Language Sensitivity and Shmirat Halashon

(1) In the Blessed One's love for His people Israel and His great desire for their good — to the point of calling them "sons," and "the portion of the Lrd," and "inheritance," along with many other terms of affection which show His great love for Israel, viz. (Malachi 1:2): "I have loved You, said the Lrd, etc.," He distanced them from all forms of evil, especially from lashon hara and rechiluth. For it is these which bring men to quarrels and contention and which very often can lead to the spilling of blood, as the Rambam wrote (Hilchoth Deoth 4:1): "Even though there are no malkoth [stripes] for transgression of this negative commandment, it is a great sin, which leads to the killing of many souls in Israel, for which reason it [i.e., 'Do not go tale bearing among your people' (Vayikra 19:16) is followed by: 'Do not stand (idly) by the blood of your brother' — as evidenced by [the episode of] Doeg Ha'adomi and Nov, the city of priests (viz. I Samuel 22:9)."

(8) Of the clean animals, of the animals that are not clean, of the birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, (9) two of each, male and female, came to Noah into the ark, as God had commanded Noah.

The Gemara asks: And the tanna of our mishna, what is the reason that he didn’t explicitly teach: The night of the fourteenth, as it was taught in the school of Shmuel? The Gemara answers: He employed a euphemism. Since the tanna of our mishna did not want to mention darkness, he preferred the term or to refer to the night of the fourteenth. And this is in accordance with a statement of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. As Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: A person should never express a crude matter, as the formulation of a verse was distorted by the addition of eight letters rather than have it express a crude matter, as it is stated: “From the pure animals and from the animals that are not pure [asher einena tehora]” (Genesis 7:8). To avoid using the Hebrew term for impure [teme’a], which is four letters: Tet, mem, alef, heh, the verse replaced the term with the euphemism meaning “that are not pure,” which is spelled with twelve letters: Alef, shin, reish; alef, yod, nun, nun, heh; tet, heh, reish, heh.

(1) The issur of speaking lashon hara obtains even if he does not identify, in speaking, the man that he is speaking about, but he just speaks in general terms, and from what he says the listener can understand which man he is referring to, this is in the category of lashon hara. More that this — even if there were nothing demeaning in his words themselves, but his words could cause harm or ascription of taint to his friend, which the teller intended by his deceit, this, too, is in the category of lashon hara, and is called by Chazal "lashon hara in private."

(1) This issur of lashon hara obtains whether it is actually spoken by mouth or stated in a letter. There is also no difference whether he speaks it explicitly or by sign. In all modes, it is in the category of lashon hara.

(1) There are things which are forbidden because of the "dust" of lashon hara. As when one says about another: "Who would have said about Ploni that he would be the way he is now!" or "Don't talk about Ploni. I don't want to talk about what happened or what will happen," and the like. Also in the category of the "dust" of lashon hara is speaking in one's praise before his enemies; for this will cause them to speak demeaningly of him. And it is forbidden to be profuse in praise of him, even if not before his enemies; for through this he will come to demean him in the end, saying: "except for this one bad trait that he has." Or the listeners will say: "Why do you speak so much in his praise? Does he not have this and this trait?"