The One Thing

In EmunahSpeak: Nothing but Thoughts, Rabbi Shalom Arush told us in the name of Rebbe Nachman that character traits are nothing but thoughts, with the prevailing thoughts delineating the essence of one’s mindset at any given time.

A person usually speaks what’s on his mind, so if the prevailing thoughts in one’s head are grist for the loshon hora mill is there any wonder as to what’s going to spring forth from between those not so tightly closed lips?

If you don’t think it you can’t say it, and if you do think it make sure it’s squeaky clean.

In GuardYourSpeak: The Clarity of Context, we observed that Whatever you see your neighbor do you also did once upon a time or may well do tomorrow with but a slight variation on the theme, not enough to take it out of whatever aveira was the touchstone between your two neshamos at different points in time.

And on this we asked, (so) why is it that there is a Grand Canyon disconnect between the understanding with which you view your actions and the jaundiced eye that you cast upon the missteps of your friend, sufficient to ignite within you a desire to talk about it?

The answer, of course, was that we are more accepting of ourselves because we possess the clarity that comes from being cognizant of the context from which all of our mistakes flow, which in turn enhances our understanding of all of our shortcomings.

But while context goes a long way in explaining the double standard by which we judge the actions of others vis á vis our own, it doesn’t go the total route.

It’s a montage with a wide angle focus that can present us with a myriad of facts sufficient to morph what was originally nothing but a bare bones sketch into a high resolution image bursting with detail as to the back story of what it was that caught our eye. That in turn impacts on what motivated the behavior that was weighed by us and found wanting.

But there are other times where the context of a situation is an open book that's in our face, and it may not even be a situation in which we are dwelling on yenem’s faults which, as we said above, will almost invariably lead to loshon hora, while rationalizing our own. Maybe it’s a case where your friend is, in fact, messing up while you’re being a big tzaddik.

There’s someone in your shul that shows up late every morning about two minutes before Borchu, and he doesn’t come rushing in either.  And it just so happens that you’re the first one there.  You don’t know him that well but you do know that there’s nothing doing in his house that would slow him up in the morning.  

The number of kindred scenarios is only circumscribed by the limits of your imagination, and it goes without saying that both your mind and tongue should be focused elsewhere just as it should always be except when there is a legitimate toellis afoot.

We’re talking here about our inability to see past our self imposed delineation of reality.

In the situations where we are find ourselves bereft of proper context, such as those which we spoke about in GuardYourSpeak: The Clarity of Context, our tendency, as we said, is to cast a cold eye on the other guy's doings while rationalizing our own miss-steps. 

But on other occasions, when there is a clear distinction in our favor between our avoda and that of our friend, leaving us nothing to rationalize, it never occurs to us that for all we know, maybe talking during davening is the one thing he does wrong whereas never uttering a word during davening is the one thing we do right.

Do You Know Who Woke Me Up This Morning?

Here’s a teenager that’s at the wrong end of doing everything right. 

He would rather look at girls than at the Gemara and that’s probably the good news as far as his eyes go these days.  His mitzvah observance wouldn’t intimidate a Reform Jew, and Shabbos is just another day of indulgence.

Unsurprisingly, he is of the opinion that Hashem doesn’t love him so his situation goes from bad to worse with the bottom close enough for reading glasses.

He’s our son, brother, nephew, cousin, uncle, grandson, friend, or neighbor and we love him. 

We can dust him off and put him on his feet, but how do we motivate him to walk in the right direction?  Fair question this, and Jonathan Rietti answers in the name of Rebbe Nachman that we start with the smallest good. 

Smallest good?

In the most messed up life there is something positive.  It may be a next to nothing that barely registers in Shomayim, but as long as it is above the line as opposed to below, we zero in on that minimum and build up from there.

You were out all night on the beach in Coney Island with your friends and ended up at an 11:30 minyan the next day at Landau’s, four hours after your minyan at the yeshiva?

Not great form to be sure, and at the appropriate time (hopefully soon) you’ll change your nocturnal activities for the better but right now look for the good and you don’t have to look far. 

You davened with a minyan at which you presumably put on tefillin, and we can extrapolate from there that you more likely than not ate a kosher breakfast which maybe in your case was lunch.

Is this not enough of a reason for Hashem to love you?

He would even settle for less.

When we say Modeh Ani in the morning we are supposed to be grateful for another lap around the track. And of course we’re grateful because when we went to sleep last night there was no guarantee that we would wake up, and Jonathan Rietti lets us hear that the fact that we did wake up shows that Hashem hasn’t given up on us.  And if Hashem hasn’t given up on us there’s still hope that there is something we can do to justify our existence.

And he then asks:

Is this not the greatest kal v’chomer in history?

If Hashem hasn’t given up hope on you how much more so should you not give up hope on yourself?

Life, however, is not one big self-esteem junket.  It’s a minefield.

So if someone (most probably yourself) tells you that you’re not good for anything, Jonathan Rietti tells us that you can say (or remind yourself):

Hey!  Wait a second!  Do you know who woke me up this morning?

I count in His eyes.

