Gossip

Leviticus 19:16/Psalms 34:13-15

Do not go about as a talebearer among members of your people. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow [Israelite]: I am the Lord.

Who is the man who is eager for life, who desires years of good fortune? Guard your tongue from evil, your lips from deceitful speech. Shun evil and do good, seek amity and pursue it. 1

1 THESE TWO BIBLICAL VERSES create two parallel ways of understanding lashon hara: one takes a legalistic approach with an outright prohibition, while the other makes an ethical case encouraging us to pay attention to the language we use. These two approaches continue throughout the history of Jewish thought, where lashon hara is sometimes treated as a matter of straightforward adherence to mitzvot, and sometimes as a matter of self-improvement.

Babylonian Talmud, Arachin 15B

Rabbi Yohanan says in the name of Rabbi Yosei ben Zimra: Anyone who speaks malicious speech is considered as though he denied the fundamental belief in God.

And Reish Lakish says: Anyone who speaks malicious speech increases his sins until the heavens …

The Gemara asks: What is considered malicious speech? In other words, how is malicious speech defined and what are the limits of the prohibition? Rava said: For example, if one says: There is always fire at so-and-so’s home, indicating that they are always cooking food there. Abaye said to Rava: What did this person do wrong by saying that there is always fire in that home? His statement is merely revealing the true facts, and is not malicious speech. Rather, it is considered malicious speech if he expressed this in a slanderous manner. For example, if he says: Where else can one find fire except at so-and-so’s home, because they are always cooking food there. 2

2 IN THIS EXCERPT from a longer section of Talmud about lashon hara, the rabbis expand on the dual nature of the dangers it poses, which they frame in terms of the spiritual damage that it can cause as well as a matter of adherence to law. This sets the tone for much of the discussion in later generations, with many taking up the spiritual and ethical damage that language can inflict, while others focus more on defining exacting parameters for what constitutes bad speech.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, Sefer Chofetz Chaim (1873), Part 1:1 Principle 1 and Part 1:10 Principle 1–2

It is forbidden to speak demeaningly of one’s friend, even if it be absolute truth. And this is termed everywhere by Chazal lashon hara. Even if one speaks true statements which will not cause any visible damage, one transgresses this prohibition.

If one witnessed someone committing a wrong against his fellow — such as theft, damage, embarrassment, or wrongdoing — even if only a single person saw it — and the offender has not yet repented, it is permitted to relate this to others, for the purpose of helping the guilty person repent and repairing the wrong.

However, there are seven precise conditions which must be fulfilled before one may speak such beneficial lashon hara:

• You personally witnessed the event, or you conducted due diligence to verify its truth.
• You are absolutely sure the incident was truly wrongful.
• You first approached the offender privately.
• No exaggeration — report facts accurately, without embellishment.
• You have a purely constructive intent.
• There must be no alternative way to achieve the goal.
• The harm caused by speaking must be proportionate and fair. 3

3 FOR CENTURIES, RABBINIC TRADITION has included laws about lashon hara, but with a couple of exceptions, most notably Maimonides, these were scattered across larger texts and not given a comprehensive treatment.

Kagan is the first to collect all these sources into a single work, essentially codifying the thinking of the previous generations and also greatly expanding the scope of laws around speech. While he was careful to discuss both the legal and the ethical sides of lashon hara in this book and others that he wrote on the topic, his emphasis on the legalities seems to have had lasting impact: to this day, the work has become extremely popular, with daily study guides and even a foundation devoted to promoting lashon hara awareness.

However, this legal approach is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, as we see in this passage, it gives a framework for how and when something is not only permitted, but obligatory to speak. On the other hand, it means that, unless someone is an expert in the laws, they may feel unable to judge whether they are allowed to say something or not, and err on the side of silence. In the introduction to his book, Kagan lists up to 32 possible Biblical prohibitions that may be violated by speaking lashon hara, many of which aren’t directly related to the act of lashon hara itself: an approach that can have a chilling effect among those who take his work seriously.

