44 | MARCH 31 • 2022

went on to say that she had
helped save their marriage. This
was extraordinary. She was, after
all, not a marriage guidance
counselor but a speech therapist.
Yet so powerful was this one
simple ritual that it had mas-
sive beneficial side effects, one
of which was to transform the
relationship between husbands
and wives.

THE POWER OF WORDS
I mention this for two reasons,
one obvious, the other less so.
The obvious reason is that the
Sages were puzzled about the
major theme of Tazria-Metzora,
the skin disease known as
tsaraat. Why, they wondered,
should the Torah focus at such
length on such a condition? It is,
after all, not a book of medicine,
but of law, morality and spiri-
tuality.
The answer they gave was
that tsaraat was a punishment
for lashon hara: evil, hateful or
derogatory speech. They cited
the case of Miriam, who spoke
negatively about her brother
Moses and was struck by tsaraat
for seven days (Num. 12). They
also pointed to the incident
when at the burning bush
Moses spoke negatively about
the Israelites and his hand was
briefly affected by tsaraat (Ex.
4:1-7).
The Sages spoke more dra-
matically about lashon hara than
any other offence. They said
that it was as bad as committing
all three cardinal sins: idolatry,
incest and murder. They said
that it kills three people: the one
who says it, the one he says it
about and the one who listens
to it. And in connection with
Tazria-Metzora, they said that
the punishment fitted the sin.
One who speaks lashon hara
creates dissension within the
camp. Therefore, his punish-

ment as a metsora (a person
stricken with tsaraat) was to be
temporarily banished from the
camp.
So far, so clear. Don’t gossip
(Lev. 19:16). Don’t slander.
Don’t speak badly about peo-
ple. Judaism has a rigorous and
detailed ethics of speech because
it believes that “Life and death
are in the power of the tongue”
(Prov. 18:21).
Judaism is a religion of the
ear more than the eye; of words
rather than images. God created
the natural world with words,
and we create or damage the
social world with words. We do
not say, “sticks and stones may
break my bones but words will
never harm me.
” To the con-
trary, words can cause emotion-
al injuries that are as painful as
physical ones, perhaps more so.
So Lena Rustin’s rule of praise
is the opposite of lashon hara.
It is lashon hatov: good, positive,
encouraging speech. According
to Maimonides, to speak in
praise of people is part of the
command to “love your neigh-
bor as yourself.
” That is straight-
forward.
But at a deeper level, there is
a reason why it is hard to cure
people of lashon hara and hard-
er still to cure them of gossip in
general. The American sociol-
ogist Samuel Heilman wrote
an incisive book, Synagogue
Life, about a Modern Orthodox
congregation of which, for
some years, he was a member.
He devotes an entire lengthy
chapter to synagogue gossip.
Giving and receiving gossip, he
says, is more or less constitutive
of being part of the community.
Not gossiping defines you as an
outsider.

WHAT ABOUT GOSSIP?
Gossip, he says, is part of “a tight
system of obligatory exchange.
”
The person who scorns gossip
completely, declining to be
either donor or recipient, at the
very least “risks stigmatization”

and at the worst “excludes him-
self from a central activity of
collective life and sociability.
” In
short, gossip is the lifeblood of
community.
Now, not only Heilman but
probably every adult member
of the community knew full
well that gossip is biblically
forbidden and that negative
speech, lashon hara, is among
the gravest of all sins. They
also knew the damage caused
by someone who gives more
gossip than he or she receives.
They used the Yiddish word
for such a person: a yenta. Yet
despite this, argued Heilman,
the shul was in no small mea-
sure a system for the creation
and distribution of gossip.
Synagogue Life was pub-
lished 20 years before Oxford
anthropologist Robin Dunbar’s
famous book, Grooming, Gossip
and the Evolution of Language.
Dunbar’s argument is that, in
nature, groups are held togeth-
er by devoting a considerable
amount of time to building
relationships and alliances.
Non-human primates do
this by “grooming,” stroking
and cleaning one another’s
skin (hence the expression,
“If you scratch my back, I’ll
scratch yours”). But this is very
time-consuming and puts a
limit on the size of the group.
Humans developed language
as a more effective form of
grooming. You can only stroke
one animal or person at a time,
but you can talk to several at
a time. The specific form of
language that bonds a group
together, says Dunbar, is gos-
sip — because this is the way
members of the group can learn
who to trust and who not to. So
gossip is not one form of speech
among others. According to
Dunbar, it is the most primal
of all uses of speech. It is why
humans developed language in
the first place. Heilman’s account
of synagogue life fits perfectly
into this pattern. Gossip creates

community, and community is
impossible without gossip.
If this is so, it explains why
the prohibitions against gossip
and lashon hara are so often
honored in the breach, not
the observance. So common
is lashon hara that one of the
giants of modern Jewry, R.
Yisrael Meir ha-Cohen (the
Chofetz Chaim) devoted much
of his life to combatting it. Yet it
persists, as anyone who has ever
been part of a human group
knows from personal experi-
ence. You can know it is wrong,
yet you and others do it anyway.
This is why I found Lena
Rustin’s work to have such
profound spiritual implica-
tions. Her work had nothing
to do with gossip, but without
intending to she had discov-
ered one of the most powerful
antidotes to lashon hara ever
invented. She taught people to
develop the habit of speaking
well of one another. She taught
them to praise, daily, specif-
ically and sincerely. Anyone
who uses Lena’s technique for a
prolonged period will be cured
of lashon hara. It is the most
effective antidote I know.
What is more, her technique
transforms relationships and
saves marriages. It heals what
lashon hara harms. Evil speech
destroys relationships. Good
speech mends them. This works
not only in marriages and fam-
ilies, but also in communities,
organizations and businesses.
So, in any relationship that mat-
ters to you, deliver praise daily.
Seeing and praising the good
in people makes them better
people, makes you a better per-
son and strengthens the bond
between you. This really is a
life-changing idea.

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

served as the chief rabbi of the

United Hebrew Congregations of the

Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teach-

ings have been made available to all at

rabbisacks.org. This essay was written

in 2017.

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

continued from page 43