At the Kotel the other
day I was plagued by another problem. The age old problem of loshon hara.
Women have nine parts of speech :-) and believe me, we use them!
If someone abuses me
in some way I might find myself crying on my husband's shoulder about it,
or even a friends' shoulder. Now, it's permissible to hear someone out
if she wants to unburden herself, but one isn't allowed to believe it. After
all, you're only getting one side and you can BET there's more.
So I asked myself, what am I doing here? Why do I need to express
my woes over shoddy treatment? I can avoid shoddy treatment and stand up to
shoddy treatment but I'm still
sensitive to it and can feel really cruddy at the end of the day if I have
been exposed to it on any level. I'm allergic to conflict. I have to
process it. The next day it doesn't bother me anymore and I'm fine with
the person, just a bit more careful. There are times one just has
to take a time-out, even permanent time-out if shoddiness becomes a
recurring feature, but anyway, this is an essay in itself.
So why the loshon hara? Well, naturally being a smart person I want to
feel in the right. I want to feel that I'm the innocent pure dupe and
the other person has all the problems. Talking about all their
unreasonable crimes against me, (you note I talk tongue in cheek) confirms
my verdict. I'm a great and nice person and the other girl needs serious
therapy. So why do I
have to tell husband or best friend? Well, if I'm really smart and
persuasive they will make all kinds of sympathetic noises and affirming
statements and believe me and my case will be further validated. Hey,
my husband's very smart. If he is sympathetic, I MUST be in the
right.
So now I feel all together and clever and virtuous and the other person is
clearly in the wrong and has a deep case of dysfunctional and maybe even has
no hope, sigh, I certainly don't know how to help her. There's
only one hitch. I've just told loshon hara. That's an avera, a
serious avera, so what right to I have to feel so smug?
Hmm.
At the Kotel I was all enlightened. Pity it just doesn't last till the
next time someone gets immature around me... At the Kotel I
saw that if we fully apprehend a person as he/she really is we would have a
pachad, a real trembling fear of saying something bad about them. They
are created in G-d's image.. and we have (superficial or otherwise)
shortcomings too.
*What right do I have*
to cut someone down, to disdain those shortcomings, just because they
don't happen to be the ones I have, and am not likely to have. (or are
they? We always have to answer that one... ) Hey, if you're in love with
someone and you even though you KNOW that someone is not perfect, you're
so enthralled in your infatuation you wouldn't be able to bring yourself to
say something negative. Not only that, but if someone else said something
negative about the person you'd want to
punch her in the nose.
This is the way we
should be with everyone. No, I don't mean we should be in love with
everyone and I certainly don't mean we should punch loshon haraniks in the
nose, (though, come to think of it, it could be an effective deterrent.....
) - but we should apprehend everyone as so amazing and
wonderful a creation that we would be disgusted at the very idea of pointing
out their negative traits.
So, back to crying on hubby's shoulder. First exercise. Well,
am I TOTALLY innocent? Did I do or say anything insensitive to provoke
the nasty tirade I got? Hmm, well, ahh, come to think
of it... yeah. Most people have particular buttons which, when
pressed, cause them to get irrational. A friend has to know what those
buttons are, and you also have to know what words will be heard and what
words might cause the other person to respond more irrationally. If we
forget ourselves, or if we are focusing on some principle, or if we are in
pain and we are focusing on these things and not on the other person, we turn
a blind eye to those buttons and we shouldn't be surprised at the
response we get.
We may be burning
inside but sometimes, many times, silence is the most effective option.
So the first step is to humbly acknowledge our part.
Second exercise is to mitigate the 'crime' of the other person. She in
turn was hurt and provoked because her self security was challenged. She
was yelling out of her pain and insecurities.
This is where she's at. She's also hurting. OK her trials in life
are not
the same as mine, we had different starting points, different
handicaps. She had particular handicaps affecting her development, stuff I
couldn't even relate to.
Who knows if G-d is more pleased with her progress or with mine?
It's not for me to judge.
In the end we need to transcend our own pain and self interests and try to
gain an objective view of the conflict. Maybe I'm 90% right and she's
only 10% right. Maybe it's more like 40/60. How does Hashem see
it? Who hurt who most? How can I know for sure?
How do we resolve it?
Only by acknowledging our own mistake, so we can fix that, (b/c we can't
fix hers unless she asks us for help) and acknowledging the good of the
other. Then we have to make a decision - what to do about the
relationship in future so that a conflict will not recur. We try to find the
appropriate response, and we might seek advice for this. We might just take a
time out. We might get closer as we talk it out. We might
acknowledge that a particular subject is very delicate and agree to just leave
it alone, or we might decide that too much is volatile, that
there is too much negativity, bad chemistry, whatever and agree to drift
apart amicably, till one or both parties mature more. (and we don't have
to express all we think about the other person! :-)
All these are fine if they are done from compassion and respect - and
objectivity.
Any thoughts?
May we all have much success in our friendships!
shalom uvracha.