Middah Keneged Middah

On Sunday last, at 4:50 A.M., I woke up with excruciating stomach pains.  This turned out to be fortuitous in the sense that had I risen at my usual time I would have been in shul putting on my tefillin, with the problem then being that their removal would have been necessitated a nano second after completion of the mitzvah.  And more likely than not, I would have been in on again off again mode for the duration of the davening.

But as we all know, Hashem sends the refuah before the makkah, so because I had gone to bed very late on Motzoi Shabbos He put it in my head to daven at a later minyan Sunday morning.

That piece of good fortune aside, from a pain perspective, the rest of the day was down hill.

But it wasn’t a total loss because before it occurred to me that I might have a stomach virus, I had spent and hour and a half agonizing over the prospects of having to deal with a serious condition of some sort because the pain was bad enough for me to actually have a passing thought of calling Hatzalah, my irrational fear of doctors and hospitals notwithstanding.

But given the aforementioned fears, that thought passed by in warp speed, and in any case I had already decided to take the very good advice that I had dished out to ya’ll in EmunahSpeak: Talk To Hashem First, and go into conference with Hashem before making my next move.

You can well imagine the first part of the conversation, but then I remembered that we said in EmunahSpeak: If You Feel Blessed …if you feel that Hashem has bestowed you with extra tov you should feel obligated to pay back a little more by adding something to your avoda, be it an extra twenty minutes of learning, a little more kavana in davening, or perhaps resolving to put more effort into doing chesed.

If that’s the way to go when one is feeling blessed then it has to be that AND THEN SOME when one perceives his circumstances moving decidedly south on an express track.

And so I made up to significantly increase my Sefer Chofetz Chaim seder every day plus an extra session Erev Shabbos and Motzoi Shabbos.  And then it finally dawned on me that I only had a stomach virus.

My next thought was that I got caught in a Heavenly sting operation, but that one passed quicker than my fleeting mental dalliance with calling Hatzalah.

The truth is that while I did not figure out from the get-go what was wrong with me, I realized immediately from whence this makkah came.

As is well known, Hashem rewards and punishes midda keneged midda (measure for measure), and it seems that sometime before lights out I had become somewhat irritable for no good reason concerning something that my wife had said to me.  It was nothing from nothing, with the only thing big about it being the size of the mouth that I ever so briefly opened.

Whatever was said must have been hurtful because the next morning at 4:50 A.M……

No Need for Geula

Chazal say that Eliyahu HaNavi won’t be coming to town on Shabbos or on Erev Shabbos.

Nu?  He doesn’t do weekends?

It’s not about what he doesn’t do, but rather about what we do, and on Erev Shabbos we’re busy putting up the cholent and the like and the last thing we need at that time is to lose ourselves in the tumult that will ensue with Eliyahu’s arrival, thereby possibly forgetting to make the necessary preparations.

But there’s more to Shabbos than cholent, so what about the emotional preparation?

Rabbi Chaim Eisenstein tells us in the name of Rav Soliveitchik that many people are Shomer Shabbos but they are not Shomer Erev Shabbos.  The Rav said that what was missing in America was that all too many of the Shomer Shabbos Yidden do not have the appreciation that they are lacking the special Yichud with Hashem that can be found both in Shabbos and in Erev Shabbos.

If one is shomer the Erev Shabbos and, for good measure, Motzoi Shabbos, all of the worries and the tog taiglach of the mundane world are swept away.

And if one doesn’t run away from the Kedusha of Shabbos, he can keep at least a shmeck of it with him the entire week.  But that’s only going to be on his screen if on Erev Shabbos and Shabbos he’s able to emotionally transport himself to a different place where the only thing that exists is Shabbos Kodesh and his Yichud with Hashem.

Rabbi Chaim Eisenstein relates that at the moment when we are preparing for Shabbos with its excitement and anticipation of Kedushas Shabbos and the Yichud with Hashem, Eliyahu is not necessary for there’s no need for Geula at this time.

And what would be the point anyway?  

He wouldn’t find us here in any case because, if we have done it right, we will have already transported ourselves to different place where the only thing that exists is Shabbos Kodesh and our Yichud with Hashem.

The Chofetz Chaim’s Twofer

GuardYourSpeak

(In June 2012 we launched GuardYourSpeak which, as its name implies, was dedicated to focusing on all aspects of Shmiras HaLoshon.  In short order it became burdensome to maintain both sites, so in recognition of the fact that the material posted on GuardYourSpeak was a natural fit for EmunahSpeak, it was decided to discontinue GuardYourSpeak and repost all of those pieces on EmunahSpeak over the course of the next few months.)

In GuardYourSpeak: Don’t Even Think About It, we mentioned that in the introduction to Sefer Chofetz Chaim the Chofetz Chaim lists 17 Laveen (negative mitzvos) and 14 Aseen (positive mitzvos) that one might potentially violate by either speaking or believing loshon hora.  While most of these mitzvos are not about loshon hora per se in their essence, the Chofetz Chaim tells us that when one crosses the line on loshon hora he may also be violating one or more of these Aseen or Laveen.

