Reflections and Bad Tongues

Day 42: Shabbat

I really, really enjoyed the values this week. They put me in a really good frame of mind and they were fun to carry out. I just felt happy at the end of a lot of the days and very satisfied with life. I hope it had something to do with the missions I was trying to carry out.

• Is a Jew Permitted to Smoke?: The idea of us, as Jews, being responsible for our bodies and protecting or sanctifying our lives was very relevant to me. I know too many people who have self-harmed in some way or another and this was an idea on this topic that kept coming back to me.
• When Not Giving Charity Is the Highest Charity: N/A
• Give Money When Times Are Hard: N/A
• Acting Cheerfully Is Not a Choice: This was one of my favorite days. It only led to good things and something I noticed about myself is that I generally do try to be cheerful, but sometimes I just let it go. It's really interesting to notice how many people's moods are affected by your mood. They really are contagious things, believe me.
• One Must Always Greet Another Person: N/A

Day 43: The Jewish Ethics of Speech: What is Lashon Hara?

"Lashon harah (literally 'bad tongue'), refers to any statement that is true, but that lowers the status of the person about whom it is said" (64).

I crawled into bed last night much earlier than I usually do, intent on watching Singin' in the Rain, one of my favorite musicals. As I was trying to fall asleep to the sound of Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds, I realized something interesting: I couldn't. So I do what I always do in college when I can't sleep: I left my room to sit in one of the lounges on my floor.

Luckily for me, a few of my friends were still awake and doing homework while watching some animated movie. I already knew that today I'd be working on Lashon Hara and yet within five minutes of my leaving my room, we fell into a conversation regarding some drama going on on our floor between two roommates. 

I sat there realizing silently how I easily could have not provoked this conversation, but instead I had just kept commenting. A similar thing happened later in the day when I started a sentence, realized it would be Lashon Hara and so I concluded with "never mind". At that point, the person I was talking to pointed out that I couldn't leave the sentence unfinished, it was my fault for starting it, and so, giving in, I finished the sentence with the story.

Lashon Hara is horribly difficult to avoid. You can avoid it in classes, you can avoid it when you're alone, you can avoid it when you're asleep, but as soon as another person begins conversing with you, it's going to be a challenge. One that I'd like to keep working on.