THE CHAI AND THE JEWISH STAR
The chai and the Jewish star (Magen David) are worn increasingly by Jews all over the world. Neither has its origin in tradition, but they carry much of the symbolism of the tzitzit and kepah. In effect, these symbols say, “I am a Jew, a member of the covenantal people, and I’m proud of my identity.” They also say to another Jew, “Here I am.” Clearly, a chai or Magen David is a statement of membership in the community. Every Magen David is a witness to the existence of the Jewish people, and therefore, to the existence of God. You might think you’re just wearing a piece of jewelry, but in fact you are giving testimony. And who knows but that in a millennium or two, these symbols will be described as “ancient, hallowed tradition. …”
CHAPTER · 7
SPEECH
In contrast to the handful of regulations regarding dress, there is a plethora of rules concerning speech. The laws about honesty, authenticity, and integrity of speech are at least as extensive as, say, the laws of kashrut.
And this is exactly as it should be, for speech is the primary medium of human interaction. If eyes are mirrors of the soul, then speech is the echo of character. Speech is not the whole of human ethics, but it is a good part. So a plethora of laws about speech is perfectly in order.
A Jew is forbidden to insult, shame, defame, embarrass, or slander another person. The Hebrew for gossip—lashon hara—literally means “the evil tongue.” Lashon hara includes not only the speaker of evil, but also the hearer of evil; the theory is that the consumer, the one who listens to gossip/slander and thereby creates the market for it, is as guilty as the purveyor of the rotten goods. The Rabbis went so far as to disallow praise of a third person before his enemies. They understood quite rightly that it would provoke negative comments.
The Talmud paints a most graphic picture: deceiving is equated to stealing; insulting is analogous to killing. How so? When a person is insulted, he/she blanches. It is as if the culprit has drawn blood from his victim’s face.
A Jew is forbidden to curse, utter profanity, swear falsely, or lie. Bearing false witness is a sin, but no more so than holding back from bearing true witness. A Jew who has witnessed evil may not say, “I don’t want to get involved.”
The spoken word must be authentic. We may not say one thing and mean another. Insincere flattery is worse than no flattery at all. The promise of a gift that one knows beforehand will not be accepted is a travesty.
It is only in the context of authenticity and appropriateness that one can understand the strict line the Rabbis toed on blessings. Not only must every blessing be specific to the object for which we bless God, but one may not recite a blessing that is not required. There are all sorts of halachot about what to do if an inauthentic blessing has been begun or completed. But why such rabbinic stringency on this issue? What’s the difference if we make one more blessing? So what if we don’t eat the fruit? Does it really matter to God? Why were the Rabbis so concerned to protect the Almighty from a superfluous blessing? One reason is that we are forbidden to take God’s name in vain. But equally important, we are taught not to make utterances that are not authentic and not appropriate to the norms and expectations of community. The sensitivity and caution we exercise when we speak to God are applied to all manner of speech.
A word should be as good as an oath. No, it should be better than an oath; oaths and personal vows were strongly discouraged by the Rabbis. (“Let your yes be a yes and your no be a no” was not original to Christianity.) A Jew may not go back on his/her word. Every Jewish child grows up with tales of “trustworthies,” ethical heroes whose word or handshake was more reliable than any document signed in blood or witnessed in a court of law. “Be faithful to what issues from your lips,” says the Torah.
But Torah and tradition didn’t stop there. What is it that leads to inauthentic, debased, or evil speech? An impious heart. Therewith the commandments of the heart:
Do not harbor resentment.
Do not be overcome with jealousy.
Do not seek revenge.
Do not bear a grudge.
Do not hate your brother in your heart.
What an incredible Torah! A commandment not to harbor a grudge. Not surprising, the laws of speech—and of the heart—like the laws of eating and of sex, are part of the holiness code.
But! Can human beings live by it? Who has not felt a tide of resentment rise within? Who has not been momentarily consumed by jealousy, nursed a grudge, relieved hostility with a well-placed barb, idled in a moment’s delicious gossip? Besides, many of these ill feelings are altogether normal. A human being with no anger, no envy, no pride, no hurt is a saint—and saints come few and far between. Surely it is easier to live within the parameters of kashrut than it is to live by the Biblical and rabbinic definition of holiness of speech and purity of emotion.
Some very large questions arise then. Given the general adherence to halacha on the part of the Orthodox Jewish community, how does an Orthodox Jew relate to these laws? Are the laws concerning speech reduced to guidelines, while the laws about sex are immutable and inviolable? Is it true about some Jews—that what goes into the mouth has become an exact science, and what comes out a random matter? If a little gossip, envy, resentment, and false flattery are perfectly normal responses of normal human beings, what could the Torah possibly have had in mind when it said, “Thou shalt not harbor a grudge”? Can human beings master those emotions?
And finally. Are traditional Jews really any different in matters of speech? Do they gossip less? Do they tell fewer white lies? Are they truer to their word? Is the speech of their teenagers less peppered with profanities?
