Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

My dear friends, tonight we are going to continue with day number 137 on page 7, 6, 7 Boeing, Boeing 767. Here we go. In the Gate of Slander, the Treasure for Life edition of the Yorh HaSaddikim, Kaas Misapri Lashon Hara Nechlekes Lashi Shachalokim. There are six dimensions of those who speak Lashon Hara. Now, why is he bringing up the six, the Kaas Misapri, the group of slanderers? The group of slanderers,
because there are four groups our Talmud teaches us that Hashem wants nothing to do with them. Those who speak falsehood, those who speak Lashon Hara, those who speak flattery, falsehood, flattery, Lashon Hara. I don't remember the fourth one. But either way, the, the, here the author is going to give us the six different dimensions of those who speak Lashon Hara. HaEchod, Misha Omeral Bnei Adam, someone who speaks negatively about, about people. Kainasu V'losu, they did this, they didn't do that.
V'lofamim Yom Radofi Al'adam Kosher V'noki, and sometimes they'll say negative things about someone who's totally innocent. Oz hu Mishaker V'gam Misapri Lashon Hara. He's also speaking slander, and he's also saying something which isn't truthful. V'huzharnu Min HaToru Shololikah B'Loshon Hara Ulay Hu Sheker. And we know that the Torah teaches us that we should not listen, we should not accept the slander of another person. Chavetz Haim teaches us that the worst thing is the person who receives and accepts the Lashon Hara.
It's one thing terrible when someone speaks Lashon Hara, but you're gonna be the recipient, you're gonna accept what he says. Just take it, no problem. He said it, it's got to be true. He said it has to be that this is accurate. No, maybe he's lying. Maybe he's not accurate in his details. Maybe one little point that he's leaving out is a big, big, big part of that story.
You know what? How many times did we rush to judgment about another person only to find out that we were missing part of the information? We were missing an essential piece of information, and I saw with my own eyes! Yeah, but you're missing the whole back end of the story. One of my favorite stories about this is there was a story about a man whose daughter got engaged and and he wasn't well off at all. He needed help from the community, and the rabbi and members of the congregation,
you know, put some money together, and they gave him a modest gift so that he can marry off his daughter with dignity. They come to the wedding, comes the wedding night, and they see it's one of the fanciest weddings they've ever been to. It is dripping with every luxury you can imagine, and they are livid. This is what we raised money for? We gave this guy charity out of the goodness of our heart, and he throws down such a wedding? The flowers are, you know,
it's just like you've never seen before, and the menu of the food wasn't like, you know, a little simple chicken and whatever. It was every kind of meat you can imagine. The smorgasbord was just like, it was unbelievable. They were livid. The next day after the wedding, no one wants to say mazel tov to the guy. Everyone's ignoring him. No one's even paying attention to him. So he goes over to the rabbi, and he's like, what's going on? Like, why am I getting such a cold shoulder?
Nobody's saying a word to me. He says, what do you mean? You have a chutzpah to come here and to ask me such a question? When, when I raised money with my congregation, we raised money for you, and that's the wedding you throw from charity? See, he says, I'll be honest with you. I was surprised by the wedding too. He says, let me tell you what happened. When I came to the caterer to sign the contract for the wedding,
so I told him, we told him we want a very modest wedding, you know, we're not people of means at all. Obviously, he knew he had to, he got charity money from the community to help pay for the wedding. He says, we're very, we can't afford anything. This is no problem. We'll make it work in your budget. They fill out the application, and he sees the name on the application. He says, one second, who, who are you? Who's your father? Who's your grandfather? And
they do a little bit of schmoozing, a little bit of Jewish geography, and it turns out that this man's father, the bride's grandfather, saved the caterer's father's life back in Europe. And he said, my whole life, my father was always telling me how grateful he was that this man saved his life. He says, now your daughter is getting married. He says, whatever money you want to give, you give. I'm making this wedding for you. He says, I walked in and I was embarrassed by what the caterer put out.
But this was his way of giving and showing appreciation for my father saving his father's life. You understand that people rush to judgment. What do you mean? I was there. I saw it. I raised the money. I gave him the money. I knew that he said he didn't have the money. It's all the facts are true. But you're missing such an essential part of the story. And how many times are we in a situation where we just don't have all the pieces of the story?
We think we do because we were there. We saw it. I saw it with my own eyes. It has to be. My eyes don't lie to me. That's true, but you're missing a piece of the story, an essential piece of the story. So here the author continues. He says, We should not accept a false report. Maybe it's a lie. You shall not accept a false report. Someone who speaks Lashon Hara will also accept Lashon Hara. When the person listens and accepts the Lashon Hara,
it's as if he's the speaker of the Lashon Hara. Because you're the accepting party of this story, of this tale, of this slander, they say, yeah, he believed me. So now he takes that as like, OK, I can go on to the next person. Imagine, Mark, I walk over to you and I say, Mark, listen, I got to tell you something. You know, that that person, terrible guy, terrible. He says, really? Wow. I always suspected him. I always thought there was something. Right.
Now what happens? Now I just got credibility on my story and now I can run around and tell everybody that. But what happens if Mark did the right thing and Mark says, you know, the Lashon Hara, how dare you talk about somebody like that? So now I'll be very hesitant to share that information with other people. That blowback that the listener pushed back against the speaker in such a case, doing the right thing will mitigate the damage of future slanders being spoken by this person.
