By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel in Chula Vista, California
Words in Jewish tradition are never merely sounds. They have weight, texture, and a kind of soul of their own. Once released, they do not simply vanish into the air; they disclose what is hidden in the human heart and then take on a life of their own. This week’s parsha returns to that truth with particular force.
The portion is called Eikev. The word means “as a result” or “as a consequence.” Already in its plain sense it reminds us that our actions—and especially our words—set forces in motion whose effects we cannot always control. The Sages pressed the word further. They read eikev as “heel,” referring to the mitzvot that people tend to tread underfoot: the small, inconvenient, easily dismissed commandments. When those commandments are ignored, the consequences are rarely small.
Among those “heel” mitzvot, none is more commonly trampled than the prohibition against lashon hara. Gossip has always been popular; the only thing that has changed is the delivery system. What once lived on the supermarket tabloid rack now moves at the speed of a smartphone and can reach millions before breakfast. Careers that took decades to build can be gutted in a matter of weeks once the public narrative hardens. These are not abstract results. They are the real-world consequences of speech treated lightly.
We have watched this pattern repeat with painful regularity. A public figure’s private failings, personal struggles, or unresolved allegations become national entertainment. Intimate details, old messages, and half-formed stories are poured out for mass consumption. Large parts of the audience follow the drama with the enthusiasm usually reserved for a sporting event. The face on the screen is rarely treated as a full human being; it becomes content. Few people pause long enough to imagine themselves in the same glare—or to consider what the long-term consequences of that glare will be.
A person is still presumed innocent until proven otherwise—at least in a courtroom. In the court of public opinion, that presumption is often treated as optional. Reputations, once shredded, are not easily restored. We appear to enjoy watching others fall.
Yet the faces that appear in these stories are rarely the faces of cartoon villains. They are the faces of human beings under intense pressure. If you saw a dog with its foot crushed by a truck, most of us would feel a stab of pity. If you heard a child being struck without mercy, most of us would intervene. Why, then, do we find it so easy to join the chorus when the victim is a public figure whose embarrassment can be turned into daily conversation?
Judaism asks something more of us than mere silence. It asks us to give people the benefit of the doubt—dan l’kaf zechut. This is not naïveté. It is a deliberate moral discipline. It means resisting the urge to fill in the blanks with the worst possible interpretation. It means remembering that we almost never know the full story. And it means recognizing that the same standard we hope others will apply to us is the standard we are obligated to apply to them.
This teaching becomes especially urgent as we prepare for the New Year. In the weeks ahead we will stand before God and ask to be judged with mercy, patience, and generosity. We will plead for the benefit of the doubt regarding our own failures, our unfinished work, and the gaps between who we are and who we meant to be. How can we ask for that generosity if we systematically withhold it from others? And how can we ask God to weigh the consequences of our actions with compassion if we ourselves refuse to consider the consequences of our words?
Even when serious questions must be examined, the rush to destruction often outpaces the search for facts. We no longer claim to practice “an eye for an eye.” Why, then, do we so readily practice a career, a marriage, or a lifetime of hard-won respect for the sake of a viral moment or a ratings spike? Where is the compassion that Judaism insists upon? Where is the simple capacity to imagine that the person being mocked or dismantled could just as easily have been us?
Most people still believe that words do not really hurt. Shakespeare knew better:
Slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of the Nile, whose breath Rides on the posting winds and doth belie All corners of the world.
Ann Landers once published this sobering portrait:
My name is Gossip.
I have no respect for justice.
I maim without killing.
I break hearts and ruin lives.
I am cunning and malicious and gather strength with age.
The more I am quoted, the more I am believed. I flourish at every level of society.
My victims are helpless.
They cannot protect themselves against me because I have no name and no face.
Once I tarnish a reputation, it is never the same.
I topple governments and wreck marriages. I make innocent people cry in their pillows.
My name is Gossip.
There is something more corrosive than ordinary gossip in the deliberate, professional destruction of another human being’s name. From a Jewish perspective, lashon hara is not a minor social failing; it is a form of violence whose consequences continue long after the speaker has moved on.
The Roman playwright Plautus once remarked that if he had his way, the talkers of slander would be strung up by the tongue and the listeners by the ears. Most of us assume that listening is the lesser offense. The tradition disagrees. To listen eagerly—to click, to share, to lean in for the next damaging detail—is to tread the same commandment under the heel. It is to participate in the harm and to share responsibility for its consequences.
The ancients practiced human sacrifice on stone altars. We have simply updated the technology. Today the altar is the media and the social-media feed, and the offering is reputation.
If we hope to live in a better world, the work begins with ourselves. Acting in a Godly manner requires protecting the dignity of others when they are under assault. The person being torn apart today could be any one of us tomorrow. As we move toward Rosh Hashanah, this is not abstract ethics. It is preparation for the judgment we ourselves will seek. The word eikev reminds us that consequences follow. The question is whether we will choose to produce consequences of compassion or of carelessness.
Rashi’s insight into the word eikev remains as sharp as ever. A person’s love of God is measured less by grand gestures than by the small, easily ignored acts of restraint and decency. If we are careless with the “little” commandments—especially the ones that govern speech and the way we judge one another—we should not be surprised when larger failures follow. Prayer alone does not prove piety. The way we speak about one another does. And the way we choose to give, or withhold, the benefit of the doubt may be one of the clearest measures of the year we are about to begin.
*
Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista, California.