June 11, 2023|כ"ב סיון ה' אלפים תשפ"ג The Most Dangerous Type of Lashon Hara
Print ArticleI remember about eighteen years ago when I taught at SKA, the students told me one day that, let’s say, the hour from 11 am – 12 pm, will be designated as lashon hara hour. I didn’t understand what that meant. We have an hour to speak lashon hara? And then from 12-1 pm is treif hour when we can all go to McDonalds and Burger King? The students explained to me that for one hour, students would commit to do their utmost not to speak lashon hara. I thought that that was a beautiful idea. After all, it may be hard to control ourselves from speaking lashon hara for all hours of the day, so let’s work on improving our character one hour at a time. Of course, at 12 pm sharp I announced to my students, “Lashon hara hour is over, so now feel free to go ahead and say whatever you want about anyone!” Even though I made fun of this initiative, I thought that it was a valuable initiative. But here’s my question. What is the most dangerous type of lashon hara?
We generally assume that lashon hara is telling someone else something negative about a third person. Generally, there are two reasons why I might speak negatively about someone else. Perhaps I am insecure and the way I make myself feel good is to put down other people. I announce all of their flaws so that I and my listeners feel that I am better than them. Another reason why I may gossip about someone else is that I’m bored. I think that there is a minhag in some communities to extend Shabbat lunch until 4 pm or 5 pm. Now I’m wondering what do people talk about during all that time? Are they studying שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום together with their guests? Or maybe they are singing all the songs in the back of the NCSY bencher? If the minhag of the community is to extend the meal until 4 pm or 5 pm and we run out of things to say, what might we do? We might start to gossip. As such, the two most common reasons for gossip are to make myself feel good by mocking someone else and boredom.
But there’s a much more dangerous type of lashon hara and that’s what we read at the end of this week’s parsha. Miriam speaks lashon hara about Moshe and God punishes her for her behavior when she is afflicted with tzara’at. What Miriam did is something so serious that in Parshat Ki Teitzei Moshe singles it out among the teachings he delivers to the next generation before he dies. He tells them:
זָכ֕וֹר אֵ֧ת אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂ֛ה יְקֹוָ֥ק אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ לְמִרְיָ֑ם בַּדֶּ֖רֶךְ בְּצֵאתְכֶ֥ם מִמִּצְרָֽיִם:
Remember what God did to Miriam along the way after you left Egypt.
He tells them to watch out for Miriam-type behavior and many halachic authorities assert that this reminder is a daily obligation. We must specifically remember Miriam’s punishment and the cause of it, lashon hara, each and every day.
This bothers me, though. What did Miriam do that was so bad? Did she simply spread negative rumors about Moshe for no reason? The Torah states that:
וַתְּדַבֵּ֨ר מִרְיָ֤ם וְאַהֲרֹן֙ בְּמֹשֶׁ֔ה עַל־אֹד֛וֹת הָאִשָּׁ֥ה הַכֻּשִׁ֖ית אֲשֶׁ֣ר לָקָ֑ח כִּֽי־אִשָּׁ֥ה כֻשִׁ֖ית לָקָֽח:
Miriam and Aaron spoke about Moshe about the Kushite woman that he took because he had taken a Kushite woman.
Miriam criticizes Moshe seemingly for marrying a foreign woman, or according to some mefarshim, for marrying Tzippora and then separating from her. Miriam is critiquing Moshe’s behavior because he seems to have done something wrong and she probably thinks that it is inappropriate for anyone, let alone the leader of the Jewish people, to engage in this behavior. Is her criticism so bad? Isn’t it a healthy sign of a society when we can criticize a leader’s behavior if he or she doesn’t seem to be acting appropriately? Isn’t this לשון הרע לתועלת – for a purpose, which is permissible? Shouldn’t we feel that it is our responsibility to correct a leader’s behavior if he is acting inappropriately? Why does this behavior make it to a list of the top six things that we should remember each and every day?
Let’s review the facts of this story. Miriam speaks to Aaron about the Kushite woman that Moshe took, whatever that means. Miriam and Aaron then say that God speaks to them just like He speaks to Moshe. Then the Torah tells us that Moshe is the humblest person on earth. Then God summons Aaron and Miriam and tells them that Moshe is different than them. God gets angry and Miriam is afflicted with tzara’at.
