Verbal Exuberance and Social Engineering

Abstract

French

Ḥafetz Ḥayim, first published in 1873, is a renowned Jewish work on the sin of “evil speech.” It has the reputation of seeking to put a stop to derogatory gossip. Such an attempt would have been staggeringly difficult, especially since Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jewish culture was known for its talkativeness, including negative gossip. In fact, however, Ḥafetz Ḥayim permits and even commands negative talk about certain categories of people. Based on the historical context, I argue that Ḥafetz Ḥayim seeks not to stop negative talk but to direct it against those who threaten nascent Orthodox Judaism. However, this goal does not appear to have been realized. Insight into this apparent failure can be gleaned from the social sciences and especially from Samuel Heilman’s Synagogue Life: derogatory gossip about one another actually connects people and strengthens their community. Thus, Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s attempt to turn such gossip into a weapon against outsiders was doomed to failure.

Keywords

gossip Judaism evil speech slander Yiddish bavardage judaïsme mauvaise langue médisance yiddish

Introduction to Ḥafetz Ḥayim

Ḥafetz Ḥayim (“he who desires life,” Psalm 34:13) is a renowned work of Jewish law and morals.¹ Published in Poland in 1873, it has been reprinted many times and is widely studied, particularly among Orthodox Jews, to this day. Its author, the revered sage Israel Meir Kagan (1838–1933), is usually known, after this first book of his, as “the Ḥafetz Ḥayim.”² This article will embrace this traditional convention, which blurs any distinction between author and book.³

The main subject of Ḥafetz Ḥayim is the sin of derogatory speech.⁴ The author compiled and synthesized for the first time the many scattered teachings of Jewish texts regarding lashon hara (“evil speech”),⁵ effectively building them into a new category of Jewish law (Brown, 2008, 2010; Buchman, 2012: 131–134; Eckman, 1974: 191–192). Lashon hara is often translated as “gossip” or specifically derogatory gossip (Eckman, 1974: 183; Hacohen and Derovan, 2007; Wylen, 1993: 21). While this is an imprecise translation (since not all derogatory speech is gossip), it has the advantage of directing our attention to the extensive literature on gossip in the realms of anthropology and sociology. The last part of this article will draw on perspectives from those fields in counterpoint to Ḥafetz Ḥayim.

Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s definition of the subject appears early on in the book:

To begin with, one must know the general principles of these laws. Lashon hara and rekhilut – lashon hara is talking disparagingly about another person, and rekhilut is telling someone that someone else spoke badly of him or did him wrong – are prohibited, even if the statements are true … Also, the prohibition of lashon hara and rekhilut applies whether or not the person spoken about is present. Also, there is no difference [legally / morally] between the speaker and someone who accepts what was said … and “accepting” means believing inwardly in what is being told, even without joining supportively in the conversation … (Petiḥah, 19)⁶

Each of these points, the Ḥafetz Ḥayim states, will be backed up on the basis of authoritative texts, “in the name of all the decisors” (Petiḥah, 19). This is necessary because, as stated earlier in the book, “the majority of people do not know at all that the prohibition of lashon hara applies even when the statement is true” and even the learned delude themselves into thinking that their own derogatory talk is permissible for one reason or another (Haqdamah, 12).

From the opening passages of Ḥafetz Ḥayim, dread curses from the Bible and from rabbinic and mystical literature are invoked to deter readers from speaking badly of others or transgressing the numerous traditional rules regarding proper speech. The foreword (Petiḥah) explains in detail how many commandments of the Torah, both negative (“thou shalt not”) and positive (“thou shalt”) are violated by those who speak disparagingly of others. Subsequently, the various rules are enumerated and clarified in extensive detail. Ḥafetz Ḥayim highlights the negative social effects of gossip, including controversy, shaming, and loss of livelihood (e.g. Petiḥah, lavin [negative commandments] no. 12–14, 30–31; Hilkhot lashon hara 5:5, 119).

Despite the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s reputation as a lovable sage (Eckman, 1974: 201; Hacohen and Derovan, 2007), the authorial persona is rather dour. Besides his propensity for threats of damnation, the Ḥafetz Ḥayim looks askance at levity and humour and sometimes appears to disapprove not only of derogatory talk but of ordinary casual conversation which might conceivably lead in that direction. A striking example is the following:

As for what people are accustomed to, that a person who has moved from one town to another, when he sees someone from his previous town, questions him and asks about the townspeople … such conversation is not at all permissible. (Hilkhot lashon hara 4:11, second footnote, 112)

Further, the Ḥafetz Ḥayim takes pains to close a number of loopholes to derogatory speech that earlier authoritative texts appear to leave open. (Although the author presents his book simply as a compilation representative of the normative tradition, in fact, like any such work, it involves a great deal of selection and interpretation.⁷) Thus, when he takes up the subject of a permission, found in several traditional sources, to engage in derogatory speech about people who are carrying on quarrels or controversies, the Ḥafetz Ḥayim sets so many limits that the permission is practically nullified (Hilkhot lashon hara 8:8, 166–167). The notion that Ḥafetz Ḥayim is remarkably stringent in forbidding derogatory speech can be observed across the spectrum of religious Judaism today.⁸ Thus, both first impressions and the widespread reputation of Ḥafetz Ḥayim suggest that a major purpose of the book is to forbid derogatory gossip altogether.

