Talk Can Be Toxic

"You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him."

"Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip."

Erma Bombeck


I love being Jewish!

I love Jews!

But I have a problem. Let me share it with you:

It is universally recognized that gossip is NEGATIVE. BAD. HARMFUL. So why on earth do so many people gossip?! We Jews brought to the world the notion of the centrality of positive speech yet we are so busy talking about others that we forget.

A couple gets divorced chas vishalom. People HAVE to know - "What happened?" I ask "WHAT IS IT ANYBODY'S BUSINESS WHAT HAPPENED!!"

A man in the community goes to jail. EVERYBODY knows what he did. How do they know? Because people talk!

My wife and I have a rule at home. We don't talk about other peoples business, even if it is not, strictly speaking, lashon hara. [Full disclosure - I don't always keep the rule, but I am working on it.] If we have nothing to talk about [it hasn't happened yet], I can always tell her a Torah. Or, we can sit in silence. Silence is a prized Jewish value.

If you want to work on this - read on. You don't - stop here.

1] Stop reading newspapers, they are FILLED with lashon hara.

2] Stop reading blogs unless you are certain that the writer is KNOWLEDGABLE and CAREFUL about hilchos lashon hara [a RARE combination]. Many blogs whose author presents himself/herself as religious have lashon hara [and heresy and vulgarity and ...], so be careful.

3] Have friends who don't talk about others.

4] Have a daily seder in hilchos lashon hara. This is more important than [almost?] anything you do.

5] Accustom yourself to saying COMPLIMENTARY things.

6] Fill your heart with love for others. The root of lashon hara is hatred for others.

7] Keep busy. Busy people have no time for gossip.

8] Stop reading newspapers. I am not suffering from short term memory loss. I repeat myself for emphasis. I haven't yet read a newspaper free of lashon hara. Maybe it exists. But still, a gemara is better to read in any event.

9] Daven to Hashem to help you overcome this bad habit.

There is something that happened that prompted this post but I can't tell you as that will spawn more gossip.

SWEETEST FRIENDS - LET US LEAVE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE THAN IT WAS WHEN WE ENTERED IT!!:)