Day 15 - November 8 - Preserving the Power of Speech

I gave a class downtown yesterday to two high powered business people and we discussed the idea of not speaking 'loshon hora' - speaking badly - about other people. They explained how it is almost impossible in such a competitive business environment to not speak badly about other people in their business or to avoid hearing bad talk.

I told them that not all negative comments are classified as loshon hora. In fact, in some cases, it might even be a mitzvah to relay incriminating information to a potential business partner.

The bottom line is that if we learn the laws of loshon hora we will be able to navigate the dangerous waters of business communication, and feel much better about it.

In fact, one of the businessmen I was learning with told me that the owner of the company was someone who almost never said anything bad about someone else.

"See." I said, "You have a role model you can learn from just a couple of offices away. How many people are as fortunate as you are?"