THE POWER OF THE TONGUE
Yom Kippur Morning — 5765

Growing up, the words just rattled off of my tongue, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” It was my response to teasing directed at me—it was also my response when others, particularly my younger siblings, complained whenever I picked on them. Words are cheap, the saying seemed to indicate, surely nowhere near as important or powerful as sticks and stones and other more tangible items. While not particularly ancient, variations of the saying go back to the 15^th century. Wrote the English author Robert Green in 1584, “words break no bones so we cared the less for his scolding.”

It has taken me years to understand how wrong Robert Green and his later interpreters were. And it was neither political correctness nor appropriate harassment policies in schools and in the workplace that helped me understand the incorrectness of “sticks and stones.” For long before PC and long before such harassment policies, in fact, long before “sticks and stones” and Robert Green, we find dramatically different words in the second century BCE work entitled The Wisdom of Ben Sira: “The stroke of the tongue breaks bones./ Many have fallen by the edge of the sword/ But not so many as have fallen because of the tongue.” In fact, our tradition takes us back even further, in just four distinct words from the Bible, from the book of Proverbs, “Mavet v’hayyim b’yad ha-lashon,” “death and life are in the power of the tongue.”

If nothing else, this day should teach us of the power of this personal weapon of mass destruction. For words can break, if not bones, surely hearts and minds; words can destroy and kill. As Rabbi Sidney Greenberg wrote, “the tongue is in a very wet place and it is so easy for it to slip.” As it slips, we proffer words which inflict wounds, wounds much deeper than any we could deliver with sticks and stones.

The ancient rabbis knew of the danger of the tongue and of the damage it could cause. No fewer than a quarter of the traditional 44 sins for which we seek forgiveness in the Viddui, in the confessional, have to do with our tongue and with the words it speaks. “Al cheyt s’chatanu lefanecha b’dibur peh—for the sin we have committed against you with our words.” And the rabbis did not limit their concern to Rosh Hashanah and to Yom Kippur. They made sure that the first words we would pray silently and separately following the amidah, the tefillah, at each and every service were these, “Elohi, netzor leshoni meira, oosfati medabeir mirmah—O God, keep my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile.”

Words destroy—words kill, sometimes even without any intention to hurt. Norman Cousins related a case study of Harvard cardiologist Dr. Bernard Lown in his book The Healing Heart. The patient, Mrs. S, a middle-aged woman, had a narrowing of her tricuspid valve. She had lived with the condition for over a decade until, while being checked during rounds, the chief cardiologist said to one of the other doctors in her presence, “This woman has TS.” Almost immediately, Mrs. S’s condition dramatically worsened. Lown reexamined her, found her pulse accelerating and her lungs filling with fluid. When he questioned her regarding this sudden change, she explained that she knew TS meant terminal situation. No matter how strenuously Lown tried to explain to her that TS meant “tricuspid stenosis,” the name of the condition with which she had been living for ten years, she died that same day.

Imagine, then, the pain and destruction intentional hurts can cause. The words one speak to a spouse can destroy a day, a week, a marriage—the injurious, “You never…” or “You always…”; the near fatal, “The trouble with you is….” Or take this troubling family episode told by Francine Klagsbrun in her fascinating study of sibling rivalry entitled Mixed Feelings: Love, Hate, Rivalry and Reconciliation Among Brothers and Sisters. She describes an exchange between a 70-year-old mother and her 44-year-old daughter about her 39-year-old sister. The mother, of course, is concerned for her younger and weaker daughter who has been a drifter and remains what she calls a “flower child” but has faith that her older daughter will be just fine. But the older daughter feels ignored, surely less favored.

“Tina never got the warmth from you that she wanted,” the mother says reproachfully. “She worshipped you…and she didn’t get the warmth from you.”

“Well, she certainly got it from you,” the daughter answers sarcastically.

“She could never do things right,” the mother continues. “You, you excelled at everything….But she was shy and clumsy. She couldn’t…”

“Daddy grieves about her so much,” the mother pushes on. “She’s so wounded. He cares about her more than about anything.”

“Yeah,” the daughter replies, “And where do I fit into this picture? I have no sense from either of you of your ever caring about anything I’ve done.”

“Oh,” the mother answers hurriedly, “you don’t know what I say to others.”

“I don’t care what you say to others.” The daughter is shouting now. “I never get a feeling that you have any pride in what I do or who I am. All you ever do is sigh about Tina and tell me I should have been warmer to her.”

Her mother sighs. “I know. But her life has been so hard.”

And we all know the damage the tongue can cause when it starts lobbing long-distance missiles by way of slander or rumor or innuendo. In fact, in today’s setting, with the use of email and the ability to move pixels around, the tongue can send out intercontinental ballistic missiles. Many of you know the tale we will tell in our Children’s Yom Kippur service this afternoon of a man who spread an unkind story about another in his town and then discovered the story was entirely wrong. Consumed by guilt, he came to the rabbi for advice. Said the rabbi to the man, “Take all the feathers from one of your pillows and place a feather in front of each and every house in town. When you have finished, return to me for further instructions” The man did as he was told and returned the following day. “Now,” said the Rabbi, ‘Go back and gather up each and everyone of those feathers.” Impossible,” protested the man, “the wind has blown them far and wide.” “Exactly,” noted the rabbi, “and so it is with the words you have spoken. It is impossible to gather them all back.”

