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