Yaakov Hibbert Presents… Twitter.com!

For the benefit of those who have never twittered, or sent tweets, allow me to give a short briefing about ‘Twitter’.

Firstly, the word ‘Twitter’ is recognized by the Oxford dictionary as meaning – ‘make a posting on the social networking site Twitter: many active bloggers are twittering more and more these days.’ Not wanting to underestimate the importance of this new fad, you should know that every day 300,000 new people sign up for “Twitter”. The main feature of ‘Twitter’ is that you can send ‘Tweets’ which cannot be longer than 140 characters – so no need to get into long drawn out conversations with anybody. Current statistics are that around 640 ‘Tweets’ are sent every second; i.e. while I wrote this paragraph in excess of 115 thousand tweets were sent!! Twitter is also a system whereby you can have a virtual fan club. President Obama ranks fourth most popular with almost 4 million followers! All this is run with only 175 Twitter employees! Oh, and by the way the icon for ‘Twitter’ is….. Yes a bird! (N.B these statistics are from the last time I checked – 2011!)

In this week’s Parshah we have the purification process of the ‘Metzoro’ often mistranslated as ‘Leper’ [The spiritual disease of Tzara’as actually bears only a passing resemblance to the bacterial infection called Leprosy]. “And for the person being purified shall be taken two live, clean birds”

Rashi quotes the Gemora that explains why the ‘Leper’ brings birds as his offering. “Since afflictions of ‘Tzara’as’ come about because of Loshon Hora (evil speech) which is an act of verbal twittering therefore, there was required for the purification birds that constantly twitter”. Similarly the Medresh points out, “Let the voice [of the birds] come and atone for voice [of the chatterbox]”.

Many animals are vocal but what is special about the bird is that it constantly tweets – perhaps up to 640 tweets per second!

The Rambam at the end of the Halachos regarding ‘Tzara’as’ writes, “for such is the way of scoffers who sit around ‘shmoozing’ at first just excessive amounts of speech as it says, “and the voice of a fool is through excessive talk” the resulting conversations will end up being malicious words against people”.

The first stage of Loshon Hora is talking too much. I may not be an etymologist but, it’s perfectly conceivable that the word ‘twit’ is closely associated to the word ‘Twitter’ – only twits twitter!

I remember as I was growing up my father used to have a rule at the Shabbos meals, “We don’t speak about people!” Once you start speaking about people – with no purpose, just to twitter, you run the risk of then speaking about them in a negative way.

Interestingly Rabbi Tatz pointed out that one of the most basic premises for Loshon Hora is that what you are saying must be partially true. Lashon Hora is not lying – it’s over indulging in talking about the true aspects and character traits of other people.

Let’s remember that the cause of all speech problems is first and foremost – speaking! Speaking aimlessly! Let’s remember that the way of righteous – say a little and do much. Whereas the wicked – say a lot and even a little they don’t do.

Good Shabbos, Yaakov