Why are you talking about other people?!
Excerpted and translated from a shiur that was given by Rav Berland, shlita, after morning prayers on Monday, Parshat Ki Tavo, 5778
Why does someone speak lashon hara (evil speech)? It’s because he has no other vitality, or life-force. Poor thing – he’s got no other source of vitality! He’s doing it out of sheer boredom!
What are you doing, talking about someone else?! How is it any of your business?
The Baal Shem Tov’s student
Once, the Baal Shem Tov sent someone [to another person] for Shabbat. The person that was sent didn’t see anything special. He didn’t understand why the Baal Shem Tov had sent him there.
He saw that everything was done very simply, the zemirot were sung simply. On motzae Shabbat, he suddenly asked his host: ‘Tell me something; why aren’t you saying anything to your neighbor, who’s breaking Shabbat?’ His host replied: ‘In my life, I never saw him doing that.’
Rabbi Shimon Barsky’s mistake
We have the same story of the Baal Shem Tov with Rabbi Shimshon Barsky, and Rabbi Shlomo Wexler. Rabbi Shimshon Barsky came to Rabbi Shlomo Wexler for the High Holy Days. He spent around a month or two with him. People would come for one month, in order to merit at least spending some time in Eretz Yisrael, then return to where they came from.
[Rav Wexler’s] neighbor was breaking Shabbat, in the Old City. So, [Rabbi Barsky] said to Rabbi Shlomo Wexler: ‘Why aren’t you saying something, to your neighbor?’ Rabbi Wexler replied, ‘I never even knew that he was breaking Shabbat. You revealed this information to me, you unveiled this secret, you showed me ‘America’…’
Real chassidim don’t gossip
In the old days, Breslov Chassidim didn’t pry into anyone else’s business. They didn’t see anything, and they didn’t know anything. If a person goes to spy out what’s going on with another person, he’s already not a Breslov Chassid – and he’s also not a Tolna Chassid, or a Chernobler Chassid, or a Vizhnitzer Chassid, or a Trisker Chassid, and not a Karlin-Stolin Chassid, either.
He’s nothing.
A person doesn’t need to go around poking into other people’s affairs. He’s only responsible for his own children, and nothing more than that. What are doing, trying to find out what’s happening by someone else?! How is this even going on?!
Even if the other person is hitting his head against a wall, what has it got to do with you?
What, are you Moshe Rabbenu?!
