Words which unite, words which divide

Rabbi Ramon Widmonte, The Academy of Learning

This year in particular, as many sit inside social-media bubbles literally isolated from other human beings, we can reflect on the negative power of speech, but more importantly, on the life-force of the tongue.

The definition of lashon hara is that it’s true, and that it causes some type of damage to its subject. The damage could be financial, emotional, psychological, social, and so on. The purpose of these laws isn’t to shut us up permanently, but to help us navigate the perilous tightrope spanning two opposing options: mindless, yet harmful blather, on the one hand; and self-imposed gag-orders, on the other.

We must bear in mind that there is also a halachic requirement to speak up in certain situations, even to speak lashon hara to protect ourselves or others from significant harm. We should ask a competent halachic authority if faced with this type of situation because they are numerous and complex, but we dare not lose sight of the fact that the Torah teaches us that either extreme is dangerous – complete silence in the face of evil is no less problematic than slandering every Facebook friend we have.

However, while building awareness of the dangers of lashon hara, we need to keep at the forefront of our Jewish consciousness and conscience the power of lashon tov (good speech) to do good.

The second Chassidic rebbe of the Gerrer Chassidim was Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter zt”l. His masterpiece is his commentary on the Torah, the S’fat Emet, which means, “the language of truth”. He offers a profound explanation of the function of lashon tov within Jewish sociology, writing, “The main advantage of [the] human power of speech over animals is the ability it gives us to join together in a society which only happens via our speech … and this ability to speak is derived from the power of the soul … because, from the perspective of the soul, all souls have one common root.”

One of the benefits of lashon tov, is that it helps bridge the infinite gaps in personality, ethnicity, parenting, and values which exist between different people. Lashon tov helps us to build a society in which different people can join together for noble aims in the holiness of diversity, in recognition of the fact that, as the S’fat Emet says, we are all soul-branches of one another.

Perhaps this year, when we are so bereft of human contact, we can appreciate his words a little better. Previously, we may have felt that we were each powerful, independent, strong trees, with no need for the numerous other weeds out there. But this year, with a little more humility, we may perhaps feel that we are not such strapping “oaks”, but rather all branches on one tree of community and humanity, interdependent and needful of each other.