Such is the lesson our sages taught regarding lashon ha-rah, the evil tongue. For whenever one speaks ill of another, it is as if the person were killing three people—the speaker who has perpetrated evil; the object of the language whose reputation has been slandered; and the one who listened to the slander, now an accomplice. And, if you think this is limited to interpersonal relationships, simply look at the presidential campaign going on around us. With so many vital issues of concern, we have been brought into a campaign of smears and slander, in the process becoming accomplices to murder in the form of character assassination. Why no mass outcry against this kind of campaign?

And we ARE accomplices—for, unfortunately, dirty campaigning works—and we allow it to without making appropriate demands of the candidates themselves.

Words can assassinate more than character. It was just nine years ago that Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated—assassinated by one who thought he was obligated to kill him. For the assassin was influenced by a few ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Israel who taught the law of rodef, the law that says that if one is endangering the safety of the community, that one must be stopped even at the point of death. Did any of those rabbis apologize for wrongly teaching Torah? Not to my knowledge. And today, voices are being heard regarding Ariel Sharon—for he, in his stated intention to give back Gaza, may be seen by some of these same rabbis as endangering the community. Even the Shin Bet has issued a statement of concern for his safety.

Still, just as words have the power to destroy, so, also, do words have the power to create. Remember the words from Proverbs, “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Psalms teaches us “By the word of the Eternal the heavens were made.” God spoke and so it was. Let there be light—and there was light. So we, imitating the Holy One, we create by the word. Perhaps even the word “abracadabra” reflects this understanding. Taken from Aramaic and Hebrew, abracadabra translates into “I will create as I speak.”

Thus, another of Dr. Lown’s case studies. Mr. B was a critically ill man who had suffered a massive coronary with severe heart damage. During morning rounds, Dr. Lown commented to the attendings that Mr. B had a wholesome, very loud third-sound gallop. A third-sound gallop is actually a poor sign indicating that the heart muscle is straining and failing. While Mr. B seemed unaware of this comment, his slow and incredible recovery began that day. Thus, when he came in many months later to see Dr. Lown for a check-up, the doctor asked him about it. Answered Mr. B, “Doc, I not only know what got me better, but even the exact moment when it happened. I was sure the end was near and that you and your staff had given up hope. But when you entered with your troops that day, something happened. You listened to my heart; you seemed pleased by the findings and announced to all…that I had a wholesome gallop. I knew that the doctors, talking to me, might try to soften things. But I knew that they wouldn’t kid each other. So when I overheard you tell your colleagues I had a wholesome gallop, I figured I still had a lot of kick to my heart and could not be dying. My spirits were for the first time lifted, and I knew I would live and recover.”

Imagine, then, what can be created with intended words. Four years ago at Rosh Hashanah, I suggested that you answer the question of “How are you?” with “Thank God.” What else is that answer but a prayer, a prayer of thanksgiving. Saying “thank God” forces one, just for a brief moment, not to take health for granted and brings one, albeit just momentarily, into the presence of God. By saying so in the day-to-day, it becomes so.

Even the Hebrew word for word reflects creation. For word in Hebrew is devar—and devar also has the meaning of thing. Thus devar, word, is a concrete entity, a tangible reality, a building block. And with those building blocks known as devarim was the state of Israel built. Where else but in Israel would a massive public debate take place as to whether to exchange hundreds of terrorists for an Israeli businessman taken hostage while traveling illegally? The debate had Israelis citing the case of the Maharam, of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, a great 13^th century Talmudic sage who had also been kidnapped. When told the Jewish community had raised money for his ransom, he refused to be released, fearful such a precedent would encourage the kidnappings of other Jews. He then spent the rest of his life imprisoned. But imagine quoting a 13^th century Talmudist in the media in a discussion of current events—his words were on the radio. For that matter, imagine Rabbi Daniel Gordis’s delight when, upon arriving home following Shabbat morning services, his kids yanked books off of the shelves of their home quoting the Maharam and other Jewish commentators on the topic. Hebrew thus creates vibrant conversations between generations—building living relationships between folks separated by centuries.

Words destroy—and words create. But what if there are no words. In pained silence I watch the genocide in Sudan, proving yet again the lesson of Auschwitz is that you can get away with it. In pained silence, I watch our war in Iraq—a war begun under questionable pretenses, without sufficient numbers of troops, without a willingness to truly bear the financial burdens of nation building, a war which has wounded over 7000 Americans and killed over 1000 Americans along with untold thousands of Iraqis with no end in sight. And I apologize—for I could not find the right words to share this morning.

A story is told of a Hasidic master who, as he neared the end of his life, looked back and reflected, “When I was young, I thought to repair the world. When I grew older, I thought it wiser to begin with my own village. Older yet, I thought to begin the repair with my own family and with myself. I regret nothing of those decisions. I only wish that I had first begun with my family and with myself..

Today is Yom Kippur. We begin again, anew here at home. So look around you at your seat. Find someone to whom you know you owe an apology—your spouse, your child, your parent, your friend. Then get up and go speak to that person. And when someone comes to you seeking forgiveness, grant it. Take those words—use them to create. Restore the relationship. Heal the world.