Rabbi Yossi and Sara
Michal Touger will be making the Bris for their son this Sunday, ב ניסן April 10th, at Congregation Beis Menachem, 360
route 306, at 12:30 p.m.
Happenings of the Chabad Lubavitch אנ"ש community of Rockland County, New York
Friday, April 8, 2016
Parsha Perspective
By Rabbi
Yisroel Shusterman
This
week’s Parsha Perspective is dedicated by Mr. Binyomin Philipson in memory of
his late mother Mrs. Ellen (Elka bas Zisel) Philipson OBM
Did you know that it
is possible for a person to be murdered and not even know about it, even
carrying on life as usual?
How can this be?
This week’s Torah reading (Tazria [Leviticus] 12:1-13:59))
speaks of the affliction known as tzara’at. The commentators explain that tzara’at (a
word uncannily similar to tzores!) was a punishment for the transgression
of speaking lashon hara. Lashon hara, translated literally, means “the
evil tongue” or “evil speech,” which includes slander, gossip and rumors, among
other things.
As the old British
wartime adage goes, “Careless talk costs lives.” The Talmud relates
in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani: “Why is the evil tongue
called a thrice-slaying tongue? Because it kills three people: the person
speaking, the person spoken to, and the person being spoken about.” It may not
kill them physically, but it is character assassination.
Maimonides adds
a further dimension: sometimes a person may say something that is not quite
slander or gossip. Yet, as his statement passes from person to person, it
eventually does cause harm, trouble, fright or hurt to the party being spoken
about.
For example, even
praising a person, if done in front of that person’s enemy who is liable to
react negatively, could come under the category of slander or gossip.
Orchot Tzadikim (“Ways
of the Righteous” an anonymous book on Jewish ethics written in Germany in
the 15th century) comments: “Before you speak, you are the master of your
words. After you speak, your words master you.” How often we feel imprisoned by
our own words after we have said something that we wish we hadn’t or know we
shouldn’t have.
The Midrash relates
that Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel asked his servant, Tavi, to buy him
something good from the market. The servant returned with some tongue. Rabbi Shimon then
asked his servant to buy something bad from the market. The servant returned
with more tongue. “How can this be? I asked you to buy something good, you
bought tongue; I asked you to buy something bad, you also bought tongue?”
Replied Tavi, “It has good and bad. When it is good, it has a lot of goodness.
When it is bad, it is very bad.”
We speak thousands
of words every day. Words have enormous power. May we merit to use them only
for good purposes.
(Excerpts
from Chabad.org - from Rabbi Mordechai Wollenberg)
May you have a meaningful and uplifting Shabbos!
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