I was awakened today to the pleasant news that this is officially “Say Something Nice Day.” Curious, I checked it out on dayspedia.com and it is absolutely a thing. Incidentally, today is also “National Barefoot Day,” “National Nail Polish Day,” “National Hazelnut Cake Day,” and if you eat that cake too gluttonously, it’s also “National Heimlich Maneuver Day.” And if the Heimlich doesn’t work and you have questions about where your soul is headed next, it’s also the “International Day of Doubt.”
But I love the idea of a day to say nice things. Here’s the scoop:
So let me just say to you, my loyal subscribers, recommenders and even merely-occasional readers: You are AWESOME!
But you know, in Jewish tradition, every day should be “Say Something Nice Day.” In fact back in the ‘90s, there was a move in Congress, inspired by a rabbi, to dedicate an entire day to say only good things and refrain from hurtful speech. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin originated the idea and Senators Lieberman and Mack introduced a resolution designating May 14 as a “National Speak No Evil Day.” In 1997, Sen. Resolution 151 was adopted.
You see, Jewish ethics holds the power of speech to be sacrosanct, and it’s not enough to just say a nice thing or two about someone; we should refrain from negative speech all the time, 24/7. The prophet Hosea said, "Take words with you and return to the Lord. Instead of bulls, our offering will come from our lips."
Hosea was quite ahead of his time in understanding that so much of what comes out is “bull.” He also understood that heartfelt words are far more powerful than mindless ritual - and indeed, once the temple was destroyed, prayer replaced the sacrificial system as the primary mode of religious expression for Jews.
An old Jewish teaching compares the tongue to an arrow. "Why not another weapon, a sword for example?" one rabbi asks. "Because," he is told, "if a person unsheathes his sword to kill his friend and his friend begs for mercy, he can always put the sword aside; but the arrow, once it is shot, cannot be returned, no matter how much the person wants to."
Around the same time Telushkin made his proposal, Zion Square in Jerusalem was filled with protesters crying, "Death to the traitor," and some fringe rabbis gave sanction to those calls through their warped interpretation of Jewish law. A few weeks later, Prime Minister Rabin lay dead in Tel Aviv. It all began with words.
Jews have about as many words for bad language as Eskimos do for snow. And it’s not because we do it more than anyone else, but it might be because we recognize the dangers more than most. Because we have seen those dangers first-hand.
We’ve suffered from the big lies and small ones. We have seen the word Jew as a verb, equated with cheater in the dictionary.
Words can kill. But words are also life-affirming, words are enchantment, words have power.
I was thinking of posting Donald Trump’s Top Ten Meanest Comments here, but then I realized. I’ve got to say nice things today. I’ve got to set aside the snide for just one day, to remind myself that “nice” is achievable - and that all that cruelty has not corroded my soul completely. Yet.
I recalled that 30 years ago, in honor of Telushkin’s idea, on an ordinary day, I decided to try to refrain from saying bad words (in Hebrew Lashon ha-Ra) and be extraordinarily nice for an entire single day. I elected to go cold-turkey on destructive language for 24 hours.
These were my ground rules, which I recommend you try on this “Say Something Nice” holiday:
No cursing or screaming;
No negative statements about any third party not present;
Utter courtesy in all interactions; and
Do not tell anyone about this little experiment.
So let me share how it went down for me. (You can also listen to this experiment as described in my audiobook of Mensch-Marks)
I began at five o’clock on a Monday afternoon.
5:30: My mother calls, with oodles of advice about relatives, the kids, work, health. By 5:45, she’s broken me and I revert to my usual role as the annoyed son and willing gossip partner. On both counts, I’ve blown it. I decide to call off my quest until midnight.
1:10 a.m.: Mara, my wife, plops (then) two-year old Daniel next to me in bed, jarring me from dreams of making the world better for nice people. “I’m sorry I didn’t hear his screaming,” I mutter, “I’ll listen better next time.” Perfect. I manage to suppress my knee-jerk response (”Listen, if the kid’s bawling, why should we both have to suffer?”), and diffuse a potential chain reaction of verbal violence. I’m getting the hang of this.
5:05 a.m.: Four-year old Ethan plows into the bed, screaming, “Daniel is in my spot!” Again, I subdue the anger impulse, suggesting calmly that all Hammerman children return to their own beds. “Then carry me,” my 49 pound eldest demands, always able to sense weakness in his parental prey. I do, with a forced smile, like a senator making nice to a wealthy lobbyist.
7:30 a.m.: I tip-toe out the door, leaving the domestic part of Speak No Evil Day successfully behind me.
As a rabbi, I represent a tradition that recognizes evil speech as an addiction and equates it with physical assault. But I’m human too, and since I spend most of my day communicating, the potential for verbal lapse is ever-present. On this day, I needed to avoid all temptation. Driving to my rounds at the hospital, I switched from Imus and Howard Stern to classical music. I miss the dirt. I need coffee.
9:25: An elderly patient whispers to me that the hospital is filled with anti-Semites conspiring to steal her flowers. I hold her hand, calmly, saying, “The people here are very nice.” The word “nice” is beginning to get to me. As I leave the hospital, I smile at everyone, including an orderly sweeping the floor. He seems agitated. I’m stepping on his mop.
