If this theme sounds familiar, I looked back in my files and discovered that I spoke about the same topic seven years ago on Kol Nidre night. This is appropriate since our ancestors in ancient Israel were guided by a seven year cycle.

So, back to the question. You can give up food, but can you give up improper use of words for even a single day, let alone give it up for good?

I imagine that your first reaction is, “What’s the big deal about improper speech?” With all the problems going on in the world, don’t we have more important things to worry about?

Well, for one thing, there’s not a lot I can do about all of the world’s problems on my own, but I can start talking more kindly. Second of all, when we look at the machzor, we see that there is a big concern about the way we use and misuse speech.

The kol nidre itself stems from the basic human frailty of speaking before thinking, of making promises that we cannot fulfill. When we conclude the Amidah, the central prayer of every service, we recite a private meditation which begins, “O Lord, guard my tongue from evil.” And tonight we begin to recite the Al Chet, the confession of our sins. When you look over that list note how many are sins of the tongue:

We ask forgiveness for the transgressions of: deriding parents and teachers; foul speech; falsehood; scoffing; idle chatter; plotting against others; false oaths; offensive talk; empty confession; foolish talk; slander; gossip.

Again, you might say, “OK, we do a lot of that, and we shouldn’t, but other than being annoying, how bad can it be?"

A penguin walked into a bar and asked the bartender, “Do you have any fish?” The bartender said, “No.” The next day the penguin entered the bar and asked the same question, “Do you have any fish?” and the bartender replied, “No.” This went on for several days until the bartender said angrily, “If you ask me that one more time, I’m going to nail your beak to the bar.” So the next day the penguin entered the bar and asked, “Do you have any nails?” The bartender said, “No.” So the penguin said, “In that case, do you have any fish?”

In Jewish tradition, we understand that bad language is more than annoying, it is potentially harmful.

The prophet Jeremiah (9:7) compares the tongue to a sharp arrow. If you draw a sword upon someone and then change your mind, you simply put the sword away and no harm is done. If you shoot an arrow at your target, and then change your mind, it’s too late, and that’s the problem with improper speech–once spoken, it can never be stopped from hitting its target.

If you steal, you can return the stolen object. If you speak harshly, if you insult, if you gossip about someone, if you betray a confidence, you might do permanent damage which is unable to be simply “taken back.”

In the military we are too familiar with the tragedy of “friendly fire,” where people mistakenly kill their own side. Rabbi Jack Riemer describes what he considers another form of “friendly fire.”

You come home after a hard day, and take out frustrations upon those you love. The wrong words come out, such as: “Leave me alone; can’t you see you’re annoying me” and far worse examples. You feel bad for what you said, but it’s too late to take it back. As Rabbi Riemer puts it so well: Nobody got shot, but somebody got hurt.

Even when you regret having said the wrong thing, it’s not so easy to heal the wounds you have caused. In a famous story, someone comes to the rabbi to ask how to atone for l’shon hara. The rabbi instructs the congregant to cut open a feather pillow outside in the wind, and then try to re-collect all the feathers. It’s impossible, just like the attempt to take back the words you have spoken.

So why don’t we just stop talking improperly in the first place. First we need to take the prohibition of l’shon hara seriously, as seriously as do our rabbis and the editors of our Machzor. Another expression for the mitzvah of proper speech is shemirat halashon, meaning “The Guarding of the Tongue.” The one who practices proper speech is therefore called a shomer lashon, similar to the phrase, shomer shabbos.

It’s not easy to be a shomer shabbat, but it is a goal we should strive to attain. And we should strive to be a shomer lashon, a much more attainable goal, if we just put our mind to it.

Another obstacle in our pursuit to avoid improper speech is that we are surrounded by it. It’s all around us. On TV, there are the endless rounds of ridiculous talk shows. A woman tells Maury or Jerry or whomever, “I’m having an affair with my neighbor, but my husband doesn’t know it,” and I’m thinking, “He knows it now.”

