January & February 2006
Over the past decade, whenever I have lectured throughout the country on the powerful, and often negative, impact of words, I have asked audiences if they can go for twenty-four hours without saying any unkind words about, or to, anybody. Invariably, a minority of listeners raise their hands signifying “yes,” some laugh, and quite a large number call out, “no!”
I respond by saying, “Those who can't answer ‘yes’ must recognize that you have a serious problem. If you cannot go for twenty four hours without saying unkind words about others, then you have lost control over your tongue.”
Just think about your own life for a minute. Unless you, or someone dear to you, has been the victim of terrible physical violence, chances are the worst pains you have suffered in life have come from words used cruelly—from ego destroying criticism, excessive anger, sarcasm, public and private humiliation, hurtful nicknames, betrayal of secrets, rumors, and malicious gossip.
Testing Your Speech
There is no area of life in which so many of us systematically violate the Golden Rule. Thus if you were about to enter a room and heard the people inside talking about you, chances are what you would least like to hear them talking about are your character flaws and the intimate details of your social life. Yet, when you are with friends and the conversation turns to people not present, what aspects of their lives are you and your companions most likely to explore? Is it not their character flaws and the intimate details of their social lives?
All too often, many of us criticize others with harsh, offensive words, turn disputes into quarrels, belittle or humiliate others, and inflict wounds that last a lifetime.
The Power of Words
One reason that many otherwise “good” people use words irresponsibly and cruelly is that they regard the injuries inflicted by words as intangible and therefore minimize the damage they can inflict. For generations, children taunted by playmates have been taught to respond, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words (or names) can never hurt me.” But does anyone really think that a child exposed to such abuse believes it?
An old Jewish teaching compares the tongue to an arrow: “Why not another weapon - a sword, for example?” one rabbi asks. “Because,” he is told, “if a man unsheathes his sword to kill his friend, and his friend pleads with him and begs for mercy, the man may be mollified and return the sword to its scabbard. But an arrow once it is shot, cannot be returned.”
The rabbi’s comparison is more than just a useful metaphor. Because words can be used to inflict devastating and irrevocable suffering, Jewish teachings go so far as to compare cruel words to murder. A penitent thief can return the money he has stolen; a murderer, no matter how sincerely he repents, cannot restore his victim to life. Similarly one who damages another’s reputation through malicious gossip or who humiliates another publicly, can never fully undo the damage.
Words, quite simply, are very powerful. Indeed, the Bible teaches that God created the world through words. At the beginning of Genesis we learn, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” I would submit that human beings, like God, also create with words. Consider the fact that most, if not all, of us have had the experience of reading a novel and being so moved by the fate of a character that we have cried, even though the character who has so moved us doesn’t exist. All that happened was that writer took a blank piece of paper, put words on it, and through words alone created a human being so totally real that he or she is capable of evoking our deepest emotions.
Words are powerful enough to lead to love, but they can also lead to hatred and terrible pain. We must be extremely careful how we use them.
A Jewish folk tale, set in nineteenth century Eastern Europe, tells of a man who went through a small community slandering the rabbi. One day, feeling suddenly remorseful, he begged the rabbi for forgiveness and offered to undergo any form of penance to make amends. The rabbi told him to take a feather pillow from his home, cut it open, scatter the feathers to the wind. The man did as he was told and returned to the rabbi. He asked, “Am I now forgiven?”
“Almost,” came the response. “You just have to perform one last task: Go and gather all the feathers.”
“But that’s impossible,” the man protested, “for the wind has already scattered them.”
“Precisely,” the rabbi answered.
(Condensed and reprinted with permission from IMPRIMIS, the monthly journal of Hillsdale College.)
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin addresses an issue of personal responsibility that is fundamental not only to our civil society but to our humanity: the ethics of speech. He reminds us that the Golden Rule should apply not just to how we act toward others but how we speak about them. His presentation was delivered during the September 1995 Center for Constructive Alternatives seminar “Fiction and Faith”.
WSEN printed this in the March & April 1996 issue but the message is timeless and bears repeating.
January & February 2006
