The Power of Love: A Torah Guide to Avoiding Lashon Hara

Refraining from speaking lashon hara (harmful speech about others) is a challenge many struggle with. In this teaching from Rabbi Reuven Karlinstein, we learn how love for others can be harnessed to overcome the urge to speak negatively about others. Drawing from timeless Torah wisdom, this lesson shows how embracing compassion and kindness transforms not only our words but our hearts and lives.

A Student’s Struggle

What I’m about to relate occurred many years ago, when I was studying at Slabodka Yeshivah under the great Rosh Yeshivah Rabbi Eizik Sher zt”l. A student approached him and said, “Please, I need advice. I just don’t know how to overcome the sin of lashon hara (evil speech). I feel compelled to say things I know are forbidden, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

A Surprising Question

Rabbi Eizik replied, “I want to ask you something. Your father came to see me a few days ago. He made a tremendous impression on me as a particularly refined and kind person. Do you also have an uncontrollable urge to speak lashon hara about him?”

The student stared. “My father? Of course not! G-d forbid! I would never speak lashon hara about my father.”

Rabbi Eizik then mused aloud, “Why would that be? After all, he certainly has his flaws. The Torah tells us that ‘There is no righteous person on earth who does good and never sins.’ No one’s perfect. So why do you have no desire to find fault and speak lashon hara about your father?”

The Power of Love

The student still didn't get what the Rosh Yeshivah was driving at, and replied, “Because I love him, of course. He’s my father! In fact, not long ago, I heard someone say something terrible about him and I couldn’t sleep that night. And you’re asking me why I don’t speak lashon hara about him!”

Rabbi Eizik smiled and said, “That’s excellent! And this is the advice I will give you for everyone who isn’t your father. You told me you have an uncontrollable desire to speak lashon hara about other people, so here’s what I suggest: Love them! Love every Jew — literally! Uproot any resentment, hatred, or jealousy inside you, and want only the best for them. Then you won’t have any temptation to speak negatively about them, just as you don’t with your father.”

Remembering the Commandment to Love

So many mitzvot are intertwined with one another, and if we are having trouble with one, it often signifies that we have trouble with others, too, even if we have yet to realize it.

The Torah commands us: “Love your neighbor as yourself!” And what does the yetzer hara, the evil inclination do? It invents a new way of worming out of that obligation: “Of course I love him! It’s just that we don’t see eye-to-eye... we’re too different... I can’t relate to him...”

And what about the negative commandment in the Torah: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart” — Have we forgotten that too?

The yetzer hara is clever but the Torah demands more of us: “Love your fellow as yourself.” When we truly love others, the temptation to speak lashon hara fades away. But loving our fellow Jews isn’t just a tool for guarding our speech — it enables us to become the kind of people the Torah calls us to be.