Good afternoon. Well, actually, it’s the last 15 minutes of the morning. This past week, we began again one of the daily cycles of Hilchot Lashon Hara, the laws of proper speech, the work of Chafetz Chaim. Someone who reads daily according to the established calendar will complete the Sefer three times in one year. Every four months, we complete a cycle. The cycle of Sefer Chafetz Chaim requires repetition, requires explanation, and definitely requires consistent daily learning. Even completing it three times a year in the same year is really not enough.
So, as we approach this week’s Rosh Chodesh (new month), the Rosh Chodesh of the month of Shevat, we began again what was established as the daily system of learning Hilchot Lashon Hara. Today, I want to tell you about the daily cycle of Hilchot Lashon Hara. Today, I want to talk about what’s definitely learned in the system as Shevat round and, in the normal situation, before of Shabbat in the cycle. In other words, around Rosh Hashanah, we start; we finish the first cycle. Four months before Rosh Hashanah again, we start again. In between, we’re on cycle number two.
Sefer Chafetz Chaim says something amazing in his introduction. His introduction takes more than a few days to learn in the cycle. He says, “I wondered to myself: How is it possible that this Torah prohibition, this violation of din (law), of Lashon Hara, became so ignored, such a widespread hate, that so many people are not careful with proper speech?” So, in order to explain the answer to that question—why is it that so many people do not keep the laws of Lashon Hara, or proper speech?—he says it’s really several reasons, but one of them is that the Yetzer Hara, the evil inclination, strategizes so that people don’t follow the din to speak only proper speech.
He says very clearly that the average person is, first of all, not aware of the prohibition itself. For example, if you tell somebody, “Don’t say that; that’s Lashon Hara,” a very common and the most widespread answer is, “But it’s true. He did do, he did say, he did behave in the way that I am saying. It’s a fact that it’s true.” Guess what, my friend? Chafetz Chaim tells us that doesn’t make it proper speech. That’s still in the scope—in the scope of what we call Lashon Hara. Lashon Hara, in fact, is true. Information that’s false is not called Lashon Hara. In English, information that’s false is called slander, which means something that’s not true, something made up about a person. That’s also illegal, maybe even worse, but the fact that it’s true is no excuse to spread the word. It’s absolutely forbidden to speak negatively about another, even though what you’re saying is true.
Now, says the Chafetz Chaim, if you take somebody who’s a little more learned, a little more observant, he tries a new approach to Satan. He says, “You know, the good people—you certainly should not speak about your nice neighbor, your friend in shul (synagogue), your rabbi, your classmate, your worker who shares a common job or company. And they’re not such a bad guy. They’re not such an evil, wicked person. So that’s when I can’t talk. But if a guy is actually a bad guy who does bad things, who doesn’t behave properly, maybe that allows me to take advantage of the other person’s wickedness by allowing me to speak about them.” That’s the second way.
But if Satan finds that that tactic itself doesn’t work, says the Chafetz Chaim, then Satan could try a different approach. He makes it seem to a person: “I have no choice.” Most people are involved in conversation many, many times each day, and the only solution seems to be to ignore the laws of Lashon Hara, because it’s impossible to keep these laws. “I’m always talking about somebody, and I have to spread the word to protect other people. I have good cause.”
So now, once Satan has convinced people to speak Lashon Hara, he goes about spreading what we call misinformation, taking misinformation further, and drawing people into the incitement to listen to Lashon Hara. Why? Because they lack the knowledge of what is forbidden according to Halakha (Jewish law), and what, even though sometimes negative, could be permissible. But they’re not so well learned or well skilled, and so he makes it seem okay or unavoidable.
So, bottom line, the Chafetz Chaim tells us, the sin of Lashon Hara became small in the eyes of many. He’s not eating taref (non-kosher food). He’s not stealing or robbing from somebody. People become accustomed to what we call haki, gossip, talking, informing, and to not measuring our speech to Torah standards, to the point where Lashon Hara has no more status. The haki is in effect considered permissible because everybody does it and it’s so awful and so common. Who says it’s bad? Or you can even say, “This person is a chasid. This person is so pious and so beyond.” They’re the only ones who don’t speak Lashon Hara. For ordinary people, this particular behavior is irrelevant. It’s only a special breed, a very special group, a super pious group that accepts the optional, so to speak, stringency of not speaking negatively about another.
So all of the strategies of Satan, says the Chafetz Chaim in his introduction, are based on his ability to spread misinformation. Why? The laws of Lashon Hara were scattered throughout different areas of life and different subjects. And in the Talmud itself, the dinim, it’s not like you open up Masechet (tractate) Shabbat and learn about the Melachot (prohibited labors) of Shabbat. You open up Sukkah, and you find out how to make a sukkah (booth), what a sukkah is, and how to observe the Halakha of sukkah. There aren’t many places to look, and if it happens to be in another Masechet that happens to mention sukkah or a law of sukkah, fine. But the bulk is in a certain individual place, and that place is where you look to learn how to observe it.
So if you’re interested in any of the laws of the Torah, you sort of have a Masechet or a Siman (section) where those laws are written, and you can go. But the Chafetz Chaim says an amazing thing: When it comes to Lashon Hara, there’s nowhere to find it. There’s no specific Masechet. There’s no specific group of laws where you can find what is forbidden, what is permissible, how to guard yourself, or how to protect others by speaking negatively about someone who’s harmful or dangerous. How to be productive in the area of Lashon Hara is not so simple. There is no place to go. There’s nowhere to look.
So, the Chafetz Chaim says, he took it upon himself, at a specific place at a specific time, to go to Rabbeinu Yonah and others who categorize many of the laws of Chafetz Chaim, and to collect them and round them up into the Sefer Chafetz Chaim, which is sort of Masechet Lashon HaTov, the Masechet of proper speech. And for a person to accomplish avoidance of the sin and performance of proper speech, someone has to study Sefer Chafetz Chaim. It’s a collection of behavioral patterns and dinim, the do’s and don’ts of speech that a person must know in order to avoid violation of Hilchot HaLashon, the laws of speech.
I suggest you try it. You’re not too late. Don’t even start from the beginning. Between today and tomorrow morning, get a hold of one of the Sefarim of Chafetz Chaim, in English or Hebrew, but one with a daily calendar, so you can learn a little piece each day, about 15 minutes, and go through the entire Sefer in four months to learn how to speak, when to speak, when to be silent, and how to protect others through your speech, turning speech from a willy-nilly hefker (ownerless) into the real thing. Behatzlacha Rabba, Amen.