Four stories that highlight the devastating effect of lashon hara

Unmatched

“Hey, what’s up?”

It was 11 p.m., Friday night, and I was lying on my bed. I’d been battling this yetzer hara for hours, inching closer to my phone and then pulling myself back in horror, until I’d succumbed and picked up the phone. By typing those three words, I’d just broken Shabbos for the first time in my life. I know it sounds crazy to be mechallel Shabbos just to text someone a banal greeting; I was in a very, very bad place.

I was 27 and had been looking for my bashert for eight years. “You’re too picky!” my mother would sigh. “I wish you’d agree to marry that bochur Aunt Faiga set you up with. He was a catch.”

“Ma, I couldn’t bear to listen to him talk on a two-hour date! How was I going to listen to him for the rest of my life?” I countered.

My father, as usual, tuned us out completely. He hardly ever bothered lifting his head out of the newspaper. I was living at home, while my siblings, some younger and some older than me, were all married. I had an unfulfilling job as a receptionist in a dental office. My friends were all married and I’d lost touch with them. I didn’t realize just how depressed I was, and even if I had, I don’t know that I would have gone for mental health treatment since that might have negatively affected my shidduch prospects.

I met Chava at a singles event. She wore a lot of makeup and her clothes pushed the boundaries of tzniyus. We had a lot in common. She, like me, was an older single struggling with loneliness and isolation, and we bonded.

We exchanged numbers and would hang out occasionally. Sometimes, she’d text me. I noticed that sometimes I’d see I’d gotten a text from her over Shabbos.

One Motzaei Shabbos, when we met up for pizza, I finally got up the nerve to ask her about it. “I thought I saw a text from you Friday night. Was it a mistake?”

“No,” she laughed. “You never heard of half-Shabbos?”

Chava explained to me that she kept what she called “half-Shabbos.” She would text on Shabbos and justify it to herself as not being so bad since texting isn’t an issur d’Oraisa.

I was horrified. But part of me understood her nisayon; I also felt so very isolated and alone on Shabbos. And that’s how I found myself responding when I saw my phone light up with a text from Chava.