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Have You Heard the Latest? Gossip Has a Dark Side

In the second half of this week’s double Torah portion, we encounter a disease that may be called “biblical leprosy.”
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April 23, 2015

In the second half of this week’s double Torah portion, we encounter a disease that may be called “biblical leprosy.” The stricken person’s skin turns white, is pocked with lesions and granuloma-like deformities, and the person is perceived to be so contagious that he must be exiled from the camp. 

This disease differs from the kind of bacterial illness that defines post-biblical leprosy. Instead, our rabbis see the gruesome malady as unique to Torah times and a Torah society, caused not by bacterial infection but by the spiritual evil of lashon harah, evil speech. 

In reaching their conclusion that biblical leprosy is caused by evil talk, the rabbis point to the illness that struck Miriam the prophetess, sister of Aaron and Moses, when she spoke ill of her younger brother (Bamidbar 12:10). Some also point to the incident at the Burning Bush when Moses’ hand was turned “white as snow” after he complained to God about the Jews, insisting they would not believe his prophecy to them (Exodus 4:6).

Lashon harah is a terrible evil. Forbidden speech in this category extends beyond outright lying and slandering. Even if the speech is true, even if mere gossip or just joking, it is forbidden. Although lying and deliberate character assassination are far worse than small-time gossip, Judaism sees even that “minor,” everyday social wrong — everyday gossip — as an evil of the most serious consequence, punishable by God.

Gossip and idle talk kill people. Lies and the half-truths wreck families, prevent job advancements, destroy careers, lead to demotions and terminations, break up potentially wonderful relationships that would lead to successful and happy marriages, and ruin lives. 

Our secular society tries to protect victims of the social wrong by enforcing laws against written defamation (libel) and oral vilification (slander) and against depicting innocents in a derogatory false light. Nevertheless, our secular society also has built “safe harbors” for character assassination that our Torah would forbid. For example, in secular society, in most cases, truth is a complete defense to a charge of defamation. If it is true, then secular society typically permits character assassination.

In California in 1971, our state Supreme Court held a publication potentially liable for libel when it published a defamatory-though-true account about a man who had hijacked a truck 11 years earlier. The court held that an actionable invasion of privacy could occur through the reckless, offensive, injurious publication of true, but not newsworthy, information concerning the criminal past of a rehabilitated convict. However, in 2004, citing a new series of United States Supreme Court decisions, the California Supreme Court overruled its prior ruling. Today, if the media bring to light a long-forgotten crime from decades past, drawing from old, dusty court records, they may rehash the story in prime time, destroying the life of a rehabilitated person.

Evil talk surrounds us close to home, and we do well to contemplate whether we inadvertently support it by our television viewing habits. When “Real Housewives” or others of that genre appear on TV, or in the debriefing talk shows that follow their episodic seasons, the moments not only are marked by gossip and evil talk, but they thrive on such evil for higher audience ratings that generate more advertising dollars. Are we part of that audience? Do we help bolster the viewership of other nightly talk shows and paparazzi-type programs that exist to elicit embarrassing comments by celebrities? Should we focus our minds elsewhere?

When we shop at the supermarket, the creeping cash-register line affords us time to see the tabloid headlines. Notably, store managers do not place Popular Mechanics or Commentary at the check-out line. They prefer publications whose reports are less cerebral and more proximate to the junk heap: Celebrities accusing each other of nasty things that do not pertain to us or our world. Their eating problems, their pregnancies, their broken relationships, their cosmetic surgeries. Do these matters concern us? We live in a world of gossip because gossip sells. Gossip can be monetized more easily than can Torah or simple common decency.

As we turn to the Internet, it is all the same — and worse. Hiding behind anonymity, people post “comments” that are horrible, scurrilous and destructive. Comments regarding a lovely song on YouTube begin with a first few decent remarks about the music and the artist but soon degenerate into hate-filled viciousness. Posts on blogs are worse. And in the worst situations, such anonymous digital hate, known within social media as “cyber-bullying” — it is so common that it even has a name! — has led psychologically tortured youths to kill themselves. Lashon harah actually kills.

This week’s double Torah portion may lack the storytelling excitement found in other portions, like Bereshit and Shemot, but its message is among the most powerful. Lashon harah, evil talk, is a despicable practice, a blight, and those who engage in it may find that they have brought upon themselves unspeakably horrible punishment.

Rabbi Dov Fischer, adjunct professor of law at Loyola Law School and the UC Irvine School of Law and a member of the national executive committee of the Rabbinical Council of America, is a columnist for several online magazines and rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County. His writings appear at rabbidov.com.

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