"Words have souls." —
R' Abraham Joshua Heschel,
The Vocation of the Cantor
Partial transcription of a shiur based on this week's Torah portion, courtesy of
Naaleh:
"Jewish vows should be sanctified with words of Torah and prayer. Someone who pollutes his speech with Lashon Hara and other verbal transgressions is destroying this holy gift, his Torah will not affect him, and his Tefillos will not have the same power in Heaven. Ha'Shem wished to convey how carefully one must deal with the power of the tongue involving all speech-related issues. Each word must be weighed prudently, lest the wrong word slip out and reek havoc on the world. This choice of brevity is stressed, how careful one must be when choosing words and how guarded we have to be when we speak. All the judgments in the next world are difficult, but those related to speech are among the hardest in terms of the judgment. In terms of the way we interact, using our voice, we use it in a very casual way without thinking. The destruction of the Beis Ha'Mikdash came because of baseless hatred. So often the manifestation of hatred is through speech.
Develop the imperative idea of speaking succinctly. As Rashi notes, 'a person who recognizes that their words, their mouth, what makes them uniquely human is their ability to speak, which makes us different from the animals; that when a person recognizes the inherent holiness that's found in speech, such a person will not disgrace this ability and make it into something profane. That is the challenge incumbent upon each and every one of us. Speech is the ability to reveal this breath of life, it's the quill that writes what is within our hearts, it is the medium that we can connect that spiritual aspect of us — the deeper aspect of us — to the world around us. We must keep our word.
Only a person who feels disconnected from G-d, could such a person speak words that are improper.
If a person is careful that all of his speech is proper, then all that that person says, Ha'Shem will do. We, coming from the spiritual part of ourselves, have the power through speech to create worlds or to destroy worlds. Death and Life are in the hands of the mouth. The Angel follows through at whatever you say. You can create positive angels or you can create negative angels. But recognize: that whatever you say has an affect on this world and creates a reality, spiritual energy in the world. Every time a word comes out of your mouth, recognize you are opening worlds up in Heaven and the angels are listening to what you say: if it's positive speech, it's going to create positive repercussions and if it's negative speech, G-d forbid, it can create negative repercussions. The Gemara says, 'every single conversation that we have is recorded and will be brought back to you.'
A Jew who sanctifies his mouth, his mouth becomes like a vessel used in The Temple. And just like you put the flour in the frying pan, it takes on holiness because the frying pan is holy, so anything that comes out of our mouth is levels and words that have in them holiness. Indeed, the reason why G-d created us is that we would speak words of thanks and praise to Ha'Shem. That's the point of creation: our purpose in this world, whether or not we truly understand it, is to recognize the Divinity of The Almighty within His creation; that is the essential function of the human intellect: to observe, study, think, and discover the guiding hand of The Almighty and His infinite greatness. But, knowing G-d is not enough. The Seal of G-d is Truth. To be able to emulate Ha'Shem is to be able to speak words of Truth.
A Jew's mission in this world is to spend time in Torah study. Learning should be done out loud. Even when we sanctify Shabbos, we sanctify it with words because our mouths is the way we serve G-d. Your words should be minimized on Shabbos. Before you say anything: think how we speak, when we speak, and what we do to understand the full severity of speech.
Is this appropriate to say? Should I say this? Is this worth saying or not? If you're not sure, silence is golden. Don't make grandiose promises: not only on a macro level, but on a micro level, as well. As a leader, Moshe was teaching this pivotal lesson: our words mean something. One of the pivotal themes in Sefer Bamidbar is this theme of The Spiritual Power of Speech. —
Mrs. Shira Smiles,
The Art and Science of Speech
If Anti-Semitic Trolls don't learn their lessons and stricter controls on social media networks and forums are not enforced, I suppose a global blackout/brownout will have to suffice.
Related:
Bereisheet 12: 1-3
"And the L-rd said to Avram, 'Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you. And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will aggrandize your name, and [you shall] be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse."
Devarim 11:29 and Devarim 27: 12,13
"When you cross the Jordan, the following shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin."
"And the following shall stand upon Mount Ebal [to] curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naftali."
