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Lashon Ha-Ra (The Evil Tongue) and the Problem

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Lashon Ha-Ra (The Evil Tongue) and the Problem View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Vanderbilt Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive LASHON HA-RA (THE EVIL TONGUE) AND THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH UNITY By Charles Bernsen Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Religion December, 2011 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Professor Shaul Kelner Professor Jay Geller Professor Martina Urban Professor Phillip Ackerman-Lieberman Professor Richard McGregor Copyright © 2011 by Charles Bernsen All Rights Reserved ii To Debbie: It’s your turn now. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION............................................................................................................ii INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................1 PART I CONTESTED NOTIONS OF LASHON HARA AMONG THE EARLY RABBIS Introduction.....................................................................................................................7 Chapter I. THE AXES OF DISAGREEMENT ........................................................................... 12 The gravity of the sin................................................................................................ 12 Malicious intent vs. harmful effect............................................................................ 24 Public speech or private speech ................................................................................ 38 The culpability of the listener/believer...................................................................... 42 II. RABBINIC NOTIONS OF LASHON HARA IN SOCIO-HISTORICAL CONTEXT.............................................................................................................. 47 Competing ideological motivations........................................................................... 47 Social dynamics ....................................................................................................... 58 Accounting for differences between the Bavli and the Yerushalmi............................ 65 Conclusion to Part I.................................................................................................. 71 PART II SEFER CHAFETZ CHAIM: NEGOTIATING THE INHERENT TENSION IN THE CONCEPT OF LASHON HARA Introduction............................................................................................................... 74 Kagan’s biographical background and literary output ................................................ 76 Structure and content of Sefer Chafetz Chaim............................................................ 78 iv Chapter III. THE DEPICTION OF CONTEMPORARY JEWISH DISCOURSE IN SEFER CHAFETZ CHAIM................................................................................................. 87 Introduction............................................................................................................. 87 A divided and contentious society............................................................................ 89 Public disputes and confrontations........................................................................... 94 The traditional context and content of public disputes............................................ 106 Disputes about money and business....................................................................... 114 Public attitudes toward and discourse about rabbis and Torah sages....................... 123 IV. THE SOCIO-HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF NINETEENTH CENTURY LITHUANIAN JEWISH DISCOURSE................................................................. 132 Introduction........................................................................................................... 132 The decline of the kahal and Jewish solidarity....................................................... 136 The decline of the rabbinate and the diffusion of religious authority ...................... 142 The emergence of religious orthodoxy and the popular Jewish press...................... 149 V. THE BOUNDARIES OF JEWISH SOCIETY....................................................... 153 Introduction........................................................................................................... 153 The apostate, the heretic and the informant............................................................ 154 The rasha .............................................................................................................. 159 The leniency of public opinion .............................................................................. 174 Socio-historical explanation................................................................................... 178 VI. SPEAKING BADLY ABOUT AMITEKHA .......................................................... 186 Discretion and legitimate benefit ........................................................................... 186 The leniency of circumstantial evidence ................................................................ 192 Shameful attributes and personal shortcomings...................................................... 195 Public information................................................................................................. 200 Privileging rabbis and rabbinic courts.................................................................... 202 Public denunciations.............................................................................................. 207 Socio-historical explanation................................................................................... 216 CONCLUSION........................................................................................................... 223 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................... 228 v INTRODUCTION During the 1966 primary campaign for governor of California, candidate Ronald Reagan revealed what he called the Republican Party’s eleventh commandment: “Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”1 The rule implicitly acknowledges that Republicans have policy disagreements and political rivalries but insists that those disagreements and rivalries be suppressed, or at least not be expressed in a disparaging manner that might undermine GOP unity. Reagan was speaking less than two years after bitter verbal attacks between Rockefeller moderates and Goldwater conservatives rent the party and contributed to its landslide loss in the 1964 presidential election. He was hoping to prevent a similar internecine battle and election debacle in California. The point of the eleventh commandment was obvious: Republicans shouldn’t let their differences get in the way of their political cohesion. In sociological terms, it expresses a pragmatic rather than a dogmatic view of Republican collective identity, one that tolerates a certain degree of difference within the party. This dissertation examines a Jewish version of the Republican eleventh commandment that has been around for 2,000 years — the prohibition against lashon ha- ra (the evil tongue). My thesis is that lashon ha-ra is not merely an ethical concept governing interpersonal relations. Its primary function is to mediate what Reuven Kimelman calls “the peculiar problematic” of Jewish unity — the fundamental tension between the ideal of a universal Jewish commonwealth whose members are united in 1 Ronald Reagan, An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 150. Although Reagan was the first to speak publicly about the eleventh commandment, he credits the concept and wording to California Republican Party Chairman Gaylord Parkinson. 1 belief and practice and the messy reality that Jewish people comprise a number of divergent and sometimes contentious groups and societies.2 Does Jewish unity demand that autonomy and deviancy be eliminated in order to attain the ideal? Or does it require that individuality and difference be tolerated in order to preserve the reality? While it is simplistic to think of the issue in such stark, either-or terms, it is my contention that the general approach of any Jew or group of Jew to this tension will be reflected to some extent in their attitudes toward the prohibition against lashon ha-ra. Like the Republican eleventh commandment, the prohibition against lashon ha-ra is a prescriptive response to discourse seen as a threat to Jewish social cohesion. But even as it seeks to preserve cohesion, the prohibition inevitably establishes boundaries and divides. Prohibiting Jews from speaking badly about one another involves defining who is a Jew, which excises or marginalizes those who do not fit the definition. Thus, regardless of how broadly or narrowly the prohibition against lashon ha-ra is conceived, it is deeply implicated in delimiting Jewish social identity and regulating power relations among Jews. Depending how narrowly the protected group is defined, some notions of lashon ha-ra can even be seen as fostering division rather than cohesion.3 To explore these issues, this project examines the treatment of lashon ha-ra in rabbinic texts representing two very different socio-historical contexts. Part I looks at contested notions of lashon ha-ra in the ancient rabbinic writings in which the concept first appears. Part II looks at how the inherent tension of the concept plays out in Sefer 2 Reuven Kimelman, “Judaism and Pluralism,”
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