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The brief break in the action has also been a time for new resolutions.
(I enjoy making resolutions on the civil New Year as well as on
the High Holidays.) One of my own resolutions this year has to do
with l’shon hora, (literally “the evil tongue), our
commandment relating to speaking evil of others.
During last year’s B’nai Mitzvah class, we challenged
students to perform an array of mitzot, to experience them fully,
and to share reactions. By consensus, the most difficult of these
mitzvot was the avoidance of l’shon hora. The students, concerned
as we all are with social acceptance, with “belonging,”
and anxious not to appear stodgy and dull, found it terribly difficult
to avoid gossip, to keep from telling jokes at the expense of others
(“ever hear the joke about three Poles trying to change a
light bulb?”), to refrain from relating incidents making others
appear foolish.
Ultimately, of course, we all pay some price for slander, innuendo
and deception. We lose something of our ability to trust, we look
at others with increased skepticism, we tend to interpret actions
in less than a positive light. My “mantra” in this resolution
comes from our Book of Proverbs: Death and life are in the power
of the tongue. The sage who composed that line surely understood
a fundamental truth. It always comes as a terrible shock when I
learn, sometimes years later, that my own words, often spoken carelessly,
were the source of enduring pain to others.
As with many of the mitzvot, the observance of those relating to
l’shon hora are not matters of “all or nothing.”
Observance can be incremental, step by step, until it begins to
feel more natural. We can, for example, make it a practice to omit
the names of individuals when we tell stories that may reflect negatively
on them; we can cultivate a sense of healthy skepticism when hearing
negative reports of others, we can cut back on ethnic jokes, we
can vent our anger on “safe” individuals, e.g. a spouse
or significant other, rather than venting more publicly; we can
remain silent when confronted with l’shon hora.
Here’s one more element of my resolution: pressing “delete”
more frequently and “forward” less frequently when receiving
e-mails containing l’shon hora about individuals or groups.
We’ve all been receiving some awful ones, some of them humorous,
others clearly defamatory. I admit this will not be easy for me
to do, especially during an election year in which I make no secret
of my strong feeling, but I’m going to try. Protesting hurtful
policies is the essence of social justice, but ridiculing the responsible
individuals is not. Keeping this resolution seems well worth the
try.
B’Shalom,
Jim
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