Whew!
Saved by the……obnoxious, negative rhetoric?
According to news reports, the Postal Service was saved from insolvency this month by a huge influx of election-year mailings. Why so much snail mail in our hi-tech era?
CNN reports that “"Much of the political mail is coming from the Super PACs, because you can send nastier messages about candidates with direct mail than you can in a television ad".
Glad to hear all is well with the Republic.
Do nasty words matter? As children, many of us sang a ditty that defiantly proclaimed “words can never hurt me”. That may have helped our schoolyard bravado, but it's only true to a point.
Words, in fact, have a devastating ability to hurt people; negative talk can pollute an atmosphere more than a smoke bomb.
And it's not just about the audience. Speech can hurt the speaker too. When you speak darkly, you put yourself into a dark place. Why would you unnecessarily go there?
Words CAN hurt, just as words can heal. Words are powerful; and we need to use them very carefully.
The Rebbe retold the following incident: In Ukraine of the 1700's, two men had a quarrel, in the presence of the Holy Rabbi, Israel Baal Shem Tov. As the anger level rose, one shouted to the other that he would "tear him to pieces like a fish".
The Baal Shem Tov told his pupils to hold one another's hand, and to stand near him with their eyes closed. Then he placed his holy hands on the shoulders of the two disciples standing next to him. Suddenly the disciples began shouting in terror: They saw a vision of the fellow actually dismembering his disputant.
Nothing physical happened, but words have an impact, even if only on a spiritual plane.
Keep your speech on a respectful plane. If you have to say something that isn't pretty, try to find the most dignified way to do so.
And if you hear your internal voice saying that a nasty comment is ‘just an expression’ or ‘simply a question of phraseology’, stop yourself short. Because all the rationalizations are simply putting lipstick on a…er…an unkosher animal.
ב"ה
Deborah wrote...