Many of these questions must remain open-ended; one can offer neither harsh indictment nor pious self-congratulations, for both would be false. And both would be true. Global answers obviously are not the key. Perhaps one should not even ask some of these questions. Perhaps we should leave the murky areas alone, and simply consider the laws in a vacuum. Yet, having asked...
Clearly, the Torah intended to elevate individual and community to a certain level of holiness, or at least a notch or two above the ordinary. Yes, the law says to us, it is possible to control speech and, to some extent, master feelings. Yes, it is possible to take oneself in hand and give special direction to the skills of communication. At the very least, hostile behavior must be held in check.
The Rabbis were quite realistic in their interpretation of these laws of the Torah. They understood normal human passions very well. Therefore, they defined commandments of the heart in terms of overt action. Okay, so you can’t flush hatred or envy out of your heart. But you can control how it is spent. For example, not to harbor a grudge meant something like this in the Talmud: if you ask to borrow from your neighbor and he refuses, but the next day he comes and asks to borrow your ax, you must lend it to him (for otherwise that would be revenge), and you may not say, “Here, take it, because I’m not like you who did not lend to me …” (YOMA 23A). The Rabbis also understood that actions bring the heart around and not the reverse....
Underlying much of halacha, although not always explicit, are notions of self-discipline and sublimation. In this respect, Judaism runs counter to the psychology of “let it all hang out”: let hostile emotions be expressed as freely as loving ones. Judaism would say, if you hate your neighbor, or your brother, you just better well keep it in check; you may not say everything is permitted. Many years ago, a well-known singer-actress, who was then on her way up, was interviewed by a popular magazine. She told the interviewer how she couldn’t stand her mother and her sister, how frumpy and stupid they were. I was then a student of psychology, a recent graduate of adolescence, and not unaware of the somewhat universal elements of mother-daughter friction. But this! In print! A million readers! I felt pained for her mother. Although I’m certain this star has become more judicious in her interviews and I’m sure she supports her mother and sister in regal style, as I listen to her sing, I somehow cannot en
tirely forget that old association.
As in all things that we do as individuals rather than in concert, the law speaks more forcefully to some than to others. Some Jews have made a personal crusade of extreme watchfulness of their own speech, taking the laws of speech as law. At the other extreme are those who spend half their days in malicious gossip or outright deceit. It is simply a fact that individuals will locate themselves at every single point along the speech-holiness continuum.
Still, I believe there are some differences in the community as a whole. Given that Orthodox Jews experience the same range of human passions, loves, hates, tender spots, and weaknesses, the modal response of the community nevertheless is to be more rather than less sensitive to speech—to matters of honesty, authenticity, and goodwill. While it is difficult to know always what people really feel inside, what comes out is measurable, quantifiable, and quite open to comparison. Judging overt speech, yes, the communal center of gravity is shifted closer to the holiness pole than would be the case for any random group of people. This should be true for any highly structured religious community. Or looking at it another way—for the most part, Orthodox Jews are probably not much different from other decent, well-intentioned, goodwilled people; what is significant is that most of the community’s members fall into these categories. This distinctiveness shows up in four ways:
1. Relative ratio of “good” speech to “bad” speech
2. Awareness
3. Guilt
4. Determination
Note similarity of 2, 3, and 4 to the processes of teshuvah (see p. 312).
1. How often is our speech debased or vulgar; how often do evil thoughts and words get the best of us; what percentage of oral energy is expended in deceit, lies, slander; how often do we engage in mean speech? I would submit: for the Orthodox community as a whole, less often than ordinary.
2. To what extent do we observe our speech patterns? The Biblical commandment “Watch what issues from your lips” is generally translated as “Keep your word,” but it also means, literally, “Watch, monitor, observe, be aware of your own speech.” Sometimes I have that sensation, in the midst of telling a white lie, or listening with full attention to a piece of gossip, that there is a part of me standing outside of myself, standing on the sidelines so to speak, monitoring this fault of character. Even as I rationalize away a lie, or an insult, I still know what I’m really doing. When I tell the children to answer the phone and say I’m not home, I am aware that I am teaching them a dishonest mode of response. It doesn’t matter that I can rationalize this as less insulting to the caller than to have them say, “I am sorry, my mother is busy right now.” I know I am teaching them weakness and not strength.
3. If we are unable to overcome the passion for inflicting pain through the use of words, at least we do not delude or defend ourselves. We know we are guilty. We understand that gossip and lies not only hurt another but are essentially evil.
4. We make some determination—sometimes once a year, sometimes continuously—to improve on the quality of stuff that issues from our lips.
How is the message about more pure speech reinforced and what makes it work?
One answer is the power of the sources. There is barely any traditional text, ancient or modern, that doesn’t deal with the theme of purity of speech. If one read nothing more than the Torah each year, chapter by chapter, the message would come pounding through. Three times a day, in the closing prayer of the Shmoneh Esreh, we say, “My God, guard my tongue from speaking evil and my lips from speaking falsehood. Let my soul be silent to those who curse me …” (But it works two ways. In the same prayer we also ask, “As for those who plot evil against me, thwart their efforts and frustrate their intentions.”) Even if only once a month or once a season that prayer makes a dent in the armor around the heart, that is something!
