How To React To Lashon Hara

A Story of Reacting to Lashon Hara at Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva

Rav Nir ? of Machon Meir Yeshiva once shared with us a story of Rav Aviner’s experience at Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva.

On Rav Aviner’s first day there, he happened to sit near the advanced students (avrechim). As they were discussing, one of the avrechim suddenly leapt backwards as if he were about to be stung by a scorpion! “Lashon Hara!” he shouted, interrupting another of the avrechim in mid sentence, in anticipation of the point about to be made. The avrech who’d been speaking didn’t finish the sentence.

(The avrech who leapt backwards was Rav Dov Bigon, Chief Rabbi of Machon Meir (Rosh Yeshiva). )

Obviously, this was an extraordinary reaction of a unique individual (in the positive sense) in the company of a particular, learned group. Our reaction in a similar situation must be appropriate to the circumstances. The following anecdote further illustrates the idea.

It happened once upon a time that a group of men were studying the Mishna during the third Shabbat meal (seuda shlishit). One Rav, in commenting and explaining a passage, went off on a tangent. The Rav who spoke after him expounded further, then went on to speak harshly of those whose political views were opposed to his own. (It was somewhat related to the discussion.)

The others in the group met the political aside with an uncomfortable silence, whereupon the Rav who’d made the comment and the first Rav returned to the topic of the Mishna. The meaning of the silence – i.e. disapproval – was clear to the Rav who spoke lashon hara, which explains why he immediately dropped the topic.

Two More Ways To React To Lashon Hara

In addition to the possible reaction presented in the first story, another two ways of reacting to lashon hara are presented by this parable. One reaction is silence. The other reaction is to change the topic.

1) Silence. In the context of lashon hara, silence indicates a few things. First, it is the opposite action to joining in with the lashon hara and piling on the unfortunate target. Second, silence – to those attuned to non-verbal communication – expresses disapproval and/or disagreement without saying so explicitly. Thus, there is an instant reaction - which prevents sinking further into the muckraking – without risking embarasshing the person who spoke ill of his fellow.

Note: This is dependent on the speaker being attuned to non-verbal communication and not just being oblivious, thinking perhaps that the silence is just rapt attention.

2) Changing the topic. This is another time-honoured tactic for avoiding uncomfortable discussiong and cutting them short once begun. In the above anecdote, the speaker himself changed the topic along with the other Rav.