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Sunday, May 2, 2010

Insight 5767-28: The Root of Loshon Hara


For
Parshat Beha'alotecha

Not yet available on the Nishma website.

4 comments:

  1. The ideas expressed in the Insight also explain the significance of ma'arot ha'ayin, concern for how something looks. We do not live in a vacuum. We must make decisions on our environment including the nature of individuals around us. While concepts such as loshon hara make us aware of context and inform us that we must be careful in evaluating our environment with the recognition that we must be humble in seeing the contest of an action -- iow be concerned about our judgements -- we must also be aware of the fact that we in turn are also be seen and evaluated and we therefore have an obligation to express who we are properly and project the proper context for others to see us. This, at times, means acting in accord with what the other may perceive rather than the absolute correctness of the act itself.

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  2. I also wanted to add a further insight into the connection of the story of Miriam to the meraglim, the spies, who were also charged with loshon hara against the land. As Rashi points out, they should have learned from Miriam. But what exactly should they have learned from Miriam? The fact is that Miriam had a dilemma that put her in a state of dissonance. Moshe was acting in a way that she perceived to be incorrect. There was a contradiction. Her mistake was that she answered to contradiction too quickly. Perhaps she should have asked Moshe her question, i.e. why (according to Rashi) he separated from Miriam. This was the same problem with the meraglim. God said that the nation would receive the land. The meraglim could not see how applying derech hatevah, the rules of nature. They were also in dissonance. The problem was that they did the same thing as Miriam, they answered the problem too quickly. They should have lived with the problem, perhaps also asked a question. This is again the root of loshon hara -- jumping to the easy conclusion.

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  3. I appreciate Rabbi Hecht's concept that it is the thought process that prededes lashon hara that needs examination, even more than the words themselves. One needs the patience to live with cognitive dissonance, i.e. the discomfort that comes when our ideal image of what somebody should have done did not actualize. If we can learn to live patiently with that cognitive dissonance for a while, while refraining from speech, then the context would have a better chance of being understood, and a lot of lashon hara could be eliminated.

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  4. Excellent point. Life itself has a myriad of tensions as we find ourselves often caught between two drives or even two values and are in conflict in the moment. We have to use our minds to maintain the patience necessary to honestly and thoughtfully respond to the situation rather than allowing our feelings, actually fed by the emotion of cognitive dissonance, to take over and respond in what will ultimately be a foolish way.

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