To The Editor:
When the company that I work for was first established, the
founder expressed the wish that the employees avoid speaking
loshon hora. He realized the detrimental effects that
loshon hora could cause in the work environment. Good
communication and an unstrained work atmosphere are important
for the efficiency of the company.
Now, after davening mincha each day at work, people
take turns reading sections from Rav Pliskin's book entitled
Guard Your Tongue. The book is written in a way that
allows easy reading and contains anecdotes to illustrate the
points. In addition, daily e-mails containing that day's
material are sent out (with the author's permission).
Anyone who has had loshon hora spoken about himself,
knows how much pain it caused him. The emotions are
independent of the person's particular religious orientation.
This provides for a larger audience with a common goal.
The work environment is where communication and teamwork play
a vital role. New ideas have to be expressed and the merits
and demerits of opposing views have to be analyzed. This
format requires a constant awareness of and careful approach
to interpersonal interactions. On the one hand, certain
demands need to be made on the members to ensure constant
motivation and efficiency but on the other hand, care must be
taken to achieve these goals without speaking derogatorily
about anyone. This continuous trial affords the worker
opportunity for reward as expressed by the Vilna Gaon - "For
every second that one remains silent he will merit reward of
a magnitude that is beyond the comprehension of even
mal'ochim." (Igeres HaGra).
One of the participants of the program looked favorably at
the book and recalled how it had been his introduction to
Orthodoxy. He remembered thinking to himself "Ah -- is this
what Orthodoxy has to say?"
The benefit of the program was shown clearly by the following
incident. Somebody erroneously caused a corruption of data.
When reporting this information to the appropriate party who
could fix it, the supervisor was careful not to mention the
name of the guilty party. After being asked the obvious
question of who caused the damage, the supervisor refused to
reveal the identity of the party since no benefit would be
gained by this information. This behavior prevented any ill-
feeling that might have been caused amongst the employees.
A friend related to me how he used to combat the use of
unclean language in his workplace. The employees agreed to be
fined according to the severity of the offense and the
proceeds were then given to an unaffiliated charity. It is
said that the Chofetz Chaim celebrated birthday parties
annually during his later years, to demonstrate publicly that
those who guard their tongue are rewarded with long life.
May we all merit to use speech correctly in and out of the
workplace and thereby partake of the rewards reserved for
those who do so.
(Name Withheld by Request)
