Another week! Shabbat approaches fast. Here's your weekly reminder of what we're doing here on the Gold Coast to celebrate this week:
- Friday evening at the Southport Community Centre, Room F5, at 6.30PM. Service to welcome Shabbat, followed by an Oneg featuring your culinary offerings. $15 per person requested donation and bring a dish to share.
- Saturday at the Levy home. 11.00AM Service followed by lunch provided. Then, after lunch a bit of Pirkei Avot. $15 per person requested donation.
Remember that we now have EFTPOS facility for accepting debit and credit cards when you attend, if you prefer to donate/pay that way. But the 'old' methods still work: cash, cheque (to 'Jewish Journeys'), or bank transfer.
In case you choose the last, here are bank details:
Jewish Journeys Ltd
Westpac The Ridge
BSB 034142 Acc't 148110
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We haven't yet sett a new date for the Yard Sale, but we're still willing to take your unused stuff off your hands. Let me know.
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We're now in a series of weekly thoughts in the area of Shemirat Lashon, literally 'Guarding the Tongue' but referring to the vast body of Jewish law concerning forbidden communications via speech or writing of any kind.
I believe with all my heart that this is THE problem in the Jewish community today; its pervasiveness makes a mockery of all our claims of the mantle of Torah. The essence of the laws is that we are forbidden to convey any adverse information about someone else except in very limited, rare circumstances.
I'm bringing to you the teachings of the Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan (1839-1933), who published extensively on the subject and indeed is considered the all-time master teacher on what the Torah has to say about it.
Rabbi Kagan teaches: It is forbidden to say that a person possess a negative character trait. For xample, to say that someone is quick-tempered, argumentative, stingy, arrogant, etc...it is a derogatory statement. However, to say that someone is of average character...may be permissible. [But] ...where the term "average" has negative connotations, such a statement would also constitute lashon hara.
Garrison Keillor has a long-running radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, that is a lampoon of Midwestern American life. I'm guessing that you folks here in Australia have not been exposed to it. The weekly skits are set in the fictional town of Lake Wobegon (that's Woe-be-gone), Minnesota. Keillor begins and ends each show with a monologue; in the closing monologue he concludes: Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. The first two statements are interesting enough, but let's focus on the third: The children are all above average.
If you ever received a report from your child's teacher, that your child is 'average' in any given subject, you would be upset. Because everybody knows that 'average' is usually a negative. Most parents exagerate when talking about their children's good qualities because they are protective of them and want them to be seen as on the road to success. In Jewish circles, the typical statement about one's child is "He's a genius!" Jewish parents use it that way that Britons and Aussies freely proclaim ideas to be "brilliant."
In the US Navy I was a leading petty officer and had to write evaluations on all my subordinates, both annually and when one of them transferred. It was a challenge. US Navy EVALS are not easy to write. They have a language of their own. We were only allowed to state anything 'negative' when the person had been counselled in writing previously about the 'negative' point of evaluation. As the Command Master Chief told me: Everything is stated in degrees of positive. So in one group of EVALS, my first large batch, I wrote in several of them that in thiss or that characteristic, the subject individual was 'average.' The Master Chief, in going over the EVALS, called me into his office and showed them to me. "You can't say this, Don," he told me. "To say that someone is 'average' is the same as saying that they are deficient." That was frustrating to me, because whilst I wanted to avoid negativity I also wanted to write those EVALS with integrity. And then it hit me, the old Lake Wobegon statement, and I realised what he was saying.
The truth is that, in most instances, to say of someone that they are 'average' truly will be taken as a negative and should therefore be avoided. The way to keep statements positive is to focus on things, about which one can with integrity say something positive. For example, if someone askes you how good a public speaker your Member is, and you think he's only so-so, you might say: He's a really great communicator in small groups; whenever I consult him about what's going on in Parlaiment, I also leave the meeting enlightened.
It is important to be ultra-careful when conveying information about another person. Even when we don't think it is adverse information, it may be taken as such. And if so, then we are forbidden to repeat it.
I hope that you do not think I'm presenting these laws to beat you over the head, so to speak, with them. Far from it! I simply believe that lashon hara is such a pervasive problem, and that we engage in it so thoughtlessly, that it helps to think more deeply on the subject and consider all the ways that we tend to inadvertently or deliberately, engage in adverse speech.
I hope that everybody is having a great week and look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on Shabbat!
Rabbi Don
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