Because if someone accepts it, we say, oh, it's got to be true. He's just listening, but he's not agreeing. He's listening, he's paying attention. Now, since other people are there and they see this person telling you the story, they say, oh, he didn't yell at him. He didn't talk back to him and tell him, don't say such things. It must be he approves. Because we know there's a there's a famous principle in the Talmud that silence is like agreement.
So he was silent. So it must be he agrees. He says, if he, if you would tell him, talk down against his slander, you would not tell anybody else. Now that he agrees with him and he gives him the attention, he gives him the approval. Yeah. Oh, wow. I can't believe it. Right. So terrible. Now you just gave him the nod to continue telling other people. Because what's going to happen naturally when we hear Lashon Hara, we're not allowed to accept it.
One, not one iota of it, because what's going to happen? Inevitably, we're going to believe some of it. We're going to say, yeah, that's what. Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. I don't like that. I always thought something was wrong with the guy or, you know, whatever it may be. We we have to disavow it. One hundred percent. One hundred percent. It's going to minimize our value of the person who is spoken about. So I want to give a quick example of how this works.
OK, imagine, you know, Lauren, you know, we've met hundreds of times online, on Zoom, at classes. Right. But but we've never met in person. Hopefully one day soon we'll meet in person. But, you know, I see Lauren here every week. He looks like the finest guy, finest guy, a mensch, a real a real nice guy. So he has, in my eyes, from day number one, a thousand, I would say, human value credits, human value credits, let's call it.
Now, every time someone comes over to me and says, you know, you know, Lauren Hoff, great guy, what a great guy. He lives next to me in Sarasota. He's such a mensch. He brings up my garbage bin for me as well. You know, he takes out the recycling bin for every. He's such a great guy. Right. So now where does that thousand human credits go? It goes up to a thousand twenty. And then someone else I meet, he says, so honest in business. Thousand forty.
Another person says, oh, he's such a you should see how nice he is to his children, to his wife. Unbelievable. It now goes to eleven hundred human value credits. Right. It keeps on growing. But imagine if the opposite is true. Someone says, oh, that guy. Whoo. Better be careful. Better be. I'm not I'm not telling you anything, but just be careful. Be careful. There are people gotten burnt by him. I don't want to say Lashon Hara, which in itself is Lashon Hara, right?
So now where did that human value credit go? It went from a thousand to about nine eighty. Well, I'm not so sure we got to be careful. Stay on your tippy toes. Right. And someone else says, you know, I had a couple of experiences. I don't know. Right. It goes down. When human beings, the creations of God, when their human value goes down. Shem gets very upset. You should be lifting up everybody. You should be raising everybody up.
And now you're going ahead and speaking slander against other people, putting them down. What do you mean? But it's justified. Do you know how he fired me from the company? Do you know how he dealt with me? Do you know how he didn't keep his word? Do you know everyone's got stories? But is that elevating people or is that putting people down? Where is that human value credit going? Is it going up or is it going down? Lashon Hara is always putting people down.
It's always knocking down. Hashem makes such incredible creations. And we're the one pointing fingers saying, look at that guy. He's a no good Nick. Look at him. Did you see what he did? Did you see what that guy did? And this is a terrible thing. So that's that's point number one. The first dimension of negative speech, of slander. Hasheni, Ki sheomer lashon hara shuhu emes When a person speaks truthful slander, Yim yazkir lo b'nola ve'in atzmo ma sa'avos havaroyim
Overall, ma shekoseh b'toro ve'lo sonu ishe samiso There's a verse in the Torah that says, Do not cause pain to another person. Do not wrong another person. Lo sonu ishe samiso You're causing pain when you talk about somebody else, about their ancestors. You're talking about anybody here. I don't care how great your relationship was with your mom, your dad. But when you talk negatively about someone's parents, it hurts. It hurts. Even if it's not true, it hurts. You know why?
Because naturally, a child associates themselves by their parents. Even if the parents are deceased. We associate our identity. Where do I come from? I come from my parents. Now, we're not talking about if someone had trauma from their parents. We're not talking about... Obviously, there are different scenarios, different situations in every person's life. But in most normal situations, a person feels a connection with their parents. Their father with their mother. You say, you know, your father is a cheat.
Your mother is this. Your father is that. Your brother is this. Your brother is that. Your sister is this. Whatever it may be, people take very... They can be calm about every negative slander you can say. You talk about my family? Oh, now you messed with me. Why? Because that's my identity. My identity. Where I come from. That's something which is very personal for every person. Don't cause another person pain. It's a Biblical prohibition in the Torah.
It's talking about wronging someone with words. The third dimension. Also, if someone shames a person. You embarrass someone. You talk about their parents' sins in front of other people. The Mishnah already tells us that if you embarrass someone in public, you have no portion of the world to come. If you say lashon hara about somebody in public, which usually it is, you know what you just did? You just took away your own portion of the world to come. You got rid of it.
All the good things that you did to get a portion of the world to come are gone. Because of the lashon hara that was spoken. The fourth dimension of the lashon hara. This is the Talmud. The fourth dimension consists of one who mentions the abominations of one's ancestors before others, but not in his presence. You talk about it not in front of the person. So you're not embarrassing him, but you're talking about his parents. Not in front of him.
With the object of shaming him in the eyes of others, and to humiliate him and make him hate it. About this our sages tell us, the class of slanders does not receive the Divine Presence. And this concludes day number 137.

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