Why Not Gossip?

You'll never believe what I just heard.

Don’t tell anyone, but… I love gossip.

I get a juicy tidbit about someone else’s life — it’s like I start to vibrate. I begin to emit beams of radiation like a pulsar.

I feel at once a deep sense of satisfaction, and a profound urge to tell my wife whatever I just heard.

Is this something nature encoded in my DNA? Did loving to talk about other cavemen give my ancestors an evolutionary advantage back in the Ice Age? Or was a passion for gossip something I learned, something ingrained in me by my upbringing?

Probably both, as it happens.

I was talking about gossip at a recent family gathering when my sister-in-law waved her arm over me and my siblings and parents and declared, with prophetic zeal worthy of Moses: “ALL OF YOU ARE GOSSIPS!”

She’s not wrong. When I was a kid, my family’s favorite part of any extended family gathering was getting in the car to leave so that we could all start to dish.

And the trait goes even further back than that. My dad revealed that his mother, my grandmother, used to love to gossip about a friend, who (according to the gossip) married her husband for his money, assuming he was rich because he lived in New Rochelle. Only she didn’t know he lived on the wrong side of New Rochelle. So now she was stuck, and everyone was going to talk about it behind her back, forever.

But look, gossip is harmless, right? No one says gossip is a bad thing, right?

Alas, readers, the Torah does not like gossip at all.

The text is pretty unequivocal. Leviticus 19:16: “You must not go around as a gossipmonger among your people.”

Later scholars and sages elaborated on such injunctions. Maimonides, the great 12th-century Jewish thinker — with the great nickname, the Rambam — broke gossip down into three broad categories:

Rechilut
Your run-of-the-mill, who-did-what-to-whom type stuff. It may seem innocuous, but the rabbis note that even “harmless” gossip can create strife and division in the community.
Example: “Rachel told me she’s not sure things are working out with Morris.”

Lashon Hara
Evil speech. Refers to speech that, while it may be true, is harmful to another person.
Example: “Rachel told me she’s thinking of breaking up with Morris because he forgot her birthday.”

Motzi Shem Ra
Slander. Lies that damage someone else’s reputation.
Example: “Rachel broke up with Morris because he cheats at Wordle.”

Clearly, then, the tradition acknowledges that not all gossip is created equal.

But remember, even the milder Rechilut is forbidden; that’s the type of gossip singled out in Leviticus. Meanwhile, an opinion recorded in the Talmud puts Lashon Hara on the same level as murder. Another Talmudic rabbi says that anyone who engages in malicious speech will get leprosy!

I haven’t found this to be literally true.

But regardless, the Jewish tradition is clear: Gossip is dangerous and bad and ought to be avoided.

I admit there is a part of me that’s skeptical of all of this.

First, I can’t help but wonder if some of the historic condemnation of gossip is a reaction to the fact that gossip represents an alternative form of information transmission, outside the usual structures of hierarchical order. Also, the fact that all the rabbis who codified these rules were men, and gossip is conventionally the sphere of women? Seems relevant. It’s not impossible there’s some patriarchy maintenance going on here, folks.

Besides, are we not the People of the Book?! A people of literature! Of language! Of talking!

And talking means gossip!

But maybe that’s the point.

Our tradition is uniquely attuned to the power of words. Words are what has held the Jewish religion together, the Jewish community together, for thousands of years, across every continent. Words are how God created the world — beginning it all by speaking, “Let there be light.”

So perhaps it’s logical that our tradition would emphasize the destructive power of words, too. Language can be used for good, or it can be used for ill. But it always needs to be used with thought and attention.

As a writer, I can appreciate that sentiment.

As a writer, too, I’ve professionalized my love of gossip — or, to look at it another way, my abiding interest in the lives of other people. The Rambam might tell me to keep my mouth shut and get back to my desk.

Many members of my family have found a productive outlet for their passion for gossip, too. Several of them are psychologists — a profession in which secrets are shared not for amusement or malice, but rather for the sake of healing.