12 | MAY 4 • 2023
RUSSIA IS NOT HEALTHY
continued from page 10
PURELY COMMENTARY
I
’d like to talk a little bit
about the power of words
and kindness.
We’ve all heard, and
probably said, as children,
“Sticks and stones may break
my bones, but
words can never
hurt me.” How
untrue! We all
have seen the
emotional harm
that abusive
speech can do
to an individual.
We’ve also seen
the harm that hate speech
can do to a group, that vic-
tims can experience negative
emotional, mental and physi-
cal consequences.
In its use of stereotypes
and disinformation, hate
speech can be used to nor-
malize discrimination. And,
of course, hate speech can
lead to hate crimes such as
the one we witnessed in our
own region at the Tree of
Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh
in 2018.
Getting a little nearer to
home, a close relative of hate
speech, or abusive speech,
is gossip, lashon hara, in
Hebrew. I’m not throwing
stones here because, unfor-
tunately, I live in that glass
house. I’ve gossiped and still
occasionally do, in spite of
my best efforts.
The sages considered
lashon hara as bad as the
three cardinal sins, murder,
idolatry and incest. In the
Torah, the punishment God
inflicted on people who
engaged in lashon hara was
what today we would call
leprosy — a pretty extreme
punishment!
So why is lashon hara so
bad? It not only harms the
subject of the gossip but
also the person who gossips
and the person who hears it.
Gossiping about someone is
like emptying a feather pillow
into the wind: Once it’s done,
there’s no way to take it back.
It acquires a life of its own
and lives on, sometimes in a
distorted form, as it passes
from person to person.
How do we combat lashon
hara? What are its positive
counterparts? I believe they
are kindness and praise.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks,
former Chief Rabbi of the
UK, z”l, wrote a beautiful
essay about the power of
praise. In it, he quotes a
speech therapist whose tech-
nique for curing stammering
involved altering family
dynamics by requiring each
family member to observe
and praise an act of kind-
ness done by other family
members during the day. The
praise had to be daily, spe-
cific and sincere. The family
had to learn to both give
and receive praise, and this,
said Rabbi Sacks, created
an environment of “mutual
self-respect and continuous
positive reinforcement.”
How easy this seems to
do and what huge benefits
result!
Pirkei Avot (The Ethics of
the Fathers), a compilation of
ethical teachings and stories
from the Rabbinic Jewish
tradition, teaches us that the
world stands on three things:
Torah, the service of God
and acts of loving kindness.
My daughter and son-
in-law have a dinnertime
ritual that involves asking
my grandchildren, “What
have you done today that was
kind?” I’d like to suggest that
we, in our Hadassah family,
ask ourselves the same thing.
In our dealings with each
other every day, let us ask
ourselves, “Have we done
something kind? Have we
praised someone for a kind-
ness that person did?”
I’d like to close with a
quote from the prayer for
peace in the Conservative
prayer book, Siddur Sim
Shalom: “[W]e have not
come into being to hate or to
destroy, we have come into
being to praise, to labor and
to love.”
Mandy Garver is president of
Hadassah Greater Detroit.
Mandy
Garver
guest column
How to Combat Lashon Hara:
The Power of Words and Kindness
Russia, I began writing articles
as one of my forms of advocacy,
including in the Princeton High
School student newspaper.
People commented on my being
a Jewish student at a particularly
WASPy school, in a particularly
wealthy community, writing
about the imperative of freeing
Jews from Russia. For most, it
was the first exposure any of my
fellow students knew about the
antisemitic treachery of Soviet
policies.
Today, the imperative to do so
has come full circle. Espionage
was one of the trumped-up
charges the Soviets would use
against Jews in the past. It seems
that it’s a play in Russia’s play
book as well under Putin, a
former KGB agent.
As much as things have
changed in the past decades, it’s
astounding to see how much
things have stayed the same. The
pin and bumper sticker I still have
from my Soviet Jewry activism
days, “Russia is Not Healthy for
Jews and Other Living Things,
”
are more than just nostalgic
collectors’ items, but still a sad
truth.
The Soviets then, and Russia
today, need motivation to
change. Optics matter. In the
1980s, I initiated protests at the
Russian Embassy in Washington,
participated in other massive
protests, and called Soviet
embassies all over the world to
make my protest heard in their
offices, to frustrate and embarrass
them, and make it no longer
worthwhile to use Jews or others
as pawns. The Russian Embassy
in Washington, D.C., can be
reached at (202) 298-5700.
Jonathan Feldstein was born and educat-
ed in the U.S. and immigrated to Israel in
2004. He has become a respected bridge
between Jews and Christians leading the
Genesis 123 Foundation (Genesis123.co). He
writes regularly on major Christian web sites
about Israel and shares experiences of liv-
ing as an Orthodox Jew in Israel. He can be
reached at FirstPersonIsrael@gmail.com.
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