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This has really been on my mind lately and I was wondering if u guys could help me.
Sometimes I tend to say things I don’t mean or things that I will regret later on after I thought about what I have said.
I don’t really want to give examples bc I’m too embarrassed!!! But ill make one up- like someone would say your going there? And I would say I rather die before going there!!! (Chas veshalom)
When I say these things later on I worry about it too much because I know that words have a lot of power and it worries me like crazy that it can CHAS VESHALOM happen and that I have given myself an ayin hara…..
Soo my question is what do I do after I say these things?! Ask Hashem to please forgive me and not listen to what I just said?! I don’t no!!
maybe put in another post soon after apologizing for your comment, like “i take that back”. not sure. it’s good to regret it but don’t be ocd.
syriansephardi-you’ve just made the first step, and that’s recognizing that you want to be more sensitive to what you say. Words do have a lot of power. The next step is-