It probably shouldn't take a rabbi . . .

New blog entry:
Reflections on the power of words

Excerpt:
I tried addressing my discomfort in a follow-up to my road rage entry. As my friend Mack thoughtfully informed me, that draft didn’t come anywhere close to Worthsavingsville. I nevertheless giggle at this excerpt from it:

Aggro Deb: THAT DRIVER IS A RAGING DOUCHEBAG!

Guilty Deb: Wait, how do you know he’s a raging douchebag? Maybe his wife’s in the hospital. Maybe he needs to get to her as fast as possible and he’s usually the gentlest, givingest person in the whole world and I just called him a douchebag for one errant action borne of dire circumstance.

Aggro Deb: That would be a pretty asshole thing to do. I like it.

Guilty Deb: I don’t want you to like it! Maybe I should have just said that specific cut-off was douche-y. Then it’s about an action, not him.

Aggro Deb: So boring. Did I mention, who cares?

Guilty Deb: I still can’t believe I just called that poor wife-rescuer a douchebag.

Aggro Deb: I love it when you’re bad.

As part of writing that ill fated entry, I emailed my rabbi and asked his take on the question of hurtful words. I asked, “Are they still hurtful if no one is around to hear them?”

Rabbi Moskowitz replied:

Jewish tradition teaches that motzi shem ra injures three people: the one about whom it is spoken; the one who hears it; and the one who speaks it. In that sense, even if the third party (the speaker) is the only one present, the tree has fallen, the report is thunderous, and the spiritual and ethical environment has been injured.

Well, shoot.