11:30: Back at the office, a phone call from a man moving to the ‘burbs from Manhattan. I try to talk up Stamford without saying anything derogatory about the noisy, filthy, crime-infested city he inhabits (just kidding, Big Apple-ites; I love New York). It’s not easy. I’m famished.
12:14 p.m.: As I return from a quick bite of anything-sweet-I-can-find, my secretary tells me that she didn’t know I would be back so soon, so my 12:15 appointment, a potential new congregant, has left.
“You sent her home?!”
It’s not quite a shout but I know instantly that I’ve gone beyond my strict boundaries. I apologize profusely. It turns out the appointment is waiting for me in the library. She badmouths another local congregation. I go out of my way to defend it. The conversation fizzles after that.
With each encounter that follows, I walk on verbal eggshells. I meet with a divorced couple, planning their child’s Bar Mitzvah. Thankfully both are there, so neither can talk about the other. A close friend calls, a primary source for community gossip. I’m afraid to ask a simple “How is everything,” for fear of what could follow. I have a deep thirst for some juicy stuff and sense an unnatural distance between us. What can I say to convey warmth without it being at the expense of innocent others? The call ends, abruptly.
A congregant stops by to discuss a program she is working on, and states flatly of a co-worker, “Doesn’t she drive you crazy?” Either a no or a yes makes me an accomplice to defamation. I pretend not to hear.
Another rabbi calls, asking me for an evaluation of a teacher applying for a job in his synagogue. I’ve only good things to say, but every word feels like a dagger, every sentence a thrust. Through the day, I manage to deflect deprecatory comments about everyone from the Lubavitcher Rebbe to Yasser Arafat.
3:30: I am courteous to a phone solicitor offering “Rabie” Hammerman a Visa Gold card.
3:40: I stand before 75 restless Hebrew School students, wishing to dock them from life eternal if they don’t shut up. I’ve a splitting headache. I’m ready to give myself over to a higher power.
Exhausted, I go home, flick on the tube and hear two politicians attacking each other. I turn it off. In local news, Ethan reports that Daniel was pinching and kicking at gymnastics class. From day one, we are programmed to blame and defame.
The morning after: I am humbled by my noble failure and far less inclined to blame talk show hosts and Washingtonians for this national addiction.
The greatest champion of sacred speech that the Jewish world has ever known lived in the early 20th century. Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan was also known as the Chafetz Hayyim, the “Seeker of Life,” after a book he wrote with that title.
Kagan was the first to systematize the laws of gossip for a popular audience. He died in 1933, which is just about when everything began to go awry for the civilized world. Now, as distilled by the Chafetz Hayyim, here is how Jewish law instructs us to clean up our use of language.
• It is considered lashon hara, evil speech, to convey a derogatory image of someone even if that image is true and deserved. A statement that is not actually derogatory but can ultimately cause someone physical, financial or emotional harm is also lashon hara.
• It is lashon hara to recount an incident that contains embarrassing damaging information about a person, even if there is not the slightest intent that s/he should ever suffer harm or humiliation.
• Lashon hara is forbidden by Jewish law even if you incriminate yourself as well.
• Lashon hara cannot be communicated in any way shape or form, for instance through writing, verbal hints, even raised eyebrows. When that person you can’t stand turns away and you roll your eyes in disgust to a third party, that is a form of slander known as “Avak Lashon Hara,” the residue of evil speech.
• To speak against a community is a particularly severe offense.
• Lashon hara cannot be related even to close relatives, even to your spouse. That’s almost impossible. Telushkin suggests that if we are going to gossip we should develop a way of talking about others that is as kindly and fair as we would want others to be when talking about us.
• Even something that is already well known should not be repeated. A celebrity who had an affair may admit it before billions of people in TV. Too bad. We still can’t talk about it unless that information has a direct bearing on the well-being of the person we’re talking to.
• Tattling is a no no. This is called Rechilut in Hebrew. The crux is this: if you know that a person has spoken badly about your friend, you don’t go to your friend and tell them, because all it does is cause pain and provoke animosity between the friend and that other person. Well, you ask, shouldn’t we have a right to hear what’s being said about us? In practice, however, the one small piece of gossip transmitted often provides a totally false impression. Who has never said a negative thing about the person you love the most? How devastating it would be for a so-called friend to tell our loved one about it. Mark Twain said, “It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.”
• And finally, not only does Judaism prohibit the spreading of lashon hara, we can’t listen to it either. And when we can’t help but hear it, we are instructed not to believe it. Imagine how different our lives would be if everybody gave the victim of gossip the benefit of the doubt.
The Chafetz Hayyim wrote a prayer, which he recited each morning to help him maintain vigilance in guarding his tongue (Shmirat Ha-lashon). I close with an excerpt:
Gracious and merciful God, help me to restrain myself from speaking or listening to derogatory, damaging or hostile speech. I will try not to engage in lashon ha-ra, either about individuals or about an entire group of people. I will strive to say nothing that contains falsehood, insincere flattery, scoffing or elements of needless dispute, anger, arrogance, oppression or embarrassment to others. Grant me the strength to say nothing unnecessary, so that all my actions and speech cultivate a love for your creatures and for You.
Let’s try to speak words of love and kindness - if only just for today…
