After a sermon on the sixth command regarding murder (yes, "Thou shalt not..."), I was reminded that I had omitted the biggest killer of persons--namely gossip, rumor, and innuendo. How true! I thank that listener for the reminder. Since then I have learned a bag full about the killing harm of innuendo, rumor, and gossip.
Bruce Kadden tells the rabbinic story about a woman who constantly spread gossip and rumors. (Men’s locker room talk and golf green chatter can also slide downward into this stuff, so it's not only women). Her friends got so upset, that they went to the rabbi for help. He told them to send her to him. The rabbi told the woman about the people's complaint. She apologized to the rabbi for her behavior, but said that she didn't really think it was so bad. After all, much of what she said was true, or partially true, and that was not really too harmful. The rabbi thought for a moment and told the woman to go home and get a pillow, take it to the town square, and cut it open, and then return. The woman thought this was a strange request, but she did what she was told. She took her pillow to the town square, cut it open, and the feathers flew everywhere. She went back to the rabbi and told her what she had done. The rabbi smiled and then said, "Now go gather the feathers."
Once we have said something about someone, it is impossible to take it back, to undo the damage. Just as the woman couldn't gather up all the feathers, we can't gather what we have said. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, in his book Words that Hurt, Words that Heal, concludes, "Unless we remain actively conscious of the direction in which a conversation is heading, such talk is unlikely to remain innocuous."
Thus the hurting power of words. But a good word has the power to heal and bless. To the ancient Hebrews words were like charged particles of energy. The Hebrew word for "words" is "things." A word is not a nothing; it's a "something." So you dodge a curse. But you get in the path of an oncoming blessing. A word is a something. We can speak good somethings and keep the feathers out of town.
--Larry
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