Everybody, welcome back to Torah Tuesday as we approach the beautiful holiday of Purim in the coming days. I wish everybody well and happiness. In this session on proper speech, we constantly go through the Sefer Chafetz Chaim. The Chafetz Chaim compiled it from many different places. Since there is no masechet (tractate) on it, he basically created the masechet of proper speech: what you're allowed to say, what you must say, what you must avoid saying, what you can repeat, what you're not allowed to repeat, how you repeat it, how you say it, and what your face looks like when you say it.
One of the things he brings up in the second Klal (principle), in the second chapter, is that a person may be in a group that's sitting around talking, which is always a dangerous situation, depending on who the people are. But you probably noticed in the past that in any such group, there's always one, two, possibly more amateur psychiatrists. I call them amateur psychiatrists. They analyze and enhance details about a person, showing they know, or you should know, what they know. The discussion usually includes not only the faults of a particular individual, as it comes around to this victim of the Lashon Hara (evil speech), but also an extended analysis of parents, friends, school, and how they impacted his personality. When the group gets involved in this armchair analysis, they make sure to include the most basic influence a person has: his family.
Now, I'm not knocking it. It's actually a very important basis in the judgmental nature of a bashert (destined match), a shidduch (a match). Who's the family? It could be the single most important: middot (character) and family. It's not how much money they have. It's not how famous they are. It's not what they do. It's, “How's the family? How's the family? How's the family?” And how is the person's character? How's their character? What is the nature of their character? In real estate, it's location, location, location. In people, it's middot, middot, and middot. And that comes from, and is based in, family, family, family.
So, the Torah tells us that sometimes this is damaging to an otherwise innocent person, to an otherwise very good person. His grandfather, his father, his brother—they do things that turn people off. They do things that are not acceptable. The Torah forbids us to discuss past faults or transgressions of a person or of his family. There are certain variations of this kind of Lashon Hara. A perfectly unacceptable, derogatory way of putting it is for somebody to say, “Well, you know, she does this.” And the comment from party B is, “Did you know her mother? I knew her mother. If you knew her mother, you'd know why she's like this. You'd understand everything.” Another common backhanded comment—a backhanded compliment—is, “Look how far she's come. I remember how she used to be.” Or, “Look at this person now, what their family is, what it was. I can't believe that family produced such a person.”
So, if the person's less-than-admirable past is well known, it still creates a situation where alluding to that past is called Lashon Hara, because it's negative. If she comes from a bad family, or a family whose members were crooks in business, or a family that got caught doing this and that, or a family that wasn't shomer Shabbat (Sabbath-observant), or a family that ate foods you shouldn't eat or did things you shouldn't do, and you say, “Oh, she came so far,” you may call it a compliment; the Torah calls it Lashon Hara.
I have a separate pamphlet here in my house, Lashon Hara V'Shidduchim, and there are many situations involving shidduchim, a bashert situation, making a match, but this applies. Separately from this class, if somebody is involved in recommending someone or turning them down—the opposite, not recommending them, recommending not to go with this person—you have to be very careful with the laws of Lashon Hara.
Now, there's another situation, the second law, which happens to be the next one in this section of the Sefer. It has to do with revelations. People come up with... Is it a revelation? Yes, a revelation. Yes, a revelation. You weren't the one who came up with the revelations. With all kinds of excuses, so as not to say no. An outright negative doesn't work.
Now, a person may want to reject the product; a person may want to decline a person's position with the company. The Chafetz Chaim cautions us that when a person is in a committee meeting and somebody is being reviewed to decide whether to give someone a raise or actually to let them go, or whether to hire a new teacher, a new salesperson, or a new vendor for the company, they go into a meeting of the powers that be, or of those who have something to do with this in this particular business.
Now, if the person is hired, everybody walks out smiling, and there's probably very little investigation as to what went on in the meeting. Got the job. He's dating the person. It's all go. It's all positive. But how about if the person was declined for the position? How about if the person was rejected for the shidduch, or the bashert, or the match? This victim, this rejected soul, really is concerned because that person thought, “The meeting, those people—do they know me? Don't they know me? If they do know me, how could they do this to me? I wonder who voted against?” And that question cannot be answered by anybody who was present in the meeting. You're not allowed to reveal the goings-on of a private meeting. If they wanted it public, they would have gone on TV. They would have put it on one of these social networks. They went into a closed-door meeting to make a decision. Nobody wanted their vote, their opinion, to become public.
Now the guy comes and sees his friend, who was one of the people in the meeting. He thinks this is his friend and wants to confirm it. So he tells him, “What happened? I thought I was a shoo-in.” What does the person say? “I really wanted you. But what could I do? I was outvoted.” What is that person saying? That's backhanded: “I voted yes. They voted no.” So now, if there were five people in the meeting, or six, or seven, there was one for you. That was me. The other six, I'm not allowed to tell you, but they outvoted me. If it's three, he's got it down pat: he voted for you, and two voted against you. It's the other two people. So it's a dangerous form of Lashon Hara to say that, and it really affected the future of this person. Saying, “I didn't have anything to do with it, but they did,” creates animosity, creates dislike, creates suspicion. This is something you're not allowed to reveal. You could never reveal what went on privately in public, even though it was said in front of several people.
The laws of Lashon Hara are a blueprint for human interaction. When we follow them, and follow them strictly, there's a purpose: to avoid strife, to avoid hatred, to avoid anger over things that were said that affected someone's life. A committee meeting to decide someone's future is a perfect atmosphere for secrecy. So, certain hurtful decisions or negative decisions must be made. And sometimes the committee is right not to hire that person. And they voted properly. But for that person to know who voted for and who voted against, that's called Lashon Hara.