Verbal Exuberance

Yet the daunting magnitude of such a task is evident from Ḥafetz Ḥayim itself; the book is a valuable witness to gossip as part of the way of life of the people the author lived among, Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jewry.⁹ This was a culture of exuberant verbal expressiveness (see Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Wex, 2010), as is well-depicted in the classic work of memory ethnography of pre-Holocaust Jewish Eastern European society, Life Is With People:¹⁰

Day-by-day existence can be carried on only to the accompaniment of elaborate verbalization … [O]bviously to live without talking is impossible … Words are a highly potent weapon, the medium for a high degree of virtuosity … An almost startling amount of imagination will be lavished on their use. (Zborowski and Herzog, 1962 [1952]: 413, 149)

Much of this talk was derogatory, including nicknames based on people’s physical oddities and such, which “could be brutal,” and “countless and ingenious” curses, which were part of the texture and flavour of the Yiddish vernacular (Kassow, 2010; Zborowski and Herzog, 1962 [1952]: 149, see 413).¹¹ Life Is With People describes gossip, positive and negative, as all-pervasive:

Everywhere people cluster to talk … Everyone wants to pick up the latest news, the latest gossip … It is proverbial that “there are no secrets in the shtetl,” and the shtetl itself jokes about the need of everyone to know all about everyone else’s affairs … Added to all the other pressures for conforming to usage and religious prescription is the powerful inducement, “because of people.” “People will laugh,” “people will talk” … Nobody is exempt from criticism, and the [leaders] least of all … If [people] dare not criticize [a leader] to his face they do it behind his back. (Zborowski and Herzog, 1962 [1952]: 227, 226, 225)

Ḥafetz Ḥayim illustrates the pervasiveness of such talk with vignettes such as the following, at a Sabbath service in synagogue:

Commonly (because of our many sins!) someone begins to tell his friend stories which are mingled with lashon hara and rekhilut [derogatory talk and negative reports] from beginning to end, before the liturgical reading of the Torah; but before he has finished his storytelling, the congregation begins to read from the Torah; and he gives in to temptation and does not interrupt his story, but completes his derogatory talk during the Torah reading. And as often as not he is one of the important members of the community, whose place is along the eastern wall of the synagogue, and everyone sees his sin. (Petiḥah, asayin [positive commandments] no. 7, second footnote, 43–44)

This verbal culture was integrated with the Yiddish language. As linguist James A. Matisoff notes in his study of Yiddish expressions:

There is much truth to the stereotype that Jews love to talk and that they enjoy argument as a mode of social interaction … This verbal jousting employs all the psychosemantic devices and rhetorical tropes known to man … The expressivity of Yiddish … needs no belaboring. (1979: xiv; cf. Wylen, 1993: 12)

It is in explaining a Yiddish word that the Ḥafetz Ḥayim introduces his longest passage of social observation, moving from law into narrative with a vignette worthy of Sholem Aleichem:

[These prohibitions are often transgressed] through what we call in Yiddish “oysfirn”,¹² and I will explain this to you in the holy language [Hebrew, the language of the book] so that you will know how many prohibitions of the Torah are violated through this ugly habit. It is when Reuben says to Simeon: Levi told me such-and-such about you … and Simeon believes his words …¹³

After that, when Simeon runs into Levi, he starts to blame and shame him … and Levi is dumbfounded: “What are you disgracing me for?” – until Simeon angrily tells him: “Why did you say insulting things about me to Reuben? Do you think I don’t know? Well, Reuben told me!” … So he makes excuses for himself and says “Reuben lied to you about me, and you’ve been shaming me for nothing!”

After that, when Simeon runs into Reuben, he gives in to the temptation to finish up this bad business in the “best” way possible, and says to him, “do you know I ate Levi alive because of your lies! He says it never happened at all!”

One sin leads to another, and Reuben says to Simeon, “Come with me, and you’ll see me say the exact same thing to his face!” … So he goes with him and they meet Levi, and Simeon says to Reuben: “Say it to his face!” So he girds himself with boldness and says: “You said such-and-such about him, in front of me!” … At that, Levi turns pale … and answers, “Yes, I said it, but I didn’t say it that way, or with that tone of voice!” – because we know that one inflection can change the meaning of many words. But Simeon answers, “Now, even if you deny it a thousand times, I won’t believe you, now that he said it to your face!” (Petiḥah, lavin 14, footnote, 31–33)

Putting a stop to such constant, energetic verbalizing would be an impossible task. Contrary to first impressions, it is not, in fact, the task which Ḥafetz Ḥayim takes on. Rather, in some very significant instances, derogatory talk is permitted or, indeed, encouraged.

Permitted and Commanded Derogatory Speech

Given Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s reputation and overall focus on prohibitions, it is rather a shock when one first comes across statements such as this:

And know that all this [prohibition of revealing someone’s religious transgressions] applies to an ordinary Jew, as will be explained further on … But if it is clear to you in the matter at hand that the reason for his sin was that there is heresy (apiqorsut) in him, heaven forbid – concerning such a person we are not commanded with the prohibition “[judge your kinsfolk fairly]; do not go around as a talebearer” [Leviticus 19:15–16] because he is not in the category of “your kinsfolk.” (Hilkhot lashon hara 4:1, footnote 95–96)