Then in GuardYourSpeak: Duck!, we tightened the noose around the vagueness by jettisoning the word potentially, and then noted that when you decided to create even the faintest of sound waves that tilted toward Loshon Hora you empowered the Satan to charge you with violating an absolute minimum of 6 out of the 17 Laveen and 5 of the 14 Aseen that the Chofetz Chaim listed in the introduction to his sefer.  And for good measure, you also brought two of the three curses down upon your head.

For those without calculators, this works out to a minimum of 11Torah violations for every comment that crosses the line from what is permitted to what is not, with two curses thrown in for good measure. 

And one of them is Do not go tale-bearing about another Jew.

You told Reuven what Shimon said about him?

Mazel tov!  The Chofetz Chaim specifically mentions you by name in his sefer.  Not the one your parents gave you when they named you for your great uncle, but the one that names you for yourself, because the act of placing into Reuven’s ears what came out of Shimon’s mouth stamped you as a talebearer, for the Chofetz Chaim asks rhetorically who is a talebearer, and then answers: The one who learns about things and then goes from place-to-place saying “This is what he said about you,” or “This is what I heard he did to you.”

And Mr. Talebearer, if you could fold your cards at this point and slip away quietly into the night things would be bad enough because the Chofetz Chaim adds that even if the Rechilus that you spoke is true, your type of language destroys the world.

But the truth is that your situation isn’t bad enough as is.  It’s actually much worse than that by a long shot because, ironically enough, the Chofetz Chaim’s very severe indictment of your loose lips is, comparatively speaking, the good news.

After informing us in very severe terms that your type of language destroys the world, the Chofetz Chaim then tells us that every verbal foray into the nether world of Rechilus brings even a greater sin in its train which is included in the of Lav of Do not go tale-bearing about another Jew.

You told Reuven what Shimon said about him? 

Mazel tov again!  You have double dipped!  Your remarks degraded a fellow Jew thereby qualifying them as Loshon Hora, even if they were truthful.

In GuardYourSpeak: Don’t Even Think About It, we mentioned that in the introduction to Sefer Chofetz Chaim the Chofetz Chaim lists 17 Laveen (negative mitzvos) and 14 Aseen (positive mitzvos) that one might potentially violate by either speaking or believing loshon hora.  While most of these mitzvos are not about loshon hora per se in their essence, the Chofetz Chaim tells us that when one crosses the line on loshon hora he may also be violating one or more of these Aseen or Laveen.

Then in GuardYourSpeak: Duck!, we tightened the noose around the vagueness by jettisoning the word potentially, and then noted that when you decided to create even the faintest of sound waves that tilted toward Loshon Hora you empowered the Satan to charge you with violating an absolute minimum of 6 out of the 17 Laveen and 5 of the 14 Aseen that the Chofetz Chaim listed in the introduction to his sefer.  And for good measure, you also brought two of the three curses down upon your head.

For those without calculators, this works out to a minimum of 11Torah violations for every comment that crosses the line from what is permitted to what is not, with two curses thrown in for good measure. 

And one of them is Do not go tale-bearing about another Jew.

You told Reuven what Shimon said about him?

Mazel tov!  The Chofetz Chaim specifically mentions you by name in his sefer.  Not the one your parents gave you when they named you for your great uncle, but the one that names you for yourself, because the act of placing into Reuven’s ears what came out of Shimon’s mouth stamped you as a talebearer, for the Chofetz Chaim asks rhetorically who is a talebearer, and then answers: The one who learns about things and then goes from place-to-place saying “This is what he said about you,” or “This is what I heard he did to you.”

And Mr. Talebearer, if you could fold your cards at this point and slip away quietly into the night things would be bad enough because the Chofetz Chaim adds that even if the Rechilus that you spoke is true, your type of language destroys the world.

But the truth is that your situation isn’t bad enough as is.  It’s actually much worse than that by a long shot because, ironically enough, the Chofetz Chaim’s very severe indictment of your loose lips is, comparatively speaking, the good news.

After informing us in very severe terms that your type of language destroys the world, the Chofetz Chaim then tells us that every verbal foray into the nether world of Rechilus brings even a greater sin in its train which is included in the of Lav of Do not go tale-bearing about another Jew.

You told Reuven what Shimon said about him? 

Mazel tov again!  You have double dipped!  Your remarks degraded a fellow Jew thereby qualifying them as Loshon Hora, even if they were truthful.

Duck!

GuardYourSpeak

(In June 2012 we launched GuardYourSpeak which, as its name implies, was dedicated to focusing on all aspects of Shmiras HaLoshon.  In short order it became burdensome to maintain both sites, so in recognition of the fact that the material posted on GuardYourSpeak was a natural fit for EmunahSpeak, it was decided to discontinue GuardYourSpeak and repost all of those pieces on EmunahSpeak over the course of the next few months.)



In GuardYourSpeak: Keep Your Lip Halakhically Zipped, we said that The Beis Din shel Maala….doesn’t give your sins the time of day UNLESS the Satan, in his role as the prosecuting attorney, brings an accusation against you, because without an accusation there can be no court case.  And Loshon Hora is the only thing that can point the Satan’s accusative finger in your direction.

