A couple of years ago I made a decision to work on watching my tongue. I decided to take on lashon hara as my project for the year and I became very aware of what I said and I also became very aware of what others said and what conversations I did and did not participate in. Over the course of that year or so I felt like I did a pretty darn good job. Not good enough, because of course it is never “good enough” (which doesn’t have to be a bad thing) but I felt like I made a lot of personal progress.

This year I feel that I have not done so well.

I have noticed this year an unwillingness on my part to say anything about L”H when I hear it, or even to refuse to take part. This is a big problem. It is a problem for me personally and it is a problem in the Jewish world. This is not one of those areas in which one can say “oh that’s just not so-an-so’s strong point.” Shmirat HaLashon is essential in Jewish life and especially essential for our professional body. I’m sincerely disturbed by the lack of care i have observed given to this area.

So I’m laying out a proposal. I am making a deal with myself. I want to be a rabbi. Not so that I can have the job-title “Rabbi” but because I want to achieve a certain level of mastery in Jewish learning so that I may contribute to the Jewish world and the Jewish people by helping others to live fulfilling Jewish lives, have their lives enriched by Jewish learning, and so that I may live properly as a Jew myself. Becoming a rabbi entails more than just learning though. You can get a master’s or a doctorate just learning. Being a rabbi is being a master in our tradition which is not just a learning tradition but a legal and ethical tradition as well. Study is in our tradition is optimistically considered more highly than performing mitzvot for the simple reason that study leads to mitzvot. If you study with no intention of putting into practice what you learn, then you have merited something certainly… and you might gain a title out of it… but how can it be anything but empty until you implement it in your own life?

I’m making Shmirat HaLashon my project again. And not just for a year, but for good. I was reading lessons from the Chafetz Chaim that year, and I think I might do so again… but what I might want to do, rather than reading summaries written up in English flooding my inbox, I might make it a project to read the original. Maybe set a weekly goal. I will make it my business to watch what I listen to, what conversations I participate in, and to try to steer conversations away from lashon hara when I see it rearing its ugly head. I have already incorporated a reminder into my daily tefillah. Now I am making it public.

We’ll see how this goes. Wish me strength and success.