As it turns out, Ḥafetz Ḥayim repeatedly and explicitly limits the application of the prohibitions against derogatory speech. Indeed, concerning certain kinds of people, derogatory speech becomes a commandment rather than a prohibition. Several of these passages, like the one just cited, revolve around the interpretation of two phrases in Leviticus 19:15–16: “Judge your kinsfolk fairly. Do not go around as a talebearer about your people.” Ḥafetz Ḥayim takes these two phrases as a unit, and interprets “your kinsfolk” as “the folk who are akin to you in [observance of the] Torah and commandments.”¹⁴

This interpretation is adapted from the Talmud (bShavuot 30a, and bBava Metzia 59a on Leviticus 25:17), where “the folk who are akin to you” has been understood by commentators as referring to one’s wife, or to Jews in general, or to pious Jews, or to Torah scholars.¹⁵ For Ḥafetz Ḥayim, “the folk who are akin to you” are Jews attached to established patterns of life and thought governed by Jewish religious law and custom. Such people were finding themselves more and more on the defensive in the author’s historical context. Throughout the nineteenth century, the political and economic changes of modernity increasingly disrupted Eastern European Jewish life.¹⁶ In the years between the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s birth in 1838 and the publication of Ḥafetz Ḥayim in 1873, a number of groups in particular were challenging established tradition.¹⁷

The Haskalah, a Jewish movement of “enlightenment” emphasizing general education and greater integration with non-Jewish cultures, was in full swing in Eastern Europe by the time of the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s birth.¹⁸ That year, 1838, controversy erupted in the city of Tarnopol (now Ternopil’, Ukraine) over the appointment of a town rabbi: Solomon Judah Rapaport was chosen with the support of the maskilim (adherents of Haskalah), showing their dominance of the Jewish community there (Gribetz et al., 1993: 266; Meir, 2010). The Haskalah remained a powerful force over the next several decades. In Vilna (Vilnius), the major city of the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s region, a Hebrew-language journal promoting Haskalah ideas, Hakarmel, began publication in 1860; it was quite influential (Lederhendler, 1992: 328, 332; Menda-Levy, 2010; Slutsky, 2007b). “[B]y the 1870s the influence of the maskilim in Jewish life was considerable, even disproportionate” (Lederhendler, 1992: 338).¹⁹

Early Reform Judaism, which consciously departed from long-established customs and called aspects of Jewish law into question, was strongest in Germany, but was making inroads into Eastern European areas where Yiddish was widely spoken. In the decades before the publication of Ḥafetz Ḥayim, there were congregations associated with the Reform movement or with Haskalah in Hungary, Bohemia and Moravia, Galicia, Russia, and Romania. They mostly took a moderate approach to religious change, as did the two modern synagogues established in Vilna in the late 1840s. Nevertheless their willingness to depart from existing practices and borrow stylistically from Christian church worship aroused intense opposition from traditionalists (Meyer, 2010; Lavi et al., 2007: 379).

A modern Jewish literature both in the Yiddish vernacular and in Hebrew, heretofore reserved primarily for religious use, was establishing itself in Eastern Europe by the 1860s. Ideologically, the new literature in Hebrew represented the Haskalah movement, which sought integration with surrounding European cultures, as well as the early stirrings of what would become Zionism.²⁰ In Yiddish literature, the career of Sholem Abramovitsh, known by his pen name Mendele Moykher-Sforim, was in full swing from the mid-1860s. Mendele, later acclaimed as a founding figure of modern Yiddish culture, attacked the limitations and injustices of traditional Jewish society through both satire and sentiment (Miron, 2010). A major Yiddish writer in the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s own region was Isaac Meyer Dik. His works were published by the renowned Romm printing house of Vilna, which also produced the standard editions of the Talmud.

Dik’s best work appeared between 1860 and 1875 … In simple Yiddish and in the moralizing tone of early chapbooks, Dik subverted traditional forms through parody and satire … [H]e attacked what he regarded as outmoded and destructive traditional practices … Dik greatly assisted the sociocultural awakening of Lithuanian Jewry. (Sherman, 2010)

This “awakening,” of course, was also a disconnection from older patterns of thought and behaviour.

Besides the adherents of various ideologies, an increasing number of Jews were simply becoming less observant of traditional rules and increasingly indifferent to matters of faith.²¹ While in our time this has become the norm, it was a new but discernible trend in Eastern Europe in the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s era.

Finally, hostility toward Jews on the part of the Gentiles they lived among was arguably on the increase during this period; certainly the Jews of the Russian Empire, which included the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s region, faced increasing governmental interference with their traditional ways. Thousands of male Jews, many of them children, were conscripted into the Russian army for terms of twenty-five years or more; there, they were subject to intense pressure to convert to Russian Orthodox Christianity, and maintaining a Jewish identity was a struggle at best (Petrovsky-Shtern, 2010b; Slutsky, 2007a). In 1844, the traditional autonomous self-governing structure of the Jewish community in the Russian Empire was legally abolished (Bartal, 2005: 44; Stanislawski, 2010). That same year a state rabbinical school was established in Vilna under Christian supervision, with the cooperation of Jewish adherents of the Haskalah, “in conjunction with the educational reforms of 1844, which aimed to transform the religious and educational life of the Jews and to ‘merge’ (sliiat) them with the surrounding population” (Melamed, 2001: 105–106). In 1868–1869, in the wake of a famine, a government commission was set up in Vilna:

[it] proceeded to subject Jewish religious and communal life to a painstaking review, and to draw up a proposal that would do away with the separate Jewish government schools … small prayer halls (shtiblekh) were to be forbidden, leaving only [government-appointed] crown rabbis and supervised synagogues to function. Jewish divorce laws were to be amended; ritual baths placed under medical supervision and the number of voluntary associations (hevrot) vastly reduced. (Lederhendler, 1992: 335)

