Gossip is a Form of Murder
my Shabbat Reflection on digital communication and gossip
GOSSIP IS EQUIVALENT TO IDOL WORSHIP, FORBIDDEN SEXUAL RELATIONS & MURDER. YES, GOSSIP IS A FORM OF MURDER.
Gossip. My Shabbat reflection and a promise to do and be better.
I took a 24 break from my phone and iPad and computer for Shabbat as a trial and I really like it. It felt liberating letting go of stupid smartphone bullsh1t. I will do this every Friday evening to Saturday evening — from sundown to sundown.
Things I realized and decisions I made during my self imposed ban from digital consumption.
I will no longer permit the use of text message or FB messenger or WhatsApp for deep and important relationships conversations with humans in the same time zone. That’s socially inappropriate and it’s fairly egregious that I have normalised that devolution of human connection in physical space. I refuse to engage this social dysfunction for anyone’s shallow convenience any longer. It endorses poor human behaviour and it sets a terrible example for those who are younger and for everyone, really.
I am not a shallow person. I am a very deep person. I don’t like small talk I like existential conversations. I like human connection that incorporates cardiac resonance. This means relationships for me happen in physical space unless you are in another distant time zone.
I will not take any interest in any human who has historically shown no interest in me or my life and struggles or my spouse’s life and struggles. I owe no one any fealty to strangers who show me they aren’t ant more interested in me than a spoiled carton of milk.
I will no longer be beholden to a fcuking mobile phone. You’re gonna have to cope because I won’t be attached to this thing for anyone’s sake. Period. Engage like socially healthy humans do. It’s your duty as an adult with agency. Plan like healthy and functional humans so, because being tied to a mobile for anyone is a form of hostage taking and I’m not doing that anymore. Point and click is not a relationship it’s a servile treatment of another human. I ain’t a servant. I’m a human.
Social Justice and Decolonisation are sound approaches to life when we each work them with a moral compass for ourselves. I’m finding mine. I’m building mine. I use traditional Judaic values to do this. I consult Rabbinical wisdom and trusted spiritual teachers. Where’s your moral compass and what traditional values foundation are you using to build it?
Judge yourself first. Judge your reactions first. Judge your words first. Before all else. You are looking in a mirror — what do you see?? Do you like and love it? That’s a you problem so get on it. Muh.
I commit to make a real and uncomfortable effort to go beyond my phone. I will no longer have deep important conversations on mobile devices with people in the same city or time zone as myself. If the connection isn’t valuable enough to nurse it in physical and real time with measure and compassion and diligence then we are wasting our time.
WE ARE ADULTS AND THEREFORE CAN NO LONGER BLAME MUMMY AND DADDY OR ANY DEAD HISTORICAL FIGURE FOR OUR PRESENT STATE OF OUR LIVES AND INTERNAL WORLD. TIME TO GROW UP.
Gossip. Lashon Hara. It’s wrong.
When we are bothered by another’s behaviour we ::
A. Suck it up and remember a lot of unseen sh1t governs behaviour in the moment and it mostly isn’t anything to do either you. Your reaction is yours and their behaviour is theirs and that’s the dilemma we each face.
May we be wiser.
B. Confront the person with compassion and candour in person. This requires having the courage to look the person in the eye and speak your piece. Digital communication enables us to say things we wouldn’t say to a person’s face. It transforms us into menacing verbal projectile vomit factories rather than humans in relationship.
Choose your battles carefully. What is it worth to you? What is your underlying motivation? What’s REALLY going on here?
What is gossip? That’s a good question we each need to work out for ourselves. How much do we communicate to others about others? It’s difficult to know. We often get it wrong. A harmless thought we say about someone to others in a moment of weakness could have powerful and hurtful reverberations for MANY YEARS. We cannot imagine. Our intentions could be the very best. Still a misplaced word can do years of irreversible damage. It’s really best to say less than more and remember most thoughts never need pass through our lips into sound.
Speaking about people is wrong. Carrying tales is wrong. It’s called Evil Tongue for a reason.
In the above example gossip would be the option ::
C. Whinge to others about a behaviour someone else did, or run home and talk about something someone else did or an enemy you saw … for sport or fun.
May we use our words with more care and diligence.
May we use our words more sparingly.
May we be wiser.
Gossip is normalised and incentivised in our secular society and it’s unacceptable. Gossip makes people a commodity, this is dehumanising and morally inferior.
It really bothers me. My mother communicated information deftly and she sometimes gossiped. Siblings gossip about their parents and other siblings. Victims of abusers can trauma bond over their resentment towards an individual who abused them each in different ways — trauma bonding creates a destructive connection and poisons our relationship with ourselves and each other. We end up glorifying abuse when we put our abusers on a pedestal for social sport. It’s always destructive when it’s allowed to fester. It glorifies the destructive and toxic and harmful.