Jews had self-improvement books centuries before they hit the best-seller lists. What we tend to look upon as pious literature was really the articulation of a “pull-your-ethical-self-up-by-your-bootstraps” approach to life. And much of it worked.
A classic text which has had an impact on the life of every Jew who studies it, and which is taught in most yeshiva high schools, is one devoted entirely to the subject of the evil and false tongue. Its author was Rabbi Yisrael Meir Hakohen, also known as the Chofetz Chayyim. He was a nineteenth-century halachist who wanted to set forth the laws of human speech in as consistent a manner as the laws of Shabbat. Whenever I meet someone who tells me he/she is studying that book, I know that he/she is in the process of transformation.
I came to know this work, Shemirat Halashon (The Speech Watch), at a relatively young age, when I was a student in junior high school. Some friends and I were party to an episode that left its painful mark for several years thereafter. There was a girl in our class who wanted to be in our clique. We didn’t respond to her overtures, we didn’t bring her in, we didn’t include her in our sorties. Let her run with another pack, we said. Only, there wasn’t another pack. It was a small school. Five in the clique meant there were another four outside of it, but not enough to pull together like the insider group. Came September of eighth grade, and the girl didn’t show up. Her mother told the principal, who told us more than once, that she didn’t return to our yeshiva because of the way our clique had mistreated her. In later years, I began to think that might not have been all there was to it, but for the long meanwhile I would periodically smart with shame whenever I would remember her. At any rate, our principal assigned us a few pages to study in this special book. It was well beyond our level, so he taught it to us himself. In those few pages, it seemed as if the Chofetz Chayyim had been watching us the whole year, describing every action of this clique of thirteen-year-olds.
A second answer is the power of models. Not just distant models or historical figures to whom the later commentators have attached saintly characteristics, but rather immediate and very available human models. I never heard my parents use a profane word. Nor did I hear them gossip, slander, or curse anybody. Very occasionally, my mother would try out a bit of harmless gossip, but my father gave no satisfaction. If anything, he would defend, so there was never any mileage nor anything an impressionable child could sink her teeth into. Nor did my husband hear his parents gossip or use mean speech. Thus, when we married and had our own family, we simply didn’t gossip in front of the children.
It’s not that we don’t talk about people in front of the children. Of course we do. But there is a real difference between news and gossip, and though it may be hard to define this difference, it is quickly learned. When Deborah, who is friendly to everyone, comes home and reports that on the avenue she met so-and-so and he/she “is such a nice person,” I know I’ve succeeded in some small measure—for I don’t particularly care for so-and-so. When our children report some misdeed at school, and we ask, “Who did it?” and they refuse to tell on the grounds that it would be lashon hara, we know that even though the underlying reason might well be peer solidarity, nevertheless it signifies that they are beginning to make distinctions in their own speech.
Third is the frontal approach, parents directly instructing their children. Example alone is not sufficient, for the example set by peers is often more compelling. Forthright intervention and discipline are often required.
As each of our lovely, well-bred children entered yeshiva high school, for example, their vocabularies suddenly enlarged to include words that were unprintable barely a decade ago. We told them this kind of language was neither clever nor cool, as they might think it to be. It was—vulgar. Even though some of their nice friends might speak that way, it was still vulgar, no matter who used that language, and it was unacceptable to us under any circumstance. To their argument that these words don’t mean anything, we would counter with, “There are other ways to express anger and disgust.” We would say, “This is not how a member of an Orthodox Jewish family speaks; it is not nice for a yeshiva bocher; it is a sign of poor breedi
ng, undignified …” Finally, I would pull out the last stop, which Yitz would never permit me to use, but which I used on the qt because it was so effective: “It is unbefitting a son/daughter of Rabbi Green-berg. …”
My brother-in-law used a different tack with his daughter, when she began to pepper her speech with f’s and b’s. She also happened to be studying Hebrew at the time. Her father said to her, “Look, Judy, you’re going to have to make a choice. You can’t use the same mouth to speak both the holy tongue and foul language.” Her mother tried a different tack, “All his life,” she said of her deceased father, “Grandpa spoke only words of Torah or Talmud. He loved you so much and was so proud of you. For the granddaughter of Rabbi Eliahu Chaim to debase her speech in this manner …”
Something similar must be going on in other traditional homes. I began to realize that the friends whom I remember as setting a poor example for David and J.J. a year or two back have also cleaned up their language. The frontal approach, I suspect, is quite widely used.
Community must surely reinforce values learned through family. To confirm my feeling that there is a difference in quality of speech among Orthodox Jews, I donned my most unscientific hat and placed myself on two consecutive afternoons of the week in two different pizza parlors in the same neighborhood: one kosher, closed on the Sabbath, and generally catering to the yeshiva crowd; the other a regular pizza joint. “Reading” my newspaper, sipping a Coke, and sort of blending into the background as the neighborhood young people came in after school, I listened.
How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household Page 20