Taking Care With Words

“She was raised to take care with words,” journalist Matti Friedman writes of Hannah (P.156). She’s a 23-year-old writer who attains heroic status back in 1944 when she parachutes from the Land of Israel, where she’d escaped the Holocaust, back into Nazi Europe. Matti concludes the mission was less military and more literary. Its purpose was to tell a story. To inspire a nation-forming generation to become people of action, people who race into-the-fire to aid fellow-Jews in danger. 

Lately, I’ve been thinking about taking care with words. Online words are flung at us without much care. More and more, it seems, they’re slung to maim or injure. But even when they aren’t intended to cause harm, they’re often imprecise. “Am I hearing you correctly?” “Whatev,” comes the reply. “Can you believe it?” says one. “Go figure” says another. 

And then there’s the reality that bots, not humans, are sometimes doing the talking. Robots providing us with reading-material isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But when they spike our rage or ignite our fears it is. When an emotionless piece of pocket-sized tech is driving us mad, we’re right to wonder whether this is good for us. 

This week’s portion has a lot to say about word-usage. Vows are weighty. The consequences of taking God’s Name in vain can lead to our own mistrust of even ourselves. One phrase meaning made-up-charges (alee-latt d’varim) that defame another person feels current. The Torah punishes false claims (Deut: 22:14,.19). That is, there are costly consequences for reckless abuse of words. 

More than half of the things for which we’ll seek forgiveness on the High Holy Days relate to careless speech. When Matti writes that Hannah “was raised to take care with words” he then adds, “I believe her.” May our words be well-chosen. Even better, chosen with care. And may they humanize our interactions to promote belief in a world so deserving of good faith.