Jewish Teaching on Gossip

I have previously taken a quick peek at how Christians and Muslims view gossiping. The Jewish religion sets forth a similar prohibition against the act of gossiping. The word gossip in Hebrew is lashon hara. Its literal translation is the “evil tongue.” Jewish teaching holds that gossip is wrong even if it is true and spread with out malice. The Chefetz Chaim lists a whopping 31 commandments that may be violated when a person passes on or listens to gossip, including "You shall not go about as a talebearer among your people" (Leviticus 19:15-16). To live the faith takes the courage to say when confronted with gossip: “I can’t and I won’t listen to this.”

To passively listen to gossip is as bad a transgression in Jewish teachings as being the one who spreads the gossip. Rabbi Dr. Aher Meir, of the JCT Center for Business Ethics, says in an article for the Jewish Ethicist (online) that Jewish sages hold that gossip kills three: the teller, the listener and the subject. It doesn’t have to be a false or slanderous story; as long as the subject of the report would prefer not to have information known, it is gossip and not fit for further dissemination.

Meir concedes it can be difficult to avoid gossip in an office; doing so can damage someone’s position professional and socially – even leading to the extent he or she might actually be ostracized. But that is the price that must be paid, he says, quoting Rabbi Yisrael Meir HaCohen, the Chefetz Chaim, in a “classic work” on the topic: “Even if refraining from slander will cause a person to lose his job, he has no choice but to fulfill the Torah’s mandate.” It’s also possible, Meir said, that setting a good example can cause other workers “to draw inspiration and courage from your example and also limit their tale bearing.”