The daily strengthening from The Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a — Not speaking lashon hara saves thousands of transgressions

“For with Kah, Hashem, is the Rock of worlds” (Isaiah 26:4)

Sunday, 28 Shevat 5783 — “How many letters does a person say in an hour?”

These are his holy words:

“For with Kah, Hashem, is the Rock of worlds” (Isaiah 26:4). The Rav says: There is a “yud”—that is the intellect; and there is a “hei”—that is the letters.

A person must guard his tongue, because a person speaks six hundred thousand letters in 12 and a half hours; one hour is 48,000 letters.

The Chafetz Chaim calculated that when a person speaks lashon hara, he transgresses 17 negative commandments and 14 positive commandments—thirty-one transgressions for every word of lashon hara.

If a person speaks lashon hara, then with every letter of lashon hara he transgresses—every letter of lashon hara that came out of his mouth—he transgresses 17 negative commandments and 14 positive commandments, together 31.

Now, how many letters does a person say in an hour? 48,000 times 31 is already 1,440,000 transgressions that he commits—yes.

That is why his wife and all the children are sick and he doesn’t understand why—because he spoke lashon hara. He believed some lashon hara; he believed someone.

It is written that one who speaks lashon hara about someone is liable for lashes. Because either you bring him to a beis din, or you bring two witnesses. But if you don’t have two witnesses then you are spreading a bad name—you are liable for lashes.

In one hour you transgress 1,440,000 transgressions: a person can say 200 words a minute. Each word is, on average, 4 letters. If a person says 200 words a minute, that is 800 letters a minute. Times 60 minutes in an hour is 48,000 letters an hour—so if a person does not speak lashon hara, he has saved all of that.