blogs/rabbi-huberman

Most Jews are aware the Torah forbids us from eating pork.

There are theories about this prohibition, but the truth is we don't really know why. The Torah just says don't - twice.

In just this same way, our tradition also tells us we are forbidden from gossiping. This anathema is reinforced again and again in our sacred texts.

It was the great social activist Rabbi Israel Salantar (1810-1883) who, with some discomfort, compared the two prohibitions and concluded:

"Every Jew knows that [eating pork] is forbidden. The Torah commands us many more times to refrain from gossip and hurtful speech, yet many observant Jews do not sense that they are violating the Torah when they speak ill of others."

Violations are everywhere. Gossip is almost impossible to avoid: it is, and always has been, a fundamental part of our social fabric. But the era we're living in confronts us with some truly unique challenges.

Tweets, texts, Messenger, Instagram posts, ad infinitum -- are all also potentially lethal conduits of gossip.

Whenever I turn on the television, I am truly flabbergasted by the number of programs -- reality shows, cable news programs, you name it -- dedicated to gossip.

And, really, who among us hasn't peeked at the cover of the National Enquirer, as we stand in the grocery checkout line?

We're all vulnerable to it. But we must remember that this isn't harmless fun: it's an assault on dignity, and an assault on the very idea of truth.

The Talmud teaches us that when lashon hara --gossip -- is uttered, it produces three casualties: the subject of it, the person who spoke it, and the person who listened to it.

Those are high stakes, and this is why this week, many rabbis across the Jewish world are focusing on gossip as a disease of the soul.

On the surface, this week's Torah portion, Tazria-Metzora, is one of most invasive and gross in all of scripture. It runs the gamut: mold, skin diseases, bodily excretion.

It's tempting, I can tell you, for a rabbi to just shy off and change the subject.

But we're not doing that. There are diseases that are just as disgusting, just as dangerous, even if you can't see or smell them.

As we will read in coming weeks, Moses's wife, Zipporah begins to fade from sight. It's possible that the long hours Moses devotes to leadership responsibilities contribute to an unhealable rift in Moses's and Zipporah's marriage.

Ultimately, Moses remarries a North African woman - and tongues begin to wag, particularly from within his own family.

The Torah tells us: "And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married." (Numbers 12:1)

Soonafter, Miriam develops a skin disease. And our Sages make a connection.

The association of the act of gossip with soul sickness is one that the Chofetz Chaim (1839-1933), among many other great rabbis, have put a fine point on. Here's what gossip does:

It makes our souls itch.

It enslaves us into the need to build ourselves up at the expense of others.

It conditions us to greet the misfortune of others not with pity, love, or action, but with glee.

Gossip, as an epidemic, is as old as social behavior itself. As soon as there were three people, two of them were talking about the third. We're certainly not even the first generation to monetize our common weakness for gossip.

But now gossip is a multi-billion-dollar titan of industry, and it couldn't have achieved that without our permission and participation. Lashon hara on this scale is truly overwhelming, but we are not powerless.

Let's start at home.

A smartphone in the hands of a child has almost unparalleled power. Is your child ready to absorb everything he or she is reading? Have you guided your child's communication skills enough to handle the worlds this phone opens up?

You not only have a right to supervise the communications of your children: you have a duty to ensure that they treat others with kindness, and that they understand how to react to unkindness.

Our Sages also tell us that parents have an obligation to teach "proper words" to our children. At the dinner table, are we guiding the conversation in a positive direction?

None of us is immune from the compulsion to gossip -- to share the skinny, to use distorted half-truths about others. That can occur online, at home, in the workplace or at the local Starbucks.

And we all know what it is to be the victim of that kind of behavior. It's devastating. We may be better at swallowing it down as adults and getting on with our days, but that pain never really changes or lessens.

Child suicide rates in this country are on the rise, and so much of the reason for that comes back to cyberbullying -- debasing, demeaning, mocking, or threatening people through social media and telecommunication.

There are worse things than disgusting skin diseases. This week, the Torah reminds us of that.

Our tradition continuously reinforces the real connection between thoughts and words, and how both affect the condition of our bodies and souls.

As Sages within many traditons have noted, "The body is the scorekeeper of the soul."

It behooves us, then, during this week of "uncomfortable" Torah topics, to reflect upon the words that we project into the world, whether they exit our lips or come off our thumbs.

We need to ask: How are we training our children to use words, and is doing nothing contributing to the spread of this disease?

The Torah commands us in the Shema to "teach these words to our children." These words may have meant one thing two thousand years ago, but they can mean something else today.

It begins at home, in the behavior we model, and images we project or tolerate.

In the beginning, God used words to create the world. So what about us? Are we using words to build or to destroy? To heal or fractured world, or to pollute it beyond recognition?

As poet Elise Sobel wrote:

    Cruel words like feathers fly
    Cruel words reach far and wide
    They leave the mouth a bitter rind
    May all your words, my friend, be kind.

Let us therefore resolve this week and every week to use words to create rather than destroy.

Whether we realize it or not, lashon hara -- gossip -- is a disease which continues to spread.

As the Torah inspires us to consider this week -- we need to be just as careful what comes out of our mouths as what goes in.

Words do have power. Let us therefore resolve to use them to repair, rather than destroy, our beloved and sacred world.

Shabbat Shalom v'kol tuv.

Rabbi Irwin Huberman