Worse Than a Cigarette

Worse Than a Cigarette

by Rabbi Moshe Meir Weiss

I'm going to make a statement now that many of my readers
will find initially very surprising. I am passionately against
smoking. With what we know now about the linkage between
cigarettes and all kinds of cancer, heart disease, and other
lethal lung ailments, it is a real crime that so many youths are
still embracing this deadly habit. But, I would venture to say that
if one had the choice between speaking Lashon Hara and
smoking a cigarette, the Lashon Hara is the worse of the two
evils. For, while smoking kills the body, Lashon Hara also
destroys the soul.

Let's go even one step further. The next time you feel a desire
to talk bad about your Rav, your family member, your neighbor,
a counselor or the like - you might be better off going to
McDonald's and having a beef-and-cheese burger for, while
eating a sandwich of genuine Boor's Head meats, you are
transgressing only a single negative transgression of eating
swine's meat. The Chofetz Chaim teaches us that for the sin of
Lashon Hara, one transgresses seventeen negative
prohibitions and fourteen positive commandments. Of course,
this is not a Wendy's commercial and by no means am I
encouraging you to take a cancer stick in your mouth. I am
just trying to show you that just like we wouldn't consider
stopping into a White Castle and having a treife meal, we
should feel the same dread before talking bad about another
person.

Consider this. The only criminal in the Torah who is ejected
from society is the metzora, the Biblical leper. The word
metzora is a composition of two words: motzi and ra, one
who speaks evil. The Sabbath desecrater does not get
booted out - but the metzora does. This speaks volumes
of how serious this crime is.

The truth is that most of us know heinous the crime of Lashon
Hara is. The problem is that if we are not sensitized to the
subject, most likely many of us are guilty of this habit time and
time again. There is a famous story about when someone
offered her next-door neighbor a copy of Guard Your Tongue,
an excellent review of the Laws of Lashon Hara. She said to
her friend, 'I learned a lot from this. I thought you would find it
helpful as well.' The friend nonchalantly responded, 'I don't
speak Lashon Hara but I'll give it to my husband. He could
use a few pointers.' Or, what about the rabbi who gave a
sermon on the dangers of Lashon Hara and, at the end one
of the congregants came over and said, 'Great speech rabbi.
Too bad the people in the back row weren't here to hear it.
They really needed it.'

Let's remember that Lashon Hara also includes speaking
about specific groups. So, if we speak disparagingly about
boys from a certain yeshiva or if we deprecatingly relate
negatives about a certain type of Chassidus, we are guilty of
Lashon Hara as well. We even have to be careful when we
speak to our parents about our siblings for after all, the terrible
servitude of Egypt started because Yosef brought evil tidings
about his brothers to Yaakov.

So, as we get ready to storm the Kisei HaKovod with our
prayers and supplications, let's make the important
preparation of purifying our mouths and purging them from
all types of sinful speech. In that merit may Hashem hearken
to our prayers and bless us all with long life, good health,
happiness, and everything wonderful.