This important essay was first published in our print edition 20 years ago.
Awareness of the Need for Change
In our times, we are witnessing a widespread awakening of
interest in the study of the halochos of loshon
hora and rechilus. The enormity of the sin of
speaking loshon hora and the tremendous merit for
refraining from derogatory speech, have become common
knowledge, as a result of the influence of the holy Chofetz
Chaim. Yet the trials involved in keeping one's speech
untainted remain very great. Even those who study the
halochos complain of their difficulties in avoiding
this sin altogether and they look for ways of repenting for
lapses and of steering clear of the pitfalls which they
frequently encounter.
The truth is that one of the fundamentals of teshuvoh
is to discover the root of a sin and to uproot it completely
from its source. Therefore, although people may be learning
the halochos thoroughly and have a strong desire to
improve, if they don't identify the factors that lead to the
actual aveiroh, they will not be successful in
correcting it. Let us therefore take a look at those aspects
of human nature that make it enjoyable to speak ill or to
hear ill spoken about someone else.
A Sin of Neglect
To begin with, here is a highly disturbing observation on
the cruelty shown by a speaker of loshon hora, made by
HaRav Yeruchom Leibovitz zt'l, in Daas Chochmoh
U'mussar, cheilek I, pg.10). Reb Yeruchom writes, "A
person's ability to speak loshon hora and the like,
can only be due to the great distance that exists between
him and other people, to whom he is utterly insensitive and
whose existence he does not recognize at all. Were he to
give even the slightest thought to someone else, and hear
his silent supplication, `Please, pity me and don't disgrace
me!' how could he speak bad about him? There is nobody so
evil, as to speak bad of another after hearing this cry. But
when people don't think, they don't hear the cry and they
don't feel anything, and then, they are capable of
anything."
How dreadfully accurate these comments are! Anyone who
recalls himself speaking loshon hora, chas vesholom,
about somebody else, will be terribly ashamed and wonder how
he could be so callous as to spill the other person's blood
without realizing, simply because he didn't know or think
about what he was doing. The first step towards
teshuvoh is therefore to give others a thought from
time to time and to mentally picture them crying out, "Have
pity on us and don't disgrace us!"
The Origins of Hatred
It remains for us to identify the source of the enjoyment of
speaking badly about others or in hearing bad spoken of
them. In parshas Ki Seitzei (Devorim 22:13-14), the
Torah tells us, "If a man marries a woman and draws close
to her and hates her and accuses her..." Quoting the
Sifrei, Rashi comments that, "One sin brings another.
Once he has transgressed `You shall not hate your brother in
your heart', he will come to speak loshon hora." It
appears from this, that the urge to speak loshon hora
does not manifest itself out of the blue and that unless the
speaker has already committed the aveiroh of hating a
fellow Jew, he would not come to speak loshon hora
about him. Though we may not always be aware of the potency
of this hatred, this does seem to be the operating
principle.
What is the source of this hatred? The speaker is obviously
not fulfilling the mitzvoh to "love your friend as you
love yourself" because one neither speaks nor accepts
loshon hora about friends. How does he then become the
enemy of all the people about whom he speaks loshon
hora?
The answer is that the root of most hatred is envy, as Rav
Chaim Vital writes (in Shaarei Kedushoh, cheilek II, shaar
4), "Envy is the causative factor which leads to hatred".
We shall therefore examine this trait thoroughly, in order
to appreciate the damage it causes and its role in leading
to loshon hora.
Avenging Injustice
Rashi opens our eyes to the essence of the trait of envy in
his commentary to parshas Pinchos (Bamidbor 25:11). On
the words, "when he was zealous about My jealousy", Rashi
comments, "when he avenged My vengeance, when he was inflamed
with the anger that I should have been inflamed with —
every expression of kinoh, jealousy, denotes the
rivalry of retaliation in revenge for something."
Here, Rashi tells us that the term kinoh, is not only
to be understood in the sense of vengeance, when referring to
an actual act of zeal such as Pinchos' deed, but that —
"every expression of jealousy" — even the emotion
alone, that is experienced by someone who sees what his
friend has and feels annoyed and says to himself, "I will
have that as well", is also prompted by rivalry in order to
avenge some wrong.