There is the trash talk from our favorite athletes, celebrities and politicians. Roseanne, when her marriage ended with Tom Arnold, remarked that she’s not upset about being divorced, she’s only sorry she’s not a widow. Former Senator Jesse Helms once remarked that if former President Clinton were to visit North Carolina, he’d better be wearing a bullet proof vest. And an anonymous critic of Bill Clinton added, “Where is Lee Harvey Oswald now that we need him?”

To make matters worse, a recent news story touts the health benefits of gossip. I kid you not. A psychologist at an Ivy League school said, “Not participating in gossip at some level can be unhealthy and abnormal.”

These are just some of the frustrations and obstacles we learn to live with because we are Jews. When the world around us is supportive of Judaism, that makes things easier, but we must not change who we are just because we are different. This report on gossip reminds me of the medical reports challenging the benefits of circumcision. We don’t practice brit milah because it’s popular, we do so because it’s a mitzvah. And we need to refrain from gossip despite what leading psychologists might say to the contrary.

On our path to proper speech we have plenty to overcome. We need to undo the damage done when Ali McGraw told us that “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” or the lack of wisdom in our children being taught, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”

Here’s how important words are. The biblical book of Proverbs 18:21 instructs that life and death are in the tongue. In our holy texts, the world is created not through physical force, but through words–barukh she’amar v’hayah ha’olam. Blessed is the One who spoke and the world came to be. On the extreme opposite end of the spectrum, Hitler, yimach sh’mo, began his campaign of evil by writing words, Mein Kampf.

Granted we don’t always mean harm in what we say. A minister taught his congregation to respond to his prayers with the words, “And you too.” The minister would say, “The Lord be with you,” and the congregation would respond, “And you, too.” Once, during a sermon, the minister said in frustration, “There’s something wrong with this microphone,” and the congregation responded, “and you, too.”

More than just saying mean words, we suffer from speaking about people behind their back. This is not a new phenomenon. In the Talmud (Arakhin 15b-16a), Rabbah praises Rabbi Yosi, who said: I never said anything about a person that would make me look back to see if that person were standing behind me.”

What a great role model. A synagogue president once told the rabbi that he should not attend board meetings. The reason given is that perhaps someone might say something offensive to the rabbi. The rabbi replied, “Well if it’s offensive to me, then it shouldn’t be said at all.”

There aren’t many things worse than entering a room and having the feeling that people were just talking about you. We can all make that feeling go away by just stopping the talking about other people, by following the lead of Rabbi Yosi, by never again having to worry that the person about whom you are speaking is just around the corner.

Talk about something else. Talk about yourself. Better still, listen to others tell you about themselves. And what about when someone begins to tell you the gossip. What to do? Caller ID allows us to screen our unwanted calls. Wouldn't it be great if a device could screen l'shon hara. Until such time, if you are talking on the phone and the conversation turns to a topic you feel is inappropriate, you can always say, "I have to go now, something just came up." What came up--the inappropriate topic.

R.Eleazar said: Why do a person's fingers resemble plugs? In order to suggest that when one hears something unseemly, he should plug his ears with his fingers. (Ketubot 5b) When someone asks, “Would you like to hear a secret, tell him or her, “If you tell me, that it’s no longer going to be a secret.”

R. Simeon ben Gamaliel said to his slave Tabi, "Go to the market and buy me a good piece of meat." So Tabi went out and bought him a tongue. Later, R. Simeon said to Tabi, "Go out and buy me a bad piece of meat at the market." Tabi went out and again bought him a tongue. R. Simeon ben Gamaliel asked him, "Why, when I asked you to buy me a good piece of meat, did you buy a tongue, and when I asked you to buy a bad piece of meat, did you again buy me a tongue?" Tabi replied, "Because from the tongue comes good, and from it comes also evil. When it is good, nothing is better than it; and when it is bad, nothing is more evil than it." Lev. R. 33:1

Barukh She’amar v’hayah ha’olam. With words a world is created. Insult, lie, gossip, betray confidence, and you destroy a world. Use your words wisely and lovingly, say I’m sorry, thank you, I love you, We haven’t spoken in a while, I just wanted to see how you are doing? And you might just create a new world. Barukh she’amar v’hayah ha’olam.