Lashon HaTov (good speech) and Lashon Hara (evil speech): we avoid Lashon Hara, and we have to learn how to speak properly. We are following the calendar of the Chafetz Chaim's Sefer, which has a daily learning schedule that enables a person to learn the entire Sefer three times in one year. Every four months, we finish the entire book. The study of Lashon Hara and Rechilut (talebearing) starts on Rosh Hashanah, continues into Shabbat, and then we start again for the third and final cycle, which ends on Erev Rosh Hashanah. Today is Day 51.
In the third cycle, there is a misconception. It's called, “But everybody does it,” or everybody says it, or everybody thinks that way. That doesn't make something that's forbidden mutar (permitted). And especially when it comes to business practices—advertising, marketing, and sales—a person may think that because many people do it, or the market does it, it's permitted. However, the halacha (Jewish law) doesn't look at your self-made heterim (dispensations). The halacha is plain and simple.
Very often, we have what's called a marketing tool, and it's often instigated by a question. A person is shopping and is involved with someone who does, in fact, provide that item or service. They ask the salesperson, “You seem to be a little more expensive than the competition.” They may tell you who the competition is, or they may not. But they do make a point to ask, “What makes yours better or worth the money?” It's a good question, and there is a proper way to answer it. But there's a very improper, illegal, asur (forbidden) way to answer it. Instead of building up the merits of his own product, he starts to knock the competitor's product: “Of course, he's less money. It's a cheap product. If you check the sizing, you'll see he's an inch shorter and an inch narrower at the chest. If you check his fabric, you'll see his fabric is not the proper quality,” or, “He's using cheaper types of fabrics than I'm using.” Rather than say anything good about his own product, he only knocks the competitor's product.
If you say, “But that's Lashon Hara,” the answer is, “That's business.” It says in the Chafetz Chaim that such talk, such speech, such marketing, is not an excuse for speaking Lashon Hara. It's a very common practice, but it's also a very improper practice.
Now, the obvious motivation is: “I'm trying to sell more, I'm trying to earn a living, trying to support my family, I'm trying to pay my tuition, so I guess everything goes, maybe.” But there's also a second motivation. Sometimes it's jealousy. You have someone who makes a beautiful product, it sells very well, and a lot of the people who are not buying from your firm are buying from that other person because he has either a better price, a better product, better quality, or something. Lashon Hara is an attempt to convince others of what he would like to believe: that my item is superior to the other.
In fact, the Chafetz Chaim, in a later section of the Sefer, deals with a case where the salesperson, or the one answering the product question, is speaking for the benefit of the buyer, the prospective buyer. The customer. And that's called leto'elet. He should know about the dishonest practices. He should know about the scrimping on quality. He should know certain things because he's going to buy and resell, or buy and use it. It's not going to last. He's going to buy and get harmed by spending money on a less-than-quality product.
So if I want to help him, it's the same as if I want to tell somebody, “This shidduch (match), this situation, this match, is not made in heaven.” In fact, it's made in heaven. In fact, it's made in heaven. The person has a flaw you should know about. It may concern you enough to break the shidduch.
So, bottom line, you should think about ways it's possible to help. And when it comes to Lashon Hara leto'elet, when it is Lashon Hara for a positive, constructive purpose—to help a person—we've learned so many times in this class that there is a way to speak, but you must fulfill seven real, conditional conditions, 100% across the board, all, not part, in order to allow you to speak what is Lashon Hara, but for the benefit and protection of another. This is not the case.
So the Chafetz Chaim tells us there's a difference between this and others. But he also wants to tell us how bad it is when two people join together: the sin is even greater than if one person related the negative or harmful information. Because “al pi shnayim edim o shlosha edim yakum davar” (By two witnesses or three witnesses shall a matter be established). When you hear something from more than one source, it has the veracity and validity of like two witnesses in a court. It's more likely to be believed. It has credence.
Let's say you hear something negative about somebody you don't know. You could brush it off and say, “I hope it's not true.” You could believe it—I don't know—but it's not the same as if, in the morning, you go to shul (synagogue) and hear something, and by the time you get to lunch, somebody else tells you the same thing. At first, you may accept it with a grain of salt and say, “I shouldn't believe everything I hear.” Or you might say you might be biased, or you might not know all the facts. But when you hear the same information from two different people, you see it as widely held, you see it as valid, and you see it as true.
The second person is more at fault than the first, because that's the one who gave credibility to the negative statement. So, in any conversation where Lashon Hara has been spoken, somebody may chime in, add to it, and say, “Yeah, me too. Yeah, I heard the same thing. Not only that. Not only that, but...” That's a very common addition, but you have to avoid that, because when you do that, you raise the credibility and make it believable. Then somebody might accept it and cause harm to another, and that's Lashon Hara on steroids.