Hashem, in classic mida keneged mida mode, gave the Satan the power to condemn you based on your condemnation of other Jews.

That’s already the good news, because if you thought to assuage either your conscience, your fear of punishment or both by comforting yourself with the thought that the itzy bitzy shtickel of Loshon Hora that you said over after davening would be pareve enough to qualify for the Shemiras HaLoshon version of White Collar criminal treatment, you thought wrong.

As we said in GuardYourSpeak: Don’t Even Think About It, in the introduction to Sefer Chofetz Chaim the Chofetz Chaim lists 17 Laveen (negative mitzvos) and 14 Aseen (positive mitzvos) that one might potentially violate by either speaking or believing loshon hora.  While most of these mitzvos are not about loshon hora per se in their essence, the Chofetz Chaim tells us that when ones crosses the line on loshon hora he may also be violating one or more of these Aseen or Laveen.

And if that doesn’t sufficiently lay a mine field through which those who are loose of tongue must thread their way, the Chofetz Chaim adds 3 Curses from the Torah.

You opened your mouth and let loose with a word or two that touched the third rail of Loshon Hora?

Even if what you said was only one tenth of a percent Loshon Hora of the most pareve variety you’re out of luck because when it comes to Loshon Hora, there ain’t no such thing as pareve.

In the Satan’s hands, the impact of he may also be violating one or more of these Aseen or Laveen in reference to that itzy bitzy shtickel of Loshon Hora that you said over after davening, coalesces into one heck of a serious indictment because it appears that the holy Chofetz Chaim was actually understating the case when he wrote that he may also be violating one or more of these Aseen or Laveen.

The emes is that there's also no such thing as may also be violating, because the Satan doesn’t walk into court on the strength of maybes.

When you decided to create even the faintest of sound waves that tilted toward Loshon Hora you empowered the Satan to charge you with violating an absolute minimum of 6 out of the 17 Laveen and 5 of the 14 Aseen that the Chofetz Chaim listed in the introduction to his sefer.  And for good measure, you also brought two of the three curses down upon your head.

And that's just the Satan's default position.

A good lawyer would tell you to duck because they’re gonna throw the book at you. 

You Don’t Need It!

And why don’t you need it?  Because you can’t have it.

In case you were wondering, this seemingly nonsensical banter comes to us courtesy of Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein and it’s all about the theory of absolute which posits that if you know you can’t have it (something), you don’t need it.

Say what?

He gives us the example of someone who is, nebach, an addicted smoker and he’s also a very religious Shomer Shabbos Jew.  This Jew doesn’t spend Shabbos looking at his watch every fifteen minutes in anticipation of lighting up ten seconds after Havdalah because he knows with an absolute certainty that he can’t smoke during this time, and because he can’t smoke during this time it doesn’t exist for him and he most definitely doesn’t need what doesn’t exist.

That was an easy one and likewise for the various things that we are forbidden to eat (kashrus) and actions that are proscribed (idolatry, certain relationships etc.).

They are easy because we have fixed them in our mind as rock solid absolutes, but there are other things that are no less toxic, but for which we have a soft spot because and only because we have not internalized the idea that we can’t have it or do it.

And does not Loshon Hora immediately come to mind?

It does, but it’s not flying solo because there are many such things in your life that are not good for you and you can even be cognizant of them, but unless you come to view them as absolutely not good for you you’ll continue to play peek-a-boo with them much to your detriment.

The theory of absolute which establishes your non need for a given thing or activity is a full 180 from the burning need that we spoke about in EmunahSpeak: A Burning Need but the intensity is the same, for to the extent that you need something or need to do something in one case that’s how much you’re striving not to need something in the other. 

Or maybe it’s actually two sides of the same coin.

In EmunahSpeak: A Burning Need we said that If you go through life merely wanting to do, nothing will ever get done.  But if, with a soul on fire, you take that journey needing to do, nothing will ever get in your way.

You should have a burning need to view what’s not good for you as being absolutely not good for you so that it won’t exist for you and you won’t need it ever again.

Talk To Hashem First

In EmunahSpeak: So Who are You Relying on…, we said:

“The avodah of bitochon is to train oneself to rely only on Hashem. 

“Not Hashem plus your accountant or your expertise.  Hashem knows if you have bitochon in Him or if you are relying on the doctor also or your own hishtadlus.  Hishtadlus doesn’t make you a partner with Hashem.  Think of it as the password to the game of life.  It's the equivalent of saying "swordfish" to gain admittance.  Once you have given the password Hashem takes care of 100% of the problem, not the 95% you supposedly left over for Him after you did your 5%.  That Hashem’s 100% might work out to be zilch, zero, and nada of what we have set our minds on in any given situation is of no consequence because bitochon is not results oriented and therefore makes no promises.  It defines how we think not what we get.”

