Lashon Haron, evil speech, is often compared to a traveling salesperson selling tales. While we may think about the internal ramifications of evil speech—how gossip damages the souls of the person speaking and the person listening, we may not think about the external consequences.
Especially when Jews choose to speak evil speech about other Jews.
In his essay, “The Plague of Evil Speech,” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks questions the efficacy of Jews slandering the beliefs, opinions, rituals, and traditions of other Jews. He writes, “For a people of history, we can be bewilderingly obtuse. Time and again, unable to resolve their own conflicts civilly and graciously, Jews slandered their opponents to the civil authorities, with results that were disastrous to the Jewish community as a whole.” He continues, “Diminishing their opponents, the self-proclaimed defenders of the faith diminished themselves and their faith. They managed to convey the impression that Judaism is simple-minded, narrow, incapable of handling complexity, helpless in the face of challenge, a religion of anathemas instead of arguments, excommunication instead of reasoned debate.” In other words, when Jews choose to publicly shame, cancel, denigrate each other’s Judaism and polarize each other, we do not even manage to elevate our own opinion. Instead, we destroy another world in the process—this one being, the Jewish people as a whole.
Engaging with and challenging each other—this is the Jewish way. We are coming off the holiday of Pesach in which we spend an entire evening offering questions, revealing the nuances of our tradition. However, when another Jew publicly defames another and likewise determines their Judaism speaks for all Jews, as history has proven, the Jewish people end up sinking lower—spiritually and societally.
Let us be very careful about how we use our words, especially about a fellow Jew. May we hold ourselves to a higher standard, using our words to lift the other, and in doing so, find that we have ultimately, raised all of us to elevated planes of holiness.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Nicole Guzik is senior rabbi at Sinai Temple. She can be reached at her Facebook page at Rabbi Nicole Guzik or on Instagram @rabbiguzik. For more writings, visit Rabbi Guzik’s blog section from Sinai Temple’s website.