Rabbi Mark Dratch, “Let Them Talk: The Mitzvah to Speak Lashon Hara” (2006)

Victims of abuse need to speak out, for all kinds of personal reasons, in order to help themselves. Their supporters need to speak out in order to help them. And the community needs to speak out in order to hold the perpetrators responsible and in order to protect other innocents from potential harm. All must be diligent in meeting the conditions required for such speech, including knowledge of or verification of the facts, proper motivation, the curbing of personal animosities, no exaggeration, and the like. Allowances must be made for persistent rumors and circumstantial evidence when their credibility meets halakhic standards. And each of us needs to recommit ourselves to protecting the physical and spiritual welfare of women, children, and men; safeguarding the integrity of the social fabric of the Jewish community; and securing the honor of Torah and God’s very Name.

According to rabbinic tradition, it is the capacity of speech that distinguishes humans from the animals and from all other parts of Creation. The Torah demands of us to use that divine gift of speech wisely and carefully in order to protect the humanness of victims of abuse, as well as the humane-ness of every member of our society. 4

4 THE #METOO MOVEMENT was a driving force for change in the Jewish community. Before that era, many victims of Jewish abusers were silenced when they tried to speak out about their experiences. One concern was that it might be damaging to the community (for example, in the case of Michael Steinhardt, the co-founder of Birthright and donor to many Jewish institutions, who had been credibly accused of abuse by women who were told to keep quiet because of his status and contributions). Another was that the laws of lashon hara prohibited the victim from speaking publicly about abuse (as in situations involving Malka Leifer, an Orthodox school principal in Australia; Chaim Walder, a popular haredi author in Israel; and Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, the founder of the Israeli rescue and recovery organization ZAKA— all had rabbis using lashon hara as a cudgel to warn against victims speaking up). This passage is from the coda to a much longer halakhic article that amply demonstrates how, if one follows some good general guidelines, concerns about lashon hara should never be used to silence victims of abuse.

Silvia Federeci, “How the Demonization of ‘Gossip’ Is Used to Break Women’s Solidarity,” In These Times (2019)

It is women who ‘gossip,’ presumably having nothing better to do and having less access to real knowledge and information and a structural inability to construct factually based, rational discourses. Thus, gossip is an integral part of the devaluation of women’s personality and work, especially domestic work, reputedly the ideal terrain on which this practice flourishes.

This conception of ‘gossip,’ as we have seen, emerged in a particular historical context. Viewed from the perspective of other cultural traditions, this ‘idle women’s talk’ would actually appear quite different. In many parts of the world, women have historically been seen as the weavers of memory— those who keep alive the voices of the past and the histories of the communities, who transmit them to the future generations and, in so doing, create a collective identity and profound sense of cohesion. They are also those who hand down acquired knowledges and wisdoms — concerning medical remedies, the problems of the heart, and the understanding of human behavior, starting with that of men. Labelling all this production of knowledge ‘gossip’ is part of the degradation of women — it is a continuation of the demonologists’ construction of the stereotypical woman as prone to malignity, envious of other people’s wealth and power, and ready to lend an ear to the Devil. It is in this way that women have been silenced and to this day excluded from many places where decisions are taken, deprived of the possibility of defining their own experience, and forced to cope with men’s misogynous or idealized portraits to them. 5

5 THOUGH THE definition of gossip is inherently neutral about the identity of the gossiper, historically the sin has been associated with — and used to vilify — women in particular. The stereotype persists to this day, despite research showing that men gossip just as much as women. That research also explores gossip’s usefulness in creating friendships and communities. One of the main takeaways of academic explorations of gossip? Differentiating between negative, neutral, and positive gossip. In all types, the speaker is communicating about other people when those people aren’t present. Women tend to engage in neutral and positive gossip, while men tend toward the negative. We might even say that the idea that women are gossips is itself a classic case of lashon hara.