What was Miriam’s real failure? Her failure was that she made a wrong assumption. She thought that Moshe was like Aaron and her, and therefore, he was subject to the same rules of abstinence from a spouse as them, assuming that was their complaint. What’s fascinating is that Moshe himself was guilty of the same failure a few years earlier. When God tells Moshe at the burning bush to lead the people, Moshe said, “והן לא יאמינו לי” – “and they won’t believe in me.” God then gives Moshe three signs, water that turned to blood, a staff that became a snake, and his hand briefly contracting tzara’at. Moshe used the first two signs against Pharaoh and the Egyptians, but not the third sign. The third sign, that Moshe’s hand contracted tzara’at, was in response to Moshe speaking negatively about the Jewish people based on wrong assumptions.
Sometimes I speak lashon hara to elevate my status or for pure enjoyment, but sometimes I speak lashon hara because I make faulty assumptions about someone else, because I didn’t give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Miriam erroneously assumed that she and Aaron were on the same spiritual level as Moshe and, therefore, Moshe had no right to act differently. Lashon hara is not only a crime of speech, but at times it is a crime of perception.
Do you know why we must specifically remember this event, this type of lashon hara, each and every day? Because it’s the most dangerous type of lashon hara. See, if I want to making myself feel good by putting someone else down, then I know deep down that I am behaving badly. If I mock someone because I am bored in search of entertainment, then I know deep down that I am behaving badly. But when I criticize someone because of a false perception like what Miriam did, then not only do I think that I’m not doing anything wrong, but I think I’m performing a mitzvah! And that’s why this type of lashon hara is so dangerous. Our society does this all the time. We don’t just disagree. We demonize each other! So many democrats and republicans in America and so many pro- and anti-judicial reformers in Israel don’t just disagree. They demonize each other. They think that they are doing a mitzvah demonizing the other side, when in fact, maybe they are not giving the other side the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they are not looking to tone down the rhetoric. They think that they are saving the country by attacking the opposition with such venom. This was Miriam’s sin. This is exactly why she was afflicted with tzara’at, and this is why we must remind ourselves of this failure each and every day.
I was listening to an 18Forty podcast this week when Dovid Bashevkin interviewed Moshe Koppel about the future of AI and Jewish education. Now Moshe Koppel is a Torah scholar, a computer genius and also the head of an Israeli conservative think tank, called the Kohelet Policy Forum. Many of the pro-judicial reforms are based on policy papers that his think tank published years ago. Now the most controversial aspects of the judicial reform proposals which have led to weekly protests have been the override clause, that 61 members of Knesset can override any judicial ruling, and the attempt to speedily pass these reforms without any meaningful political conversation. Moshe Koppel never supported the override clause and he is not at all involved in the implementation of his proposals. His think tank just writes policy papers and you can either agree or disagree with them. He does not involve himself in the politics of how to implement policy and yet he mentioned on the podcast how he has been accosted and literally called a demon many times. People can disagree with his policy and they can have a reasonable discussion on what’s best for the country, but many people demonized him based on wrong assumptions about what he said and that’s why this type of lashon hara is the most dangerous type of lashon hara.
The daily reminder of what happened to Miriam is a daily reminder to be intellectually humble, to be like Moshe. In the context of the story, the Torah tells us, “וְהָאִ֥ישׁ מֹשֶׁ֖ה עָנָ֣יו מְאֹ֑ד מִכֹּל֙ הָֽאָדָ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֖ר עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הָאֲדָמָֽה.” Rav Hirsch explains that the “איש,” that the most חשוב, the most important, and the most powerful man in the world, was also the humblest man in the world.
Study after study demonstrates that people that have more humility treat people that disagree with them in better ways and have less animosity towards them. The reason is that humble people realize that they often have cognitive biases which influence their way of thinking. They tend to see the humanity in people on the other side of an issue and give others the benefit of the doubt. Humble people tend to be more open to the dictum in Pirkei Avot (4:1), of “איזהו חכם הלומד מכל אדם” – who is wise? He who learns from everyone. These individuals realize that often our brains trick us into seeing only what we already believe and those with whom I disagree might have a good reason for disagreeing with me which I hadn’t considered. People with less humility would consider people who disagree with them to be suspect, unintelligent or morally deficient.
Hopefully, each and every day we will remind ourselves of the failure of Miriam and the danger of her lashon hara and how each one of us as a member of society must be more intellectually humble to fight this danger.