That’s pretty much it as far as hishtadlus goes, but it only relates to what we view as every day plain vanilla normative hishtadlus where we do something, and having done it we think it’s a big deal and that we have actually accomplished something when in reality we have done nothing more, as we said above, then say the password that will bring Hashem onto the field so to speak.

The truth is that if a person does his hishtadlus thing, be it work, business, school, going to the doctor, or anything else that the world would perceive as naturally leading to whatever goal he has targeted, and no matter how hard he works at it he never loses sight of the fact that he is essentially spinning his wheels, then he has reached a very high madreiga indeed.

But not quite high enough to get a nose bleed because something is still missing.

A close relative has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.  You immediately put yourself into hishtadlus mode and call Echo, Shuky Berman, Benny Fisher, and Meilech Firer, and anyone else who may have the knowledge necessary to point you in the direction of the right doctor, and all of them within two minutes.  And after one or two hundred phone calls, emails, and text messages back and forth you have finally secured what you hope is the best brain surgeon on the planet to set things straight.

With the doctor on board and the date for the surgery set, you then give tzeddakah in the name of the sick relative, go to some big rebbes for brochos, and then finally with all that done, you say Tehillim and daven for a refuah for him. 

Worthy activities all, but the first thing you should have done was to talk to Hashem, not the last because when you talk to Hashem first you are leveraging all of your Teva based hishtadlus by putting it in its proper context. 

And when you talk to Hashem first you’re not throwing Him a crumb as an afterthought after having milked out of Teva whatever you thought it had to offer.  You are going straight to the heart of the matter and with your priorities in place you can then play Teva like a violin while Hashem does the heavy lifting.

Plan D

In EmunahSpeak: PLAN B, we asked: So what are you doing tomorrow anyway?

And we answered:  Be it learning, work, chesed, taking care of the family or any combination thereof, if you are evenly moderately organized you most probably have your day worked out in advance, as you do every other day.

And then come the speed bumps: flat tires, your child comes home sick from school, emergency trips to the doctor and dentist for stitches and toothaches, a crisis at the office which keeps you there till all hours, your chavrusa doesn’t show up, your car doesn’t start, it snowed 23 inches, and a myriad of other unanticipated horrors guaranteed to trash your plans.

Our self-absorption notwithstanding, the truth is that this is a theocentric world, which requires us to understand that what we propose to do is actually Plan B.  All that other stuff: the flats, the medical emergencies etc. is in reality Plan A, because it obviously reflects the Yad Hashem which is manifesting itself in our lives.

It’s all a matter of focus.

It’s all about looking at life’s curve balls as the real Plan A rather the ruination of what we thought was Plan A.

All well and good to be sure, but what about Plan D?

Plan D?

In contradistinction to Plan A, which we should accept with a smile even though it presents itself as somewhat of a stick that seemingly runs us around a track that we don’t want to be on, there’s Plan D which comes disguised as a carrot for which we all too readily put our plans (Plan B) on the back burner.

You had planned to go to sleep at 11:00 P.M., but just when you were about shut down your computer at 10:45 P. M. to say Shema it occurred to you check out a review of the camera you were thinking about buying, or to maybe to read up on one of the places you were considering moving to when you make Aliyah fifteen years from now.  Or perhaps you sat down to learn at your regular time and you felt the urge to first look through the mail that was just delivered.

Welcome to Plan D (as in distraction) which is not a plan at all but rather a scam brought your way courtesy of your Yetzer Hora.

And if you have ever been internally induced to shift your focus from a purposeful activity in which you were engaged to something else then you have tasted of it.

Irrespective of how successful the Yetzer Hora is with someone in relation to the BIG things, however they may be defined vis á vis any individual, when it comes to the small stuff of life, Plan D invariably rolls up the score by nickel and diming us with every sort of permissible distraction and just like one of Pavlov’s dogs we more often than not react reflexively.

The very same activity that would be squeaky clean if planned by you in advance morphs into a stumbling block when performed at the behest of the Yetzer Hora while you were otherwise productively engaged.

And I should know what I am talking about because in the course of writing this I let my guard down twice so far and went for the bait being dangled in front of me. 

Oops!  Make that three times.

I just went into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and on the way back a little voice inside said: Hey, you haven’t looked at you’re seforim in ages so why not now? 

Without the slightest hesitation or reflection I detoured toward the living room and began to scan the various shelves.  Had I not been writing this piece at the time I would have wasted at least five minutes on a senseless activity that I hadn’t even thought about, much less planned.

But given that I was in the midst of trying to work through this problem (hopefully to everyone’s benefit) I was able to catch myself in about fifteen seconds.

The Yetzer Hora never ever plays a losing hand because it eschews frontal attacks (except against weaklings) in favor of operating laterally.  

And while it is true that some of us are able to resist its inducements in a given situation, the majority gets taken to the cleaners time and time again because Plan D is a sleight of hand so smooth that we don’t even notice because it spontaneously takes us to places where we want to go.  And because we want to go there and (in a general sense) it is permissible to be there we’re not even cognizant that we are AWOL (absent without leave) from where we should really be.

