be a talebearer, Means don't go around spreading rumors about another.
It also comes from the word drugstore, man, and perfume. There is a
good smell and an evil smell. Don't walk around with an evil smell while
you are with people. If I walk around saying, "This one did this,
this one did that" I am really contaminating the air. It only takes
one person to contaminate a whole city. When someone is spreading a
lie, that is another transgression, but here we are talking about the
truth. Even if a tale is true, spreading it could still be destroying
the world.
If someone says bad things about someone else he transgresses this mitzvah.
It is a very grate sin, which could kill a lot of people. You can tell
people so much evil about a person that they will literally kill him.
There is truth, and there
is the truth of the truth. One Sabbath Rabbi Kuk hailed a cab and got
in. That's all you need for a good rumor. Rabbi Kuk, the Chief Rabbi
of Israel traveling in a cab on Sabbath. What was the real story, the
truth of the truth? The English had caught somebody they said was a
spy. At one o'clock Rabbi Kuk heard that they were going to shoot him
at two o'clock. There is no question that he should take a cab to the
police station to tell them not to shoot him
There are three levels
of tale bearing. Imagine someone says, "Kim told me he doesn't
like you." It is a lie, but it is possible. That is not so horrible
yet, because he only quoted what I said. Imagine he would tell you,
"You know, Kim is rotten to the core." That is not reporting
what I said, but what he thinks of me. That is worse, even if it is
true. The lowest level is if it is not true. It is possible that what
he said really struck something inside you, so if it is true it is not
so terrible. If he made it up, that means he is really at the bottom
of evil. How does he even come to think of such a thing? These are the
three levels. The first level is to report what a person said. If it
is true, it is bad; if it is not true, it is very low. The second level
is to spread rumors not about what he said, but about what he is. If
it is true it is very bad,but if it is a lie, that is the third level,
the lowest a person can go.
The Maimonides
says something strong.
There are some people who don't want to say (lashen harah), evil
speech, so they say something good, like "he's such a great scholar,
and the way he knows Talmud is great." Someone else says, "What?
Ben knows the whole Talmud?" The man made somebody else say it,
and then he says, "I didn't know I thought he does." He wants
someone to say something bad about Ben, but he is so holy he doesn't
want it to be him. He says something good, and the other says something
bad. Maimonides says not to kid yourself. God knows what you are doing.
The Talmud says that
people who speak evil cannot behold the face of God, cannot have a revelation
of God. God cannot reveal Himself to them. This is a deep rabbinic question.
The Talmud says that God says about anyone who speaks evil, "he
and I cannot live together." Maimonides says you have to move out
of the neighborhood, and he quotes a Talmud which says that even God
doesn't want to live in an evil-speaker's neighborhood. So to speak,
God has to move out; God can't stand it. That means one person can destroy
the whole city.
What are you supposed
to do if, God forbid, you already spoke lashon harah? The
first thing is, you have to cleanse your tongue, have a little deodorizing
of the tongue. The best cleansing is to use it for good things, so you
should study Torah day and night, uttering holy words. You have to learn
to control your tongue, and another way to do it is to refrain from
saying something you want to say, even if it is not evil. The Vorker
Hassidim would often decide that for half an hour a day, or even five
minutes, they wouldn't speak. Keep your tongue quiet, but don't start
with a whole day, because we are not on that level. Get to know where
you are. For ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour, really say only
the most important things. Become the master of your tongue.
Why does a person talk
evil about somebody else? What is his sickness? In what part of his
being is sick? According to the Holy Maharal, what is sick is
that he can't keep a secret. He sees someone do something wrong, and
he can't keep it to himself. A person who has no vessels to keep a secret
is not a whole human being. What is the holiness of a human being? The
holiness is that a human has a body which shows and a soul which is
secret. Life depends on the secret of the soul being in the body. That
is the essence of human life. What is the essence of the world? God,
who is not showing. Someone who can't keep a secret cuts himself off
from his soul, cuts himself off from God
Evil talk, even just hearing
it, is the beginning of all hatred among people and wars among the nations.
I want you to know, every time one person yells at another person, you
bring war into the world. And each time a person says words of love
to another human being, he brings peace into the world.