On this occasion, adherents of Haskalah successfully made common cause with traditionalists against this level of interference in Jewish religious life. While this increased the prestige of the maskilim,²² by the early 1870s some representatives of the Haskalah were raising doubts about any possibility of integration with the Gentile world in the light of growing antisemitism.²³

A great many Jews involved with Haskalah, religious reform, or modern literature would fit the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s definition of apiqorsim, roughly translatable as “heretics.” While rooted in classical Jewish sources, this definition is draconian in the nineteenth-century context:

A heretic [apiqoros] is defined as someone who denies the Torah or prophecy of Israel – the written Torah or the oral Torah.²⁴ Even if he says that all of the Torah is from Heaven except for one verse, or one argument a fortiori, or one interpretation of Scripture based on parallel wording, or one detail, he is in this category. (Hilkhot lashon hara 8:5, 165)

Thus, essentially anyone who expresses the slightest disagreement with any point of Jewish law or religious tradition is unprotected by the prohibition against derogatory talk. In fact, derogatory talk about them is commanded rather than prohibited. As this same passage states:

The entire prohibition of derogatory speech exists specifically with regard to a person who, according to Torah law, is still in the category of “your kinsfolk,” that is, the folk who are akin to you in Torah and commandments. But those people in whom you are aware that there is heresy – it is a commandment to disgrace them and insult them, to their faces or behind their backs, concerning everything you see about them or hear about them. (Hilkhot lashon hara 8:5, 165)

The same shift from forbidden to commanded occurs regarding Jews without a particular ideological commitment, but who were abandoning aspects of traditional observance:

All these laws we have written [about not publicizing a person’s religious transgressions] apply specifically to a person whose habit and way is to regret his sins. Not so if you have examined his ways and found that he has no fear of God and always remains in a way that is not good, like someone who casts off the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven [i.e. has become non-observant], or who is careless about one sin that all the Jewish public know to be a sin.

That is, if the sin that you want to reveal was committed by that sinner several times, deliberately, or if he deliberately committed, several times, [another] sin which everyone knows to be a sin, then it is proven that he was not merely overpowered by temptation when he transgressed the words of God. Rather, he has been acting out of the stubbornness of his heart; he has no fear of God.

So it is permitted to shame him and to tell about him to his disgrace, to his face or behind his back. And if he does or says something that it is possible to judge favourably or unfavourably, one has to judge him unfavourably, because it has been established in other matters that he is completely wicked. So our Sages have said: “A man shall not wrong his kinsfolk” (Leviticus 25:17) – the folk who are akin to you in Torah and commandments, do not wrong them with words. (Hilkhot lashon hara 4:7, 104)

Although the Ḥafetz Ḥayim refers to determining that a person “has no fear of God,” the question is not in fact about the person’s emotions or beliefs, but about actions. Someone who, for example, allowed themselves to smoke cigarettes on the Sabbath, would be in this category of “the wicked,” regardless of motivation.

Similar references to these two categories, heretics and “the wicked,” recur throughout Ḥafetz Ḥayim.²⁵ Remarkably, not only is gossip against such people permitted or even commanded, according to Ḥafetz Ḥayim, but gossip has the authority to determine who they are. The fullest statement on this is as follows:

[The prohibitions of derogatory speech are negated] specifically for people from whom you yourself have heard words of heresy, but it is forbidden to rely on hearsay to disgrace them to their faces or behind their backs, or to make up your mind [that they are heretics], as explained in the laws prohibiting the acceptance of derogatory talk [see Hilkhot leshon hara 6:4]. For the time being, you must only be suspicious, and also caution other people, in secret, not to associate with those people for now, until the matter is clarified. (Hilkhot lashon hara 8:6, 165)

Though the language is cautious, the message is contrary to other situations, in which rumours are to be rejected and certainly not spread further. The recipient of a rumour that someone is a heretic is supposed to take it quite seriously and indeed spread it to others, albeit in secret and without undue certainty. Once rumours are flying, even these restrictions are removed:

These qualifications apply to mere hearsay, but if it is established in the town that they are heretics, the law is as if you knew it directly [emphasis added].

Know, too, that if it is established in the town that someone is wicked, because of other kinds of sins [other than heresy] for which it is permitted to disgrace a person, the law is the same … When is this considered established? When it is agreed among the townspeople that the person is wicked, to the point where they have no doubt about it, because of the evil rumours that are constantly emerging about him regarding adultery or such matters that all Jews know are forbidden. (Hilkhot lashon hara 8:6–7, 165–166, emphasis added)

Ḥafetz Ḥayim touches briefly on other categories of Jews who are not protected from derogatory speech. At one point, the treatment of heretics is extended to informers and unspecified others:

To sum up the matter in brief: every Jewish person is commanded not to accept derogatory reports about any Jew, except for heretics, informers, and suchlike, those who have left the category of “your kinsfolk.” (Hilkhot lashon hara 8:13, 170)

Informers, in contexts where Jews were a minority at the mercy of Christian authorities, were Jews who would tell Gentile authorities about fellow Jews who had done things the government disapproved of. Informers had conventionally been assumed to be traitors motivated by money or power, but by the time of Ḥafetz Ḥayim they included idealistic Jews who cooperated with government authorities for what they saw as the betterment of their people (Wisse, 2010: 194–197). The unspecified Jews included in the expression “and suchlike” might be a hint at those who had converted to Christianity out of conviction or convenience. In terms of Jewish law, such people remain Jewish, but they had distanced themselves from the traditional community in the most extreme way.²⁶