Keep Your Lip Halakhically Zipped

GuardYourSpeak

(In June 2012 we launched GuardYourSpeak which, as its name implies, was dedicated to focusing on all aspects of Shmiras HaLoshon.  In short order it became burdensome to maintain both sites, so in recognition of the fact that the material posted on GuardYourSpeak was a natural fit for EmunahSpeak, it was decided to discontinue GuardYourSpeak and repost all of those pieces on EmunahSpeak over the course of the next few months.)

Most of us are well aware that the bottom line of Loshon Hora is that the Torah forbids us even to speak the truth about someone if it is denigrating or will cause him damage.

But what if you kept your lip halakhically zipped? Then we are told that the Satan will not have reshus to speak the truth about you. 

Say what?

Rabbi Mendel Kessin does yeoman’s service by laying out for us the mechanics of how Loshon Hora impacts procedurally on the Beis Din shel Maala.

Din (judgment), he says, is a cause and effect concept.  A person does A and gets B in return.  And except for special occasions, Hashem stays out of the picture and lets the Beis Din shel Maala judge us.

The fact is that a Jew can commit multiple sins in the course of a week or even a day, and the Beis Din doesn’t even so much as throw a glance in his direction.

Why not?

It’s not as hefker as it appears because the truth is that this would be considered normal procedure in any criminal court in the United States. After all, what court is going to concern itself with the various crimes that abound within its jurisdiction unless and until they are brought to its attention by the prosecuting attorney representing the governmental authority?

The Beis Din shel Maala works pretty much the same way, and that’s why it doesn’t give your sins the time of day UNLESS the Satan, in his role as the prosecuting attorney, brings an accusation against you, because without an accusation there can be no court case.  And Loshon Hora is the only thing that can point the Satan’s accusative finger in your direction.

Moreover, Rabbi Kessin explains that the entire nature of the prosecution is built solely on Loshon Hora because the Satan is doing nothing less than speaking Loshon Hora about you.  Hashem, in classic mida keneged mida mode, gave the Satan the power to condemn you based on your condemnation of other Jews.

Interestingly, there are also privacy laws in Shomayim but when you speak Loshon Hora they're suspended, and the Satan is given access to what heretofore was legally out of his reach, and as a consequence your file of sins is directly laid before him, and he can now immediately prosecute you.  It’s as if you wrote your own indictment with your tongue for the Satan to sign.  It therefore follows that if you don’t speak Loshon Hora then the Satan can’t speak Loshon Hora about you.

Rabbi Kessin tells us that even if you discipline your tongue you’ll still be judged, however, for whatever it was that you either shouldn’t have done or neglected to do, but the Beis Din shel Maala won’t be able to touch you because if your tongue is squeaky clean Hashem Himself will judge you.  He will give you time to do Teshuva, and even if you mess that up He will spread out, over a long period of time, whatever punishment is coming your way.

And when you’re one with Hashem there are no rules because He’s all Rachamim and can do whatever He wants.

So it all comes down to this.  In relation to the Beis Din shel Maala, you are nothing more than a ventriloquist because the Satan can’t open his mouth unless you first open yours, and give him what to say.  And if you don’t, you stroll out of court past a mute Satan who sits there like a dummy.

And once you’re out of there it’s only between you and Hashem.

Someone Who Wants To Be Purified

GuardYourSpeak

(In June 2012 we launched GuardYourSpeak which, as its name implies, was dedicated to focusing on all aspects of Shmiras HaLoshon.  In short order it became burdensome to maintain both sites, so in recognition of the fact that the material posted on GuardYourSpeak was a natural fit for EmunahSpeak, it was decided to discontinue GuardYourSpeak and repost all of those pieces on EmunahSpeak over the course of the next few months.)

The Gemara (Arachin) teaches us that everyone who speaks Loshon Hora amplifies their sins and enlarges them until they reach Shomayim.  Moreover, as we learn in the Tanna De’Vei Eliyahu, the (actual) Loshon Hora spoken by a person ascends to the Heavens, to Hashem’s Holy Throne of Glory.

In his Preface to Sefer Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, who is universally known as the Chofetz Chaim after his sefer, opens our eyes in regard to the atmospheric fallout engendered by the speaking of Loshon Hora.

For starters, he tells us that the reason that the Torah was so strict with the sin of Loshon Hora is because the very speaking of Loshon Hora causes the Satan, who is the Prosecutor against Klal Yisroel, to gain strength and grow in power against us all.  He then brings the Zohar HaKodesh to let us know that there is a force in the world that is nourished by those who speak Loshon Hora.  Its name is Sachsuchah and with the impure power that is his by virtue of all of the Loshon Hora that is spoken, he ascends to the Heavens and spreads death, war, and catastrophe throughout the world.

And that’s only his warm up act.

The Chofetz Chaim goes on to tell us that Loshon Hora triggers the attribute of mida keneged mida (measure for measure) which is one of the modes by which Hashem brings justice to the world.  He once again cites the Zohar HaKodesh to point out that from this impure power/evil spirit that we referenced above evolves other forces of strict unmerciful justice.

You sent a pekel of some serious Loshon Hora in Hashem’s direction?! 

