Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Daily Advice. Rabbi Zishoni here. Thank you for joining us. Everyone listening online, in the chat, and live: blessed is Hashem, and blessed is the word of Hashem. Hashem has a message for us today.
Today, AJ chose the topic of speech. The Rabbi is right: life and death are in the power of the tongue. We have spoken before about how everyone wants to live a dual life. A person wants to live in this world and in the World to Come. We know the famous Mishnah in Peah, which is also discussed in the Gemara in Kiddushin. The Gemara writes that there are things whose fruits a person enjoys in this world while the principal remains for the next world: honoring one's father and mother, acts of kindness, hospitality, visiting the sick, and other wonderful things that a person does.
Let us take a look at some of them. First, acts of kindness. How does one perform acts of kindness? The Gemara tells us that if a person comes and wants to do kindness for his father—even if he provides him with a beautiful meal—but treats him disdainfully, speaks to him degradingly, and does not speak to him nicely, he receives Gehinnam for such behavior. This means that the essence of acts of kindness is expressed through the mouth, through the way we speak to another person.
You want to give someone something; there is the mitzvah of encouragement. It is very important and very nice to give charity—it is wonderful. But if you do not give it with respect, with a kind word, with compassion, or with a kind gesture, then the entire mitzvah is flawed. There is this qualification.
The same is true of honoring one's parents. It all depends on the way you speak to them. It is also true of visiting the sick. What is the essence of visiting the sick? A person comes and sits next to the sick individual. That is certainly very nice, and the Gemara says that a person receives reward for it. But what is the main part of visiting the sick? One should pray for the person. Again, it all depends on the mouth.
The same applies to hospitality. Have you ever gone to someone's house after being invited, only to find the host sitting in the corner, bent over and dejected? He does not invite you properly, does not ask you to come in, does not speak to you, and does not address you. It makes no sense. How do you bring two people together? How do you make peace among people and create tranquility and serenity? How do you accomplish that?
As Yitzchak Avinu writes, that is the way it is: We try to accomplish things with our hands and with our abilities, without realizing that our connection to the garden of blessing and prosperity is created through our mouths.
The Creator gave us the mouth as a tool of unprecedented power. It is said that the Children of Ishmael have a great merit because they pray five times a day. They pray five times, and that practice continues to this day. Until today, the Children of Ishmael are powerful because they have the opportunity to pray five times a day.
But we do not realize that our three prayers are stronger than their five prayers. Their five prayers are diluted; they are not as potent or as powerful. We have to recognize the power we possess, the strength we possess, the weaponry and artillery we possess. We do not have to depend solely on ourselves.
That is why I always say that my three favorite words in the entire Amidah are: “Because in You we trust.” We hope in Hashem, so we should speak to Hashem. Talk to the Creator of the World wherever you are: in the car, on the train, before entering a customer’s place, before making a sale, before buying something, or before taking medicine. The Rabbi said that when a person takes medicine, he is supposed to say something as well. Speak, speak.
When a person speaks, he brings down prosperity. As the Gemara says, if I only think something, it is not as strong; I have to say it. I have to bring it out. When it emerges from my mouth, it has power.
Shabbat Shalom, everybody. Have a wonderful, wonderful Shabbat.