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.