That’s really unfortunate because the bad news is that in the same way that man defiles his speech with language that is forbidden, he also prevents all of his subsequent words of holiness (all of his Torah learning and mitzvahs) from ascending to Heaven.  The conclusion of the Zohar is that all of the good things you have done are suspended in mid-air.

They do not ascend, period.

The Chofetz Chaim then impresses upon us the seriousness of this state of affairs by asking:

How will we merit the coming of Moshiach?

The good news, however is that the Chofetz Chaim has an answer.

At the end of the Preface, after an exhaustive explanation of both the destructiveness of Loshon Hora and the merits of learning his sefer in order to uproot this great sin from our midst, the Chofetz Chaim states that if people study these laws carefully, the Yetzer Hora will not have such great power to control society into committing this sin.  Automatically, if one backs away from this sin, even a little bit, then as time goes by he will wash his hands completely of it because this sin is so caught up in the routine of our everyday lives.  The implication being that if we get a running start vis á vis the sin of Loshon Hora, in due time we’ll be able to flip the switch on the cruise control.

The Chofetz Chaim then hits the high note as he concludes the Preface by letting us hear that someone who wants to be purified of this sin will have Siyata D’Shemaya (Divine Assistance), and in the merit of both learning these laws and not speaking Loshon Hora, Moshiach will come soon, speedily in our days.

She Taught Us

The fact is that Golda Litwen of blessed memory taught very many people a lot of things by either example or persuasion or a combination thereof.

We are speaking here, however, about a particular case in which the power of her personality carried the day in the most unlikely of circumstances, which resulted in a very great Kiddush Hashem.

The day after her recent passing, the administrator of the adult home in which she resided received a phone call from one of the people who used to transport Golda to and from the hospital where she underwent dialysis three times a week. 

Shlepping sick people back and forth to their various treatments day after day can desensitize one to the fact that they are dealing with human beings as opposed to goods that need to be moved from one place to another.  And in such a situation a person can say and do things that he would otherwise forgo if a real person was before him.

And so it was with Golda.

There were many times when the two people that transported her to dialysis would argue on the way.  These were proste mentchen that didn’t have much of an understanding of how to speak to one another or how to accord each other even a modicum of respect.

This is pretty much the story that was told to the administrator of the home.  And then the person on the phone added:

We would like to send flowers and come to pay our respects to her daughters because she taught us how to speak to each other and how to give.

Anyone who knew Golda well wouldn’t be surprised by any of this because when faced with such situations she would always take them firmly in hand by admonishing anyone who had crossed, what was in her eyes to be viewed as, the line of basic decent behavior.

 

She also taught them to have a sense of appreciation, one for the other and she taught it by example.  It seems that in the course of regaining his sensitivity to those around him one of these workers began to empathize with Golda’s condition and he remarked that it was a pity that she had to undergo dialysis three times a week.

“It’s not a pity at all,” she said.  “Dialysis is keeping me alive.”

And they understood that Golda was keeping them alive in a certain sense, so when she died they took matters into their own hands and resolved to keep on living.  In the memory of all she taught them they took upon themselves to always work on getting along.

If You Wouldn’t Say it….

GuardYourSpeak

(In June 2012 we launched GuardYourSpeak which, as its name implies, was dedicated to focusing on all aspects of Shmiras HaLoshon.  In short order it became burdensome to maintain both sites, so in recognition of the fact that the material posted on GuardYourSpeak was a natural fit for EmunahSpeak, it was decided to discontinue GuardYourSpeak and repost all of those pieces on EmunahSpeak over the course of the next few months.)

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.

Doing Our Part For An Aliyas Neshama

You should be a Meilitz Yoshor is usually the parting request made by each speaker to the recently deceased at his funeral.

He’s gone only a few hours and we asking him for favors already.

And what are we asking for exactly?

Reduced to its lowest common denominator, we are essentially putting in a bid for proteksia.

The niftar (recently deceased) will soon be going to a better place and we are asking him to put in a (good) word for us by way of his tefillos when he gets there.  The higher one’s place in Olam Haba the more influence one is presumed to have.  And the more (presumed) influence the better placed one is to shake things up.

So what are we doing on our end for an aliyas neshama that will move our loved ones out of their Heavenly cubicle, so to speak, to a corner office with a view from where they might be able to exert a little more influence?

Sad to say, not all that much.

The few dollars that we give or the learning that we do in the name of the niftar is to be sure, a little something in the right direction.  A nice touch this, but nice touches are not the stuff of serious elevation.

As with almost everything else, here too Hashem operates in midda keneged midda mode (measure for measure). 

Want to expand someone’s horizons in Gan Eden?  Then you have to expand yours in this world in inyanai ruchniyes.  Simply put, when you seriously grow you’re a different you, and you therefore now occupy a different place in this world.

And if you are a different you who is occupying a different place in this world then you have made the most compelling argument possible to have the one you are asking to act as a Meilitz Yosher be put in a position in which he is better situated to make it happen.

