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I am sorry. I didn’t mean it. I take it back. Strike it from the record.
What is as irreversible as murder,
Violates its victim more than theft,
Is as deadly as an epidemic?
And it is a lot closer to you than you think?
Gossip, slander, and thoughtless speech.
Gossip is a million-dollar industry in our country today.
We tend to think of it as sport, harmless and fun.
After all, it’s only words.
The Talmud sees it differently (Bava Metzia 58b).
Which is worse, it asks, to steal from someone or to speak ill of someone?
To defraud a person or to humiliate him?
Answer:
Property can be restored, but the damage done
To a person can never be undone.
In fact, Jewish tradition compares slander
And humiliation with murder—
The destruction is irreparable and enduring.
(The High Holy Day message of the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1986 – as
relevant in 2003 as it was in 1986.)
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