Rebbetzin Leah Gans
One of the things most destructive to a Jewish home is unclean speech. How can we keep our speech clean?
First and foremost, of course, there are lashon hara (speaking ill of others) and rechilut (gossip and conversations that provoke aversion and hatred). But even a hurtful word casually tossed out can wound like an arrow, while words of support and approval, and compliments, can heal. Many Jewish homes have been destroyed by people who wounded one another with words day after day.
It is written in the Book of Jeremiah (9:7): “Their tongue is a sharpened arrow; it speaks deceitfully. With their mouths they speak peacefully to their neighbor, but in their hearts they prepare an ambush for him.” An arrow can fly so far that a person does not know what happened to it—whether it wounded someone or fell to the ground. The person who shot the arrow cannot bring it back. So it is with us: once we let a word out, we may cause the destruction of an entire world—another person's world. Yet we may not even realize it!
Sometimes, in the morning rush, a person lets slip a few hurtful words before leaving the house.
Later, over the course of the day, he forgets about them, but the atmosphere at home has already changed. His family was hurt by those words, which seem to wander around the house all day, and his family members “bump into” them. The tension grows; everyone is nervous and angry. And in the evening, the person responsible will not even remember it.
Doeg the Edomite did the same when he complained to King Saul about the kohanim of the city of Nob—they had given shelter and food to David, the future king. Doeg spoke lashon hara to Saul, thereby dooming all the kohanim who lived in Nob to destruction—the king ordered them executed for treason.
How many shidduchim have fallen through, how many families have broken apart, how many people have been turned down for jobs because envious people quietly said a couple of unkind words about someone and spread an unsubstantiated rumor—and all out of envy!
Entire worlds have been destroyed!
to be continued
Prepared by: Mrs. Zissi Skarzhinskaya