But this is astonishing! What has the other party done to
the jealous person, that should evoke an urge for revenge?
All that a jealous person feels is pain and distress at not
having the thing which he misses. What place is there for
anger and a wish for revenge? Rashi's comments force us to a
closer examination of human emotions and of the sequence of
thoughts that take place in the mind of a jealous person. We
will then see how wonderfully accurate his comments are.
First, a difference between jealousy and all other types
of wishes and desires should be pointed out. With the
latter, a person seeks the enjoyment of the thing that he
longs for. Although he suffers while he is denied it, his
suffering only centers upon the object of his desire and as
soon as he attains it, his distress vanishes. Jealousy is
different. When a person is distressed at not possessing
something which belongs to someone else, he immediately
channels his distress towards the object's owner, who
becomes his enemy, to the extent that even if he attains the
object of his desire, his hatred of the prior owner remains
unaltered. Once we realize this, we can propose the
following scheme for the chain of thoughts that runs through
the mind of a jealous person:
One — He sees a fine object in someone else's possession and
thinks, "He has something nicer than I have".
Two — He then thinks, "I also ought to have something as
nice as that".
Three — He tells himself, "Actually, it ought to be mine
and not his".
Four — He immediately imagines that the object rightfully
belongs to him and asks himself, "Why is my article in his
possession?"
Five — His imagination has such a hold over him that he
shouts to himself, "He's a thief! What he has is mine!"
And from this subconscious belief bursts forth a torrent of
fury that demands revenge, for the other person's holding
onto what he is convinced ought to be his!
This is Rashi's meaning when he writes that, "every
expression of kinoh, jealousy, denotes rivalry, to
retaliate in revenge for something". With this
understanding, we can appreciate the greatness of the
teachings of our chachomim!
Redressing the Balance
There are many people who engage in this rivalry throughout
their lives. They want to be the only ones whom the world
looks up to and if more attention is paid to their
colleagues, they feel slighted by the latter's standing and
are upset over every word of praise that is bestowed upon
them. In such situations, jealousy is at work, as we have
explained. They feel that their colleagues have come and
physically removed them from their pedestals, and taken them
down from their positions of honor. This provides them with
a pretext for speaking loshon hora about these
colleagues, for this constitutes their revenge — taking
their colleagues down from the lofty station that they
unlawfully took from them, as they imagine. For this
reason, they are also interested in hearing slander about
these friends and they lean towards accepting whatever they
hear, for in this way they are able to redress the imbalance
and even the score. This low trait of jealousy is thus the
prime cause of speaking, listening and accepting loshon
hora.
At this point, we ought to make an apology and point out
that our purpose in this discussion is not to disclose
people's lowness and expose their shame. In fact, it is
precisely because of Klal Yisroel's holiness and their
strong wish to do teshuvoh, that we have been bold
enough to record the above thoughts. The Chazon Ish writes
(in Emunoh Ubitochon, perek 2, siman 4,) that, "what
we hope to achieve by writing this, is that by recording the
shamefulness, the searing words will come and hit us in the
face, and make us aware of its shame".
We need to recognize the shamefulness of such conduct.
Anyone who examines his middos and attempts to correct
his shortcomings, will find that he suffers, to a certain
degree at least, from the hatred which springs from envy,
which is so strong as to lead him to feel that there are
people in his proximity whose very existence disturbs him.
He is always afraid that they will attain some position of
importance in the world, a position which he imagines is
rightfully his, as a result of which he is willing to speak
and to listen to loshon hora being spoken about them.
In his weakness, he justifies himself by telling himself
that they deserve the damage and the upset for having pushed
him out of his rightful position. Such thinking cause a
person's heart to become thick and obtuse. He becomes too
callous to feel their shame and to hear their cry to "Have
mercy upon us and don't disgrace us!"
The Cure to a Terrible Malady
In Orchos Chaim from the Rosh (siman 113), we
are told, "Do not introduce jealousy into your hearts, for
it is a bad illness that has no cure".