Annihilating the Universe

GuardYourSpeak

Because of the great love Hashem Yisborach has for his Jewish People and because He desires only good for us to the point where He calls us His children, that we are His possession and other names of endearment that demonstrate the great love He has for us….He therefore separated us from all of the bad qualities that exist in the world and in particular Loshon Hora and Rechilus (gossip).

So begins the introduction to Sefer Chofetz Chaim.

It seems, however, that as careful as the Chofetz Chaim was with his words he somehow managed to lose two of them in the introduction.  Would it not have been more correct to write that He therefore ATTEMTED TO separate us from all of the bad qualities….?

After all, had we been actually separated from Loshon Hora and Rechilus I wouldn’t be writing these words in New York, a.k.a. golus because as the Chofetz Chaim teaches us further on in the introduction to his sefer, the essential reason today for our golus is because of the actions of the spies sent to survey the Land of Israel.

And as we know from Chazal, the fundamental sin of these spies was Loshon Hora in that they brought back an evil report about Eretz Yisroel concerning which our ancestors cried needlessly.  And the Chofetz Chaim tells us that because the Ribbono Shel Olam is not a big fan of needless crying it was decreed against us that the crying would continue for generations.

So here we are thousands of years down the road and the Chofetz Chaim reminds us that we are still crying due to the endless calamities that have befallen us because of this bitter sin.  A decree is most certainly a decree but it could have been discharged with an occasional whimper.  That it translates into a steady stream of crying from one generation to the next is only because that which was for the spies a once in a lifetime mistake has become for us a lifestyle. 

And calamities include those that threaten to befall us in the not so distant future.

When a certain demagogue threatens to annihilate us with nuclear weapons it’s imperative that we know that his ability to make good on the threat, chas v’shalom, is not inherent in his thousands of centrifuges or other technological menaces.

Everything that comes our way is by way of a boomerang effect that originates in our mouths, for as we said in GuardYourSpeak: Someone Who Wants To Be Purified, the Zohar HaKodesh lets us know that there is a force in the world that is nourished by those who speak Loshon Hora.  Its name is Sachsuchah and with the impure power that is his by virtue of all of the Loshon Hora that is spoken, he ascends to the Heavens and spreads death, war, and catastrophe throughout the world. 

The Chofetz Chaim tells us, that this ability of Loshon Hora to bring devastation in its wake was set in motion from day one when the Serpent spoke Loshon Hora against HaKodesh Boruch Hu in his conversation with Chava.  And as Chazal have taught, the Serpent corrupted her by introducing into her a spirit of impurity which the Chofetz Chaim says caused adultery and illicit relations to come into the world.  And if that wasn’t enough, for good measure the Serpent also caused murder and death to come knocking on our door.

So fuggedabout about all the threats and the piles of enriched uranium because it’s only a smoke screen. 

It’s the one who speaks Loshon Hora, says the Chofetz Chaim, that seizes a quality that annihilates the universe.

They Belong To Him Alone

In EmunahSpeak: Swordfish, we asked from whence creative people derived their inspiration and we concluded that:

There is no muse, no inner voice, no well spring of creativity from which writers, composers, artists, and the like draw their inspiration.  And you can throw in doctors and such for good measure.  Every word, note, brush stroke, and diagnosis is spoon fed to those so endowed by Hashem. 

Not exactly an ego booster for the kochi v’otzem yadi crowd, but we’re not running a self esteem clinic here, so deal with it.

Then we queried:

Endowed by Hashem to do what exactly?  If every jot and tittle is by way of Hashem then what separates the creative personality from the unwashed masses?

Fair question this and we answered:

In much the same way that a given radio frequency can pull in a broadcast set to that frequency, creative people have been hard wired from the get go of their existence to process the creative flashes that Hashem is sending them.  It’s not that a writer has been given the ability to write.  He has rather been blessed with the genius to take Divine dictation because it’s all from Hashem, typos included.

I wrote it, to be sure, but as it turns out I didn’t fully comprehend the import of what I was saying.  Looking back, it’s apparent now that my grasp of the words was only intellectual whereas emotionally I was still treading water.

Recently, I wrote a piece in which ninety-five per cent of the words belonged to someone else.  I had given proper attribution to the originator of the ideas that I was quoting in addition to repositioning several paragraphs, not to mention adding a few key stage directions that took the piece somewhat past the original thrust of my source material.

Nevertheless, I still felt unfulfilled in that there were too many of yenem’s words and not enough of my own.

In the words my own are subsumed a fundamental misunderstanding of much of what we wrote in EmunahSpeak: Swordfish, the essential paragraphs of which were quoted above.

When we said, it’s not that a writer has been given the ability to write.  He has rather been blessed with the genius to take Divine dictation because it’s all from Hashem, typos included, I failed to realize that Hashem challenges the creative individual with what are seemingly two voices.  Sometimes He feeds me yenem’s words to be manipulated however slightly and other times He feeds me words which I am foolish enough to think are my own.

But in reality they’re neither.

Hashem is sole master of the inspirational vocabulary for as we said above, every word, note, brush stroke, and diagnosis is spoon fed to us by Hashem and they belong to Him and Him alone.