Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Slander…..On Her and Others

Prelude:
Hebrew terms for those not aquatinted with them:
Lashon Hara
– Saying some thing bad about another person, even if true. This is usually forbidden by Jewish law, except in some cases, like when it is needed to prevent someone else from getting hurt/cheated/wronged/etc.
Motzai Shem Ra-Saying something bad and FALSE about an other person. This is even more serious than “Lashon Hara”

The Post:

Saturday evening, Ricki was caught doing something bad (I can’t remember what, but it was no big deal). When we cornered her about it, demanding a confession, she started preaching to us: “It is forbidden to say “lashon hara”, I don’t want to say Lashon hara! My teacher said that it is forbidden!”
However, the next morning, when the “victim” was someone else, oh was it a different story! Ricki, a big fan of fried chicken cutlets (“shnitzl” in Hebrew), had swiped a piece and-a-half from off the pan lid where the cutlets for lunch had been warming up since early that morning...
As I entered the living room, Ricki burst out “I saw Issac and David (her two brothers) take shnitzl yesterday before they left!!”
Unlucky Ricki. The shnitzl had been warming up from only in the morning. Any missing pieces had been snatched in the previous hour, and her brothers were FAST asleep. So I told her off for that juicy little bit of “motzai shem ra”, indicating that if she wanted to avoid lashon hara, this was were she could start…..

2 comments:

Adelaide Dupont said...

Thank you for explaining those words.

I would also like to know the words for saying kind things to people and about them.

rickismom said...

There is no specific term, but the nearest in Hebrew would be "Lashon Tov" ("a good tongue")