We are living through a moral revolution. Sexual abuse by those in power -- a topic that has long been kept under wraps -- is no longer easily covered up. The ethics of speech around abuse have changed, and they are shifting how we think about gossip, privacy and truth-telling.
In just the last month, two articles regarding sexual abuse were reported in the front pages of The New York Times: one about the prestigious Horace Mann private school in the Bronx and the other about Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn. While these cases are different in many ways, both articles delineated how a culture of silence developed in the face of complaints and how a concern for privacy and protection from malicious gossip in these close-knit communities were used to cover up abuses, whether through legal or religious means. If we are to truly revolutionize our approach to the reporting of sexual abuse -- and we must -- we need to seriously consider our ethics of speech.
"You can destroy a person's life with a false report," said one authority figure quoted in the Times piece. Indeed, the need to be careful with our speech has never been more important. We live in an age in which our personal information has become a commodity in the public online square. While there is a lot of public conversation about the need for corporations to be careful with our information, how careful are we with details of other people's lives -- family, friends, colleagues and others?
On the other hand, the aspiration to create a gossip-free discourse must not be used as a cover for greater evils. Reporting abuse is not gossip. How to walk the fine line of proper speech and ethical responsibility has been a source of debate within Jewish texts and communities for centuries and merits revisiting, particularly in this age of social media and instant global reach.
Jewish texts have developed a rigorous discourse about the dangers of "evil speech" -- lashon ha'ra. This week's Torah portion, Sh'lach (Numbers 13:1-15:41), tells of the 12 spies Moses sends to scout out the land of Israel. Upon their return, they bring back a disheartening report to the Israelites about their ability to conquer the land. The people revolt and are consigned to wander for 40 years in the desert as a punishment for their disloyalty to God.
Somewhat surprisingly, our rabbinic sages arrive at the following conclusion from this painful biblical episode: "One who speaks with their mouth is more detrimental than one who does a deed; for we have found that our ancestors were only decreed to wander in the desert for 40 years because of the act of malicious speech" (Mishnah Arakhin 3:5).
Malicious speech is defined by the rabbis as different from slander: while slander is false, malicious speech is the truth -- but the truth spoken out of context, designed for no purpose other than to cause harm to its subject. Proverbs claims that "Death and life are in the hand of the tongue" (18:21), and the Talmud adds: "Talk about a third person kills three people: the one who speaks, the one who accepts it, and the one about whom it is spoken" (Tractate Arakhin 15b-16B).
What a community we would be if we all avoided speaking maliciously of other people, in person or on our screens, and navigated the vast sea of information now available to us with a desire to avoid "accepting" gossip.
However, we must not let our desire for positive speech to cause us to conceal important truths. An ethics of speech must also include directives about when to speak up, not just when to stay silent.
This past year people in the highest echelons of society have been identified as sexual predators, from a trusted college football coach to international political leaders, despite extensive cover-ups. Attempts to dismiss or suppress legitimate reports of abuse are particularly shameful in religious contexts, be they in the Catholic Church, in New Age spiritual communities, or in Jewish schools or synagogues. While these acts happen in all sectors of society, when "people of faith" protect predators, preventing the truth from being uncovered and justice served, they are aligning Divinity with their world of lies, desecrating God's name in the process.
Throughout the generations, voices from within Jewish tradition have had the courage to set the record straight, not allowing the ideal of avoiding gossip to become a fig leaf for silencing painful truths. Whenever I am in doubt, the words written by Rabbi Yisrael Isser of Vilna in 1875, ring in my ears:
All of the books of Ethics make an uproar about the prohibition of gossip. I want to make an uproar about the opposite form of behavior -- one that is a far greater wrong and that is also much more widespread -- the withholding of information when it is necessary to communicate it in order to save a victim from his oppressor. This is like a person who sees a stalker about to attack his friend - will he not cry out to inform his friend about the potential attacker? Would this [his warning of his friend] not be a fulfillment of the commandment, "Do not stand idly by the blood of your fellow" (Leviticus 19)?
Now where shall we set the boundary and the limit, to say "up to this point speak, but no more"? It is an issue given to the heart of each person to discern. If they are speaking out of maliciousness about the person being discussed it is "evil speech", but if they are speaking for the benefit of the other person, to save and protect the individual, it is a great mitsvah, a righteous deed [Pitchei Teshuvah OH: 156].
We must strive to create a healthy culture of speech, one in which we seek to curb gossip and to speak out when abusive behavior is apparent. In contrast to the band of doubting spies stands the figure of Caleb, the spy who did not engage in malicious speech but rather said, "Let us go up, yes, up and possess it, for we can prevail, yes, prevail against it" (Numbers 13:30)! Similarly, we have the spiritual and ethical resources to create a culture of honest and judicious speech, guarding against gossip yet speaking truth to power.
ON Scripture -- The Torah is a weekly Jewish scriptural commentary, produced in collaboration with Odyssey Networks and Hebrew College. Thought leaders from the United States and beyond offer their insights into the weekly Torah portion and contemporary social, political, and spiritual life.
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Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
God taught us what to do, by such as theses who falsely accuse others.. Those who openly judge another falsely for self interest? God said: "Bless those who curse you, knowing for certain, they only bring burning coals upon their own Head." God said Silence before Me. Stop Your judging. What for your own good? Peace
But you miss something, the 10 Commandments are ours and that's where god tells you that you cannot be jealous (thought crime) and you cannot murder (physical crime).
Non-Jews are Not Human Baba Mezia 114a-114b. Only Jews are human ("Only ye are designated men").
I do find it interesting how often the devout say that the New Testament is what they follow even though God supposedly inspired both.
The human ability for denial is incredible. Lol
It doesn't take a god to know that what Joseph Ratzinger did in his former position was wrong.
It doesn't take a god to know that keeping quiet about children being raped is wrong.
Studied? Know the prophecies of Issiah? etc. Jesus himself did not just accept what others told Him to think, or did Jesus accept what others tried to force Him to obey, which was their own man made laws, arbitrary ideas, God did not ask for also? We are commanded to obey the Ten Commandments, Jesus does not even mention the Leviticus Laws, why? Not for us gentles? But for God chosen people, the Hebrew Israelites, which sadly they broke their Covenant with God, did they not? Not our Covenant? Christ command, Covenant to us gentles -to enter the fold, obey the Ten Commandments if one wants to enter the Kingdom, did He not say when asked, what must I do to enter the Kingdom? . New Covenant, Old Covenant, with Leviticus Laws was not for us nor made with us? . Peace.
"Excuse me, what does God need with a starship?"
-- Capt. James T. Kirk, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
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Why does any omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful god require "spies"?
Why does any omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful god require a human to communicate for him (or her or it)?
Why does any omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful god require the tools of humans to do his (or her or its) work?
Not through symbols, not through "coincidences", not through chicken guts ... why can't this god "speaking" be as plain to the individual as it was supposed to have been to Moses?
... who seemed to always have his dialogues with this god alone, btw.
Numbers
31:15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
31:16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
LOL, through Thy mercy...