About a year ago I signed up to receive two halachos a day regarding loshon hora by email from the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation.
Yesterday morning's email began with the following words.
Generally, a person who speaks loshon hora does so from a somewhat smug and haughty perspective. Such a person, says the Chofetz Chaim, shows himself to be conceited, because by speaking as he does, he apparently sees himself as faultless. If he were truly aware of his faults, he would be reluctant to speak badly of others, for perhaps his own faults are greater.
Would you believe that I stopped myself twice from voicing aloud my thoughts about others when I remembered the above words? As I was about to say something to a member of my family about someone, I asked myself two questions. Am I any better? What about my faults?
I kept my mouth shut and felt good for not saying anything derogatory.
My husband and I learned so much from Chofetz Chaim: A Lesson A Day that we decided to start it over after we finished it. It is such an eye opener and a mouth closer ;-)I highly recommend studying this right now when correcting our speech can only help our cause in Heaven...
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