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May 10, 2025 - 12 Iyyar 5785 Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim - Whispers Down the Lane
Dear Friends, As we grow up in the world and our horizons expand, it's both interesting and funny to compare our experiences with those of others we meet along our way. Things we went through and assumed everyone else did, and things we never heard of that others took for granted. Sometimes, they're even the same experiences, but known by a different moniker. A somewhat silly example is a game I'm certain is familiar to all of us as "Telephone" or "Broken Telephone." In the greater Philadelphia area, where I grew up, for some reason or another, this game was known to us as "Whisper Down the Lane." A phrase is whispered in one person's ear and passed along to the next person, and so on, until the last person shares aloud what variation of that phrase they heard. Without fail, we marvel at how different the final result is from the original utterance, wondering how and when along the journey it was both misunderstood and intentionally mangled. And usually, we laugh. While I truly hate to be a party pooper, I don't find the game so funny. I don't think I ever have. For me, it speaks of a human proclivity towards perverting truth for the sake of novelty or entertainment. We find predictability, consistency, and straightforwardness to be boring; integrity and factuality unexciting. So much of the reason the Torah is still with us, as a central and foundational text for billions of people all over the world, is precisely because it speaks to elements of human nature that have existed since time immemorial. The Holiness Code, in this week's Parasha, Acharei Mot - Kedoshim, points directly to many of these all-too-human tendencies, in ways even the original text could not possibly have apprehended. In particular, Leviticus 19:16 tells us, לֹא־תֵלֵ֤ךְ רָכִיל֙ בְּעַמֶּ֔יךָ. This is translated in our Etz Chayim commentary as, "Do not deal basely with your countrymen," but I feel something is missing, as רָכִיל֙ (rachil) is understood rabbinically as gossip or tale-bearing. More colloquially, I would prefer, "Do not go about as a gossip, or Yenta, in the midst of your people." Well, we know the sage wisdom of Proverbs, that "life and death is in the power of the tongue," that words create and destroy worlds and souls with disproportionate ease. But we also love power, and being the ones who hold, or purport to hold, the power of information, it can be intoxicating. We see it in the sources of our news, and especially in our social media feeds. Everyone is eager to be first, to put out their "hot take," to get their name out into the public eye, all too often at the expense of accuracy, fidelity, and truth. If we are the bearers of seemingly valuable information, if we have a platform from which to share it, and can do so repeatedly at high volumes, then we feel we are controlling the narrative. We feel we have the power. But the truth is that we have very little control over what happens to us in life. It is better to be known as someone of integrity, who says what they mean and means what they say, rather than being the one shouting harmful words through a megaphone just because they can. Let us neither deal basely with our fellow humans, nor go about as talebearers and gossips among ourselves. Let us respect and appreciate the power of life and death in our tongues. Let us be among those who use our words to speak for justice, truth, and peace. Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Joshua Strom
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