least this time) make a derogatory comment about it to anyone, nor were we mekabel this negative inference from yenem.

Neither saying nor hearing anything leaves us squeaky clean on our ride

under the radar as far as the laws of loshon hora are concerned.

Our thoughts, however, are a different story because as we explained in EmunahSpeak: Nothing but Thoughts:

You are what you think.  

We were speaking there in relation to character traits and we went on to point out that If his (a person’s) thoughts were saturated with humility it would be physically IMPOSSIBLE for him to conduct himself in an arrogant manner.  And so it is for every other midda, be it positive or negative.

And the same can be said even for certain mitzvos.

In the introduction to Sefer Chofetz Chaim the Chofetz Chaim lists 17 Laveen (negative mitzvos) and 14 Aseen (positive mitzvos) that one might potentially violate by either speaking or believing loshon hora.  While most of these mitzvos are not about loshon hora per se in their essence, the Chofetz Chaim tells us that when ones crosses the line on loshon hora he may also be violating one or more of these Aseen or Laveen.

But most of them are also violated without even uttering a word of loshon hora.

If someone is speaking loshon hora is he not, as was also said there, simply reading his lines; the lines that he has written for himself; the ones etched into his thoughts?  

If you said it, you first thought it.

And if you thought it, then even if you’re a tzaddik who kept his mouth shut in the aftermath of the judge and jury role playing that was outlined above, and you didn’t tell your wife, your co-worker or your best buddy what you saw or heard, you have to know that you’re a tzaddik who might already be in big trouble because you may have trashed the Aseh of judge your fellow Jew charitably. 

And that’s before you even opened your mouth. 

So it all comes down to this:

If you really want to control your tongue you have to first learn to control your mind because if you’re not already thinking about something that shouldn’t be there then it’s impossible that you should be speaking about it.