What we focus on grows. We are agents of creation through our gift of speech. I don’t want to live in a social world where lashon hara is normal I don’t like myself when I devolve into that treatment of others. It’s bad behaviour not worthy of anyone who leads in any life capacity. Parents are by definition leaders.
Look— we have entire industries devoted to verbal assassination of designated humans. We call it entertainment. It’s vile. It’s setting a terrible example and it’s lowering our own moral and human relationship standards.
Those are my thoughts on lashon hara aka gossip. I am sorry for any harm I have ever caused and pledge to do better going forward. I hereby forgive all those who spoke with their lashon hara against me. I wish to move on now.
I send much love to all and hope for us to be love to ourselves and each other in a better capacity.
THERE IS NO FAMILY WITHOUT DYSFUNCTION. ALL FAMILY SYSTEMS HAVE DYSFUNCTION AND A BLACK SHEEP SHOWS YOU YOUR SYSTEM’S FLAWS IN A VERY PRIMAL WAY.
Embrace the discomfort.
An excerpt from a text on Judaic and Rabbinical wisdom:
1. A person who collects gossip about a colleague violates a prohibition as (Leviticus19:16] states: 'Do not go around gossiping among your people." Even though this transgression is not punished by lashes, it is a severe sin and can cause the death of many Jews. Therefore, the warning: "Do not stand still over your neighbor's blood" is placed next to it in the Torah...
2. Who is a gossiper? One who collects information and then goes from person to person, saying: "This is what so and so said;" "This is what I heard about so and so." Even if the statements are true, they bring about the destruction of the world. There is a much more serious sin than (gossip), which is also included in this probibition: lashon ha-ra, i.e., relating deprecating facts about a colleague, even if they are true. [Lashon ha-ra does not refer to the invention of lies;] that is referred to as defamation of character. Rather, one who speaks lashon ha-ra is someone who sits and relates:
"This is what so and so has done;" "His parents were such and such;" "This is what I have heard about him," telling uncomplimentary things. Concerning this, the verse [Psalms 12:4] states: "May God cut off all guileful lips, the tongues which speak proud things.."
3. Our Sages said: "There are three sins for which retribution is exacted from a person in this world and, for which) he is [nonetheless,] denied a portion in the world to come: idol worship, forbidden sexual relations, and murder. Lashon ha-ra is equivalent to all of them." Our Sages also said: "Anyone who speaks lashon ha-ra is like one who denies God as implied by Psalms 12:5): Those who said: With our tongues we will prevail; our lips are our own. Who is Lord over us?'" In addition, they said: "Lashon ha-ra kills three [people), the one who speaks it, the one who listens to it, and the one about whom it is spoken. The one who listens to it [suffers] more than the one who speaks it."
4. There are certain matters that are considered "the dust of lashon ha-ra." What is implied? For example, a person says: "Who will tell so and so to continue acting as he does now," or "Do not talk about so and so; I do not want to say what happened," or the like. Similarly, it is also considered the "dust of lashon ha-ra" when someone speaks favorably about a colleague in the presence of his enemies, for this will surely prompt them to speak disparagingly about him. In this regard, King Solomon said [Proverbs 27:14): "One who greets his colleague early in the morning, in a loud voice, curses him," for his positive [act] will bring him negative [repercussions). Similarly, [to be condemned is] a person who relates lashon ha-ra in frivolity and jest, as if he were not speaking with hatred. This was also mentioned by Solomon in his wisdom (Proverbs 26:18-19]: "As a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death and says: 'I am only joking.' " Also, to be condemned is someone who speaks lashon ha-ra about a colleague slyly, pretending to be innocently telling a story without knowing that it is harmful. When he is reproved, he excuses himself by saying: "I did not know that the story was harmful or that so and so was involved."
5. There is no difference whether one speaks lashon ha-ra about a person in his presence or behind his back. The statements of people who relate matters which, when passed from one person to another, will cause harm to a man's person or to his property or will even (merely] annoy him or frighten him are considered as lashon ha-ra. If such statements were made in the presence of three people, one may assume that the matter has already become public knowledge. Thus, if one of the three relates the matter a second time, it is not considered lashon ha-ra, provided his intention was not to spread the matter further and publicize it.
6. All the above are people who speak lashon ha-ra in whose neighborhood, one is forbidden to dwell. How much more so is it forbidden to sit together with them and hear their conversation. The judgment against our ancestors in the desert was only sealed because of lashon ha-ra.
- Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilhot Deiot, chapter 7 (translated by Eliyahu Touger)
In Pirkei Avot Rabbi Eliezer teaches: "Let your fellow man's honor be as dear to you as your own." Avot D'Rabbi Natan, a midrashic amplification of Pirkei Avot, expands this idea further: How is this so? It teaches that just as a man has regard for his own honor, so must he have regard for the honor of his fellow man; just as he desires that there should be no reflection on his good repute, so he must be anxious not to damage the reputation of his fellow man.
Credit :: images from Chabad dot org