The commentary, Or Yechezkel explains that, "It is an
evil disease because the jealous person doesn't recognize
that he is ill. Jealousy is internal and a tendency towards
it is deeply rooted in man's nature. This is why it has no
cure; because it is so deeply rooted, it becomes transformed
into hatred. The Orchos Tzaddikim writes that there is
hope for every kind of hatred — when the cause is
corrected, the hatred will disappear — with the exception
of hatred which springs from jealousy.
"However, there is a cure for this too. If a person lets the
foundations of faith take root within his heart, namely,
that one isn't able to understand everything and neither
does one need to understand everything — as the Mesillas
Yeshorim writes (in perek 11), `they do not
understand that no man touches as much as a hair of what is
meant for another. Everything is from Hashem, in accordance
with His wondrous counsel and His unfathomable wisdom' —
they would have no reason whatsoever for being upset by
their friends' good fortune."
In Shaarei Kedushoh (cheilek II, shaar 4), Rav Chaim
Vital writes that, "Jealousy is a cause of hatred but it is
even worse, for he rebels against Hakodosh boruch Hu
[and questions] why He bestowed more good on his friend than
on himself".
Regarding coveting the belongings of another, Rav Chaim
Vital writes, "Coveting is the source of uncleanliness, for
it leads to jealousy and hatred. It is the last of the
aseres hadibros, which balances all of the others [in
importance and severity]. He [who covets] denies Hashem's
Providence and does not believe that everything which is
supervised by Hashem...On the other hand, there is no higher
level than trust, as the posuk says, "Happy is everyone
who shelters in Him", for he believes that the world has an
Elokah, who is All powerful and who supervises
[everything]."
I saw an idea to help a person who suffers from jealousy,
quoted in the name of Rav Doniel (Movshovitz) zt'l,
hy'd, of Kelm. A jealous person should think to himself,
that if there would once be someone born with a pair of
wings, he would be regarded as a monstrosity. In exactly the
same way, were he to obtain what his friend has, which
is making him envious, it would blemish him. [How?] If he
really needed it, Hashem would have given it to him. If he
doesn't have it, it's a sign that he doesn't need it. Were
he to have it, it would be superfluous. Something that is
superfluous is a blemish!
From all these sources it is clear that there is only one
remedy for someone who suffers from coveting, envy or
jealousy, the roots from which the plague of loshon
hora spreads, namely, to reinforce his faith and his
trust in Hashem and to live his life in accordance with his
beliefs. "One who trusts in Hashem is surrounded by
kindness". He suffers from none of these complaints, for he
knows that nothing happens by chance and that everything
that he undergoes has been decreed by Hashem, for his
ultimate and eternal benefit.
If a person wants to rectify the sin of having spoken
loshon hora, learning the halochos alone will be
insufficient. Before or after he studies the halochos,
he should spend some time contemplating statements of
Chazal's, like the ones quoted earlier, which denigrate the
trait of jealousy and extol that of trust in Hashem. His
feelings will calm down and he will not feel disturbed by
his friends' attainments. In fact, he'll even be glad for
them and he'll no longer hope for their downfall. He'll
certainly be unable behave callously towards them and ignore
their pleas to him to, "Please pity us and don't disgrace
us!"
All That Needs to Change
The Chofetz Chaim writes in a number of places that, "If we
merit correcting the sins of the tongue, we will merit the
swift arrival of Moshiach tzidkeinu." Our prayer
therefore is that we should come to recognize the causes of
loshon hora and that we should uproot jealousy and
rivalry from among us. It will then be simple for us to
guard our tongues when we learn the halochos of
loshon hora with a view to their practical
fulfillment.
Let us end by quoting what the Rambam writes at the end of
Hilchos Melochim: "At that time, there will be neither
famine nor war, neither jealousy nor competition, for there
will be a bounty of good and all kinds of delights will be
as common as the dust and the entire world will have no
business other than attaining knowledge of Hashem. Yisroel
will therefore be great sages and will know have [clear]
knowledge of obscure things and will fathom knowledge of
their Creator, to the extent that man is able, as the
posuk says, "And the land will be full of the
knowledge of Hashem, as water covers the sea".
Here we see that the only rectification within the hearts of
all of Klal Yisroel in the times of Moshiach, in
order to merit the land becoming filled with knowledge of
Hashem, is that there should be "neither jealousy nor
rivalry."
May this be Hashem's wish and may it happen soon.