Importantly, as this summary implies, non-Jews do not seem to be protected from derogatory speech at all. The Ḥafetz Ḥayim acknowledges that Jews have conversations with non-Jews.²⁷ His only references to such conversations, however, state that it is prohibited to say derogatory things to Gentiles about one’s fellow Jew, or to listen to derogatory things about Jews said by a Gentile (Hilkhot lashon hara 8:12, 169–170; Hilkhot rekhilut 7:4, 230–231). It appears that derogatory speech about non-Jews would be completely permissible.

This permission for derogatory speech about non-Jews is not obvious or inevitable. A brief book on proper Jewish speech, Leshon Yisrael, by a respected Hasidic author, Rabbi Israel Berger, states explicitly:

Not only about Jews is it prohibited to speak in a derogatory way, but even about Gentiles. So it is stated in Midrash Tanḥuma on the Torah portion Pequdei [section 7] interpreting the verse “you sit speaking against your brother, slandering your mother’s son” [Psalm 50:20]: Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said: David [the psalmist] is saying: If you speak against Esau, who is “your brother,” in the end you will speak against “your mother’s son,” that is, Moses, the greatest of all the prophets. (1910: 12)

In the Bible, Esau is the brother of Jacob, ancestor of the Israelites; in rabbinic midrash, he regularly stands for the Romans and the usually hostile non-Jewish world in general. Based on this classical source, Berger is thus ruling that derogatory speech about Gentiles is forbidden because it will eventually lead to derogatory speech about Jews, if for no other reason. Berger’s booklet was published in 1910, a generation after the publication of Ḥafetz Ḥayim, and in the large and modern city of Bucharest; no doubt the permeability of the boundary between Jews and Gentiles was more inescapable for him. Still, the Ḥafetz Ḥayim certainly had access to the midrashic source cited by Berger and certainly could have ruled in the same way, especially because “the vast majority of the non-Jewish population” in his region “was Belarusian, generally considered to be among the groups most kindly disposed towards the Jews in east-central Europe” (Zajka, 2001: 29).²⁸ Nevertheless, Ḥafetz Ḥayim makes it appear as if the exclusion of Gentiles from any protection against derogatory speech can be taken for granted.

Social/Historical Context

These aspects of Ḥafetz Ḥayim, though often ignored,²⁹ are no secret,³⁰ and the notion that they reflect the historical situation at the time of the book’s publication is not new.³¹ I would argue, however, that these various permissions and commands for derogatory speech deserve much more attention than they are usually given. The number of words devoted to them in Ḥafetz Ḥayim is indeed small in proportion to the book as a whole. But their implications are huge: only members of the author’s own community, nascent Orthodox Judaism, are meant to be protected from the destructive effects of evil speech.

In common Jewish usage today, “Orthodox Judaism” is sometimes assumed to be, simply, traditional Judaism as everyone in the pre-modern world would have known it. By contrast, movements such as Reform and Conservative Judaism are seen as modern developments. The consensus of academic scholarship is different: Orthodox Judaism is a modern movement, which originated in reaction to social and religious changes, in particular to the early Reform movement of the beginning of the nineteenth century (Katzburg, Wurzburger and Rackman, 2007). As such, Orthodoxy developed in different parts of the Jewish world at different times, depending on when adherents of tradition found themselves faced by alternative, self-consciously modern interpretations of Judaism (Silber, 2010). In light of this distinction, the argument of this article is that Ḥafetz Ḥayim needs to be seen as an Orthodox work in the academic sense. The book does not reflect an unselfconscious traditionalism, but a combative approach defending the author’s Jewish community against opponents and alternatives.

Simcha Fishbane’s important study of the Mishnah Berurah, a later and much more comprehensive work on Jewish law by the Ḥafetz Ḥayim, highlights his goal “to enhance and regulate the boundaries between the halakhah-observant Jew and secular Jewish society,” maintaining or creating a community “insulated from the outside world by social norms” (Fishbane, 1991: 169, cf. 161). This same agenda of building a community with clear boundaries – an Orthodox community, one that consciously rejects alternatives – can already be discerned in Ḥafetz Ḥayim, the author’s first work.

In some ways, the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s definition of this community is remarkably inclusive, transcending the gender and class distinctions by which Eastern European Jewish society was riven (on these, see Zborowski and Herzog, 1962 [1952]: 124–151). He explicitly states that the prohibitions of derogatory speech apply regarding both men and women (Hilkhot lashon hara 8:2, 163). They “sometimes” apply regarding children as well; the Ḥafetz Ḥayim does allow for telling others about a child’s bad behaviour to prevent damage and to educate the child, providing no harm to the child will result (Hilkhot lashon hara 8:3, 163–164). In contrast to a stereotype widespread in (and beyond) Western culture,³² he never labels gossip as typical of women. Although negative speech about a rabbi or Torah scholar is an especially severe sin, he also states that derogatory speech about an ordinary person or “ignoramus” is forbidden (Hilkhot lashon hara 8:4, 164). As noted, he makes a point of including people involved in quarrels or controversies within the protections against derogatory speech, despite authoritative texts that suggest the contrary; and he is also anxious to include ordinary sinners, who basically accept religious norms, within these protections.

