Lashon Nikiyah – Clean Language – Clean Mind: To Read or Not to Read the Starr Report

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

September 18, 1998

 

The other night I had trouble getting on to the Web. Usually, if I am patient, I can eventually get on. After many busy signals I finally gave up, naively, without a clue why "that night was different from all other nights." The next day I found out: the Starr Report was on the Web, and it seems that almost everybody with a computer was trying to read it. Since it is known that I only dabble on computer and search the Web for good Judaic resources, besides the ball scores, that was the question I faced all week: did I read the report on the Web? The answer I gave is "no" and I have no intention of doing so in the future. I even turned past the pages in the Times-Dispatch. I've heard enough – g'nug – from the late night joksters. Even the newscasters on radio and TV, either thought that they had to enliven the news, or couldn't get through it with a straight face.

I carefully considered the focus of my remarks tonight, particularly in light of the fact that our youth are participating in services. For them and for us, our Judaism has much to teach us. I believe that it would be correct from a Judaic perspective to say that it was wrong, categorically wrong, to release the report to the public with all of its graphic detail. There was no need to know all this, and particularly because children would be exposed in a debasing way to the most private matter of sexual behavior between men and women. There is a right time and place; there are the proper circumstances and the correct perspectives to learn about intimate human behavior. This was wrong on every count. What God intended to be physically beautiful interwoven with spiritually radiant was degraded. Judaism teaches that sexual behavior, between the proper people, at the right time, in the correct place, is kodesh – holy. The opposite of kodesh is chillul – desecration, desanctified. All that was printed is a chillul – a desecration of the human being and a desanctification of the human body. And to print it, to release it indiscriminately in the public, was a desecration of language itself. It is on this point that I wish to speak.

There are positive mitzvot and negative mitzvot, the dos and the don'ts. The Rabbis created the category of Nivul HaPeh– Foul Language as a negative mitzvah, something that shouldn't do. We may do it through gossip, Lashon harah, or tale-bearing – richilut. And we may do it by printing the wrong words in the wrong way in the wrong place. Because the Rabbinic teachings were formed when most things were spoken, they phrased their wisdom by referring to the spoken word. I believe that it is equally true for the printed word. We learn the following from the book Menorat Ha-Maor:

"He who utter foul language commits a great transgression and becomes despised in the eyes of others, for he has abandoned the traits of decency and modesty which are the distinguishing marks of his people, and walks the path of disrespectful and defiant persons."

The English translation "he who utter foul language" does not reflect the Hebrew original, for there it says "ha-m'nabail et peev" – better translated as "he who fouls his mouth!" First of all, this implies that the saying of such words or the printing of such words dirties the speaker, dirties the printer, and then dirties the reader. I can't begin to fathom how the people who typed the manuscripts or who scanned them into the computers and newspaper printing rooms felt. But I have to imagine that nobody felt better because they read this report. My word of the season on these matters is shmootz. To utilize it fully, the words printed were shmootz which made the newspaper and the computer screen shmootzick, and those who typed it, those who scanned it and those who read it were fa-shmootzed! Now this might seem comedic in trying to conjugate, at least colloquially the Yiddish word for dirt, but it is the most accurate way of applying this teaching. Secondly, the Hebrew verb is not in the simple action form. It is in the intensive form: the difference between breaking and shattering, in Hebrew the same verb shin, vet, resh. The use of m'nabail is to emphasize this foulness in the strongest way. This is not dust. This is dirt, from which we are commanded to keep far away.

Maimonides, in The Guide for the Perplexed, wrote the following. He could have been writing today just for these matters:

"I maintain that one should not speak loosely about sexual relations, nor should one's thoughts be preoccupied with such matters. Most important, one must never discuss such matters in lewd or obscene way. Since speech is a unique ability of mankind and a special gift of God to distinguish him from the animals, it must be utilized for human perfection, to learn and to teach, but never for degrading purposes. I have good reason for calling Hebrew the holy tongue… All of the terms for sexual matters are euphemisms, metaphors or allusions. The implication is obvious: we should be chaste and discreet about such matters. And if we need to discuss them, then we should do so modestly by employing euphemisms and metaphors."

As in the first teaching from Menorat Ha-Maor, so too here, Maimonides stresses the positive mitzvot, the good behavior of decency, of modesty, discreetness, of propriety. There are right times and wrong times. There are right ways and wrong ways. There is right language and wrong language. Judaism has always taught that we should conduct ourselves with tzni'ut, modesty. In the Talmud, in Masechet, Tractate of Ketubot, we learn: If a man hears something unseemly, he should put his fingers in his ears. The Hebrew for "unseemly" is "she-ayno hagun" – "it is not proper" – "it is not fitting." We could apply this teaching by saying that if there is something printed that is inappropriate, for adult or youth – she-ayno hagun – we shouldn't read it. Turn the page. Go to another Web site. In Menorat Ha-Maor we learn: A person should try to discipline himself…he should stress silence. We apply it: turn off the computer. Close the paper. Don't buy the book. We are commanded, it is a positive mitzvah, to live decently and modestly.

And if you are tempted? Our Judaism anticipated the attraction. Therefore we learn in the Midrash on Psalms: If your tongue turns to Lashon harah – bad language – go and study words of Torah. Torah is a positive antidote to shmootz. Instead of wasting time on Starr's report, read the weekly Torah portion, review the Machzor, read a good Jewish book. Go to the keyword Jewish and find the million and one divrei Torah on subjects, on yom tov, on the parshah. Don't go to the report. Go to Torah.

My last teaching, again from Masechet Ketubot in the Talmud: Whoever dirties his mouth with foul language [we include the eyes], even though it had been decreed in heaven that he should live seventy years, causes the decree to be reversed. Especially in this season before the Yamim Noraim when we repeatedly ask God for life, long life, then we should be sensitive to behaviors that cheapen life, degrade life, debase life. Instead we should practiceLashon kavod to speak honorably and to live honorably.

May God hear our prayers on behalf of our country, that we should rise from this morass.

May we resolve, youth and adult alike, to live with modesty, with grace, with taste, with decency, with integrity and with honor.

Amen.