On the other hand, the vast majority of the population of the world falls outside the community defined by Ḥafetz Ḥayim: Jews who reject religious tradition and rabbinic authority even in some small detail; Jewish people who habitually violate Jewish religious law; and Gentiles, the entire non-Jewish world.

In the context of advancing modernity, Jews who have abandoned aspects of traditional observance – flagrant sinners, the “wicked” – are a liminal group in the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s vision of his community. Much of the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s discussion of them concerns how to recognize and categorize them properly. His definition of flagrant sinners does not include all transgressors of Jewish law, but only those who repeatedly and unrepentantly transgress well-known prohibitions. This is an appeal to community standards, rather than to the letter of the law. Thus, it is logical, albeit surprising, that the Ḥafetz Ḥayim, as noted earlier, accepts the consensus of the community – which would have to be expressed through gossip – as a way of determining that someone is wicked.

At the same time, the Ḥafetz Ḥayim warns repeatedly that we are not to be hasty to place someone in this category (Hilkhot lashon hara 6:10, footnote 138; 8:7, 166). In sociological terms, he distinguishes between “criminals” and “revolutionaries.”³³ The ordinary person who breaks obscure Jewish laws or who sins but feels sorry for it is not a “revolutionary,” not a threat to the system, and remains within the community. Even when someone is in the category of the “wicked,” there are conditions to take into account before speaking derogatorily about him (Hilkhot lashon hara 4:7, 105; 8:7, 166). The Ḥafetz Ḥayim sees such a person as still linked to the community, and speaking negatively about him has the purpose of bringing him back to the community by making his dissidence unpleasant for him. The ruling quoted earlier about shaming and disgracing a flagrant sinner continues:

And how much more so if you have rebuked him about [his behaviour] and he has not repented, is it permitted to publicize and reveal his sins in public and to pour disgrace upon him – until he returns to the good. (Hilkhot lashon hara 4:7, 105, emphasis added)

This is similar to Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s limited permission to speak about children’s bad behaviour:

If your intention in telling about [the behaviour] is to prevent the child from doing harm, and to direct him in the right path, it is permitted, though you must first make sure that the report is accurate, rather than hastily relying on hearsay … and you must take the likely outcome into account. (Hilkhot lashon hara 8:3, 164, emphasis added)

The Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s attitude toward heretics is different. They seem to be beyond hope of redemption and speaking badly of them is not for their sakes, but to protect the community:

And know [in conclusion] that everything we have written in this book about the importance of avoiding the sin of derogatory speech applies to people who are still in the category of “your kinsfolk.” But those people who deny God’s Torah, even one letter of it, and mock the words of our Sages of Blessed Memory – we are commanded to publicize their false ideas to everyone, and to disgrace them, so that people will not learn from their evil deeds. (Hilkhot rekhilut 9:15, 252, emphasis added)

In the context of modernization, those who accept liberal and even non-Jewish ideas are in the sociological category of revolutionaries, posing a serious threat to the cohesion of traditionalist society. Ḥafetz Ḥayim defines them as out of the community, as threats against which the community must defend itself by the power of hostile talk.

Most people in the world fall completely outside the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s community boundaries; and the most extreme outsiders are the least mentioned. Despite the “widespread awareness” of the presence of informers among East European Jews noted by Wisse (2010: 190), such people, traditionally understood as enemies of the community, are mentioned only in passing. The unspecified others in the intriguing phrase “heretics, informers, and suchlike” would presumably be Jews who had blatantly distanced themselves from the community. A likely example would be apostates (converts to Christianity).³⁴ Like Gentiles, such clear outsiders need not even be specifically mentioned.

This reading of Ḥafetz Ḥayim suggests that the exceptions and “loopholes” in his delineation of the laws of speech are not incidental to his project, but of its essence. Minimally, one must conclude that Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s famously detailed and stringent prohibitions of negative talk are not intended as universal moral principles. They are meant to protect the author’s own religious community from the negative effects of derogatory talk.

On this reading, the permissions and commands to produce and listen to derogatory gossip about outsiders could be seen as letting off steam, simply directing the negative energy of gossip away from the community itself. But the actual text suggests a broader reading. An attentive observer of his own society, the Ḥafetz Ḥayim was not trying to repress or even simply deflect the vital energy of Yiddish talk with all its gleefully derogatory aspects. Rather, he was trying to harness that energy. He sought to teach loyal members of the Orthodox society he was involved in shaping to protect each other from the harsh effects of negative speech. At the same time, such speech could remain an integral aspect of traditional social life, and could still be enjoyed and strengthen bonds between people. Only, its power would be unleashed against those who threatened the self-contained integrity of the Orthodox community. Rumour would spare ordinary, weak-willed sinners, but would function to locate and identify willful sinners and heretics. Badmouthing would punish sinners, motivating them to change their ways, and exclude heretics from the community so that they could have no influence. Gentiles, the ultimate threats to Orthodox community whether through violence or through the blandishments of assimilation, would be badmouthed freely while excluded from participating in gossip. Like Hercules faced with the Augean stables, the Ḥafetz Ḥayim sought to direct the powerful flow of rivers – in his case, the ever-flowing rivers of talk – into a cleansing force.

“Tell it to me anyway”

Thus far, this article has been based on a close reading of a text, Ḥafetz Ḥayim, within its well-documented historical context. The starting point for the remainder of this article is more impressionistic: it does not seem that the Ḥafetz Ḥayim succeeded in his goal.

Orthodox Judaism is alive and well, a diverse stream of modern Judaism founded on conscious resistance to many aspects of modernity. It has weathered the storms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and experienced dramatic growth and renewal after the devastations of the Holocaust. In many Orthodox communities worldwide, Ḥafetz Ḥayim is a household name. The book has been reprinted many times in the 140 years since its first publication, and its author is revered. Yet, at least based on my own experiences in a variety of Jewish groups and my own wide reading, Ḥafetz Ḥayim does not seem to have transformed the Jewish world in terms of actual verbal behaviour.

Is it possible that the Ḥafetz Ḥayim succeeded in regulating gossip in his own time, but that with changing historical circumstances his rules were no longer useful and stopped being followed? There is potential here for further research, examining Yiddish literature and memoirs, rabbis’ sermons and responses to questions, and so forth, on a scale far beyond that of this brief article. But a positive result to such an inquiry seems unlikely. For what it is worth, a story told in various versions ascribes to the Ḥafetz Ḥayim himself the awareness that his book was unlikely to change behaviour:

[W]hen the Chafetz Chaim was about to print his monumental work on lashon hara, Rav Yisrael Salanter [a renowned elder rabbi, 1810–1883] remarked, “Do you think that publishing your sefer [religious book] will stop people from speaking lashon hara?” The Chafetz Chaim replied, “It is worth publishing the sefer even if it will only cause people to give a sigh when they speak lashon hara.” (Morgenstern, n.d.)³⁵

In our time, the decline of Yiddish, largely replaced as a Jewish vernacular by Israeli Hebrew and by English and other “non-Jewish” languages, has probably diminished the overall vitality and extravagance of Jewish talk. This might be expected to make the regulation of gossip a less daunting task today than it was in the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s era. And there is widespread awareness today of the prohibition of lashon hara, especially in Orthodox Jewish circles.³⁶ A reminder of this sometimes heard in North American Orthodox circles is a chant, “Lashon hara, lamed hey [the initial Hebrew letters of lashon hara]: Go to hell the easy way!” Often, however, this goes hand in hand with a rejoinder: “Lashon hara, lamed hey: Tell it to me anyway!”³⁷

The complexities of gossip in circles that one would expect to be most influenced by Ḥafetz Ḥayim can be seen in a recent article advising psychiatrists about issues particular to the care of Haredi (“Ultra-Orthodox”) Jewish patients. There we find the following contradictory pieces of information:

The biblical commandments to “honor one’s parents” and to “refrain from gossip” are given great weight in ultra-orthodox Jewish communities. One is forbidden from … speaking negatively about anyone else, even when the information is true …

Another significant obstacle to treatment is a patient or family’s fear of stigmatization within the community should it become known that the patient is mentally ill … In such an inter-dependent and small community, anonymity is nearly impossible. Consequently, families will often attempt innumerable private interventions prior to seeking professional psychiatric help, fearing that word might quickly spread of the patient’s illness … Families may not visit an in-patient unit for fear of being seen by others. One visiting mother confessed her worry to me that the driver of the car service might gossip about her destination. (Popovsky, 2010: 663, 653)

Thus, among the most stringently observant Jews today, derogatory gossip is seen as strictly forbidden and simultaneously remains a major force within the community.

What has gone wrong? Perhaps insights from the social sciences can help.

Anthropologists and sociologists have given gossip a great deal of attention (for recent overviews see Besnier, 2009: 12–19; Foster, 2004; Hallett, Harger and Eder, 2009: 586–589). These scholars acknowledge that gossip can involve hostility and divisiveness (e.g. Dreby, 2009: 35; Foster, 2004: 84), but they also emphasize its social usefulness:

[T]he social functions of gossip vary considerably from person to person, situation to situation, and … author to author. It may be said, however, that the literature has coalesced around four major social functions of gossip rooted in social exchange theories … These functions were essentially foreshadowed in an article written by Stirling in 1956. She remarked upon gossip as socially beneficial in that it facilitates information flow, provides recreation, and strengthens control sanctions, thereby creating group solidarity … Stirling thus implied the four social functions of gossip encountered repeatedly in gossip literature in the years since her article: information, entertainment, friendship (or intimacy), and influence. (Foster, 2004: 83–84)³⁸

The same functions of gossip identified by social scientists can also be found acknowledged by the Ḥafetz Ḥayim. He considers the exchange of information to be important enough, in very limited circumstances and with many conditions attached, to override the prohibitions on derogatory speech.³⁹ While he does not favour gossip as a form of entertainment, he implicitly acknowledges that people enjoy it. This comes through in what might be called his observational reports, like his description, quoted earlier, of an honoured member of a synagogue engaging in derogatory storytelling during the synagogue service.

Influence as a function of gossip is key to the purpose of Ḥafetz Ḥayim, as seen in this article. He embraces the policing function of gossip, its role in enforcing conformity and identifying transgressors, as identified by modern sociologists (Bergmann, 1993: 140–145; Foster, 2004: 86–87).

The role of gossip in building friendship and community, however, provides a clue to the failure of Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s attempt at social engineering. It is not that the Ḥafetz Ḥayim was unaware of this role, but he may have misjudged how it works. To clarify this point I will turn to a specific example.

An important sociological study of gossip among Jews is Samuel Heilman’s acclaimed chapter on this topic in Synagogue Life, a study of the author’s own Modern Orthodox congregation in the United States circa 1970 (1976: 151–192; see also 193–209 on “joking,” and index entries on “gossip,” 299–300).⁴⁰ An Orthodox community with members mostly of Eastern European Jewish background, this was exactly the kind of group that the Ḥafetz Ḥayim would have hoped to influence, and where people would probably speak his name with reverence. Heilman’s ethnography, however, reveals gossip, often derogatory, as the “blood and tissue” of communal life (Heilman, 1976: 153). Despite the fact that members, who pride themselves on their loyalty to Jewish law, are aware that it is religiously forbidden, “One cannot be long in the setting without being struck by the intense involvement and interest of the members in this activity” (Heilman, 1976: 151, 160).

It is not that gossip goes completely unchecked in this synagogue: “Any information that threatens to destroy the unity of the group is made secret, and its dissemination is strictly controlled” (Heilman, 1976: 179). This “control,” however, takes place informally, its rules unstated, its reasons left unarticulated; and it does not stop derogatory talk about members of the community. For example, the most critical and derogatory speech about fellow members of the congregation “never occurs at sociability spots, where everything discussed is open to everyone present. Rather it takes place between seat neighbors, whispering at their seats, or among intimates huddled in a corner, away from all intrusions” (Heilman, 1976: 179). If control of gossip were based on the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s prescriptions and proscriptions, this secret gossip would not be taking place at all.

As Heilman discusses the workings of gossip in this congregation, some of his analysis seems very much in tune with the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s agenda: “Slander about outsiders may bind the gossipers in a countergroup … members, already bonded in other ways, may affirm, strengthen, and experience their own community by slandering outsiders” (1976: 185). One can imagine the Ḥafetz Ḥayim nodding contentedly at this outcome of his permission for Orthodox Jews to slander flagrant sinners, heretics and Gentiles.

In fact, however, the “outsiders” to whom Heilman refers are members of other Orthodox synagogues in the same town. These are people with whom gossipers have a sense of kinship, as well as rivalry: “Knowing about the personal and private affairs of other [Orthodox] Jews is proof of some sort of connectedness … Accordingly, the group encourages such gossipers” (Heilman, 1976: 184).

In general, as Heilman notes based on his own observations as well as earlier studies of gossip in a variety of cultures and milieux, people gossip almost exclusively about people they feel connected with. Membership in a group can be defined, in fact, by engaging in gossip about its members and by being gossiped about (Heilman, 1976: 158; see Gluckman, 1963: 313–314). Concretely, Heilman observes,

most of the gossip I overheard or received concerned itself with shul members. Next in frequency was conversation about other Orthodox Jews … Gossip about non-Orthodox Jews was quite occasional … Gentiles were at times talked about in general terms … but never was there any reference to the personal or private affairs of any identifiable and specific Gentiles. (1976: 182)

This is the exact reverse of the pattern that adherence to the rules of Ḥafetz Ḥayim would have established, in which there would be unlimited gossip about Gentiles, a great deal of gossip directed against non-Orthodox (“heretical”) Jews, and no gossip at all about fellow Orthodox Jews in good standing with the community.

It is possible, of course, that further research into past and present Orthodox Jewish communities would reveal other patterns based on more specific contextual factors. Perhaps there are or have been Orthodox communities conforming to the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s desired pattern of directing negative talk exclusively outward, against sinners and heretics and Gentiles.

Yet Heilman’s study, rooted in earlier scholarship on gossip in several cultures (Heilman, 1976: 154–155, 158, 162, 164), and cited in later cross-cultural work on this topic (see bibliographies in Bergmann, 1993; Goodman and Ben-Ze’ev, 1994), suggests another possibility. Perhaps gossip, across a variety of social contexts, follows its own internal dynamic. Perhaps the Ḥafetz Ḥayim’s attempt to harness the torrential energy of derogatory talk in the service of Orthodoxy foundered on a misunderstanding of how such talk works. While the Ḥafetz Ḥayim was a skilled observer of talk, and thought about it deeply, he could not control this great force of nature because he did not fully understand how it works.

Conclusion

To sum up: Ḥafetz Ḥayim wrote his classic work about evil speech in the midst of an intensely verbal culture where derogatory talk flourished. I have argued that his purpose was not to put an end to this talk. Rather, in his historical moment, when Orthodox Judaism in Eastern Europe was beginning to take shape by defining itself against modern trends, he sought to direct the flow of derogatory talk against those who threatened the nascent Orthodox community. The various permissions and encouragements of negative gossip found in Ḥafetz Ḥayim are thus not secondary or incidental, but of the essence. More impressionistically, I have noted that the Ḥafetz Ḥayim does not seem to have succeeded in redirecting the flow of talk in this way – though further research testing this impression would be interesting. An explanation for this apparent lack of success comes from the analysis of gossip by anthropologists and sociologists, notably Samuel Heilman’s study of his own Orthodox congregation. It turns out that the Ḥafetz Ḥayim neglected a central element of the workings of gossip: people gossip, positively and negatively, about those they feel connected with, and this network of gossip builds connection and community. Thus, it would be practically impossible for a community to direct its negative talk preponderantly or exclusively against outcasts and outsiders. Gossip has its own purposes and follows its own course.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my student Chantelle Jackson for significant research help and insights at an early stage of this project, and to Anna Lilliman, my study partner in reading Ḥafetz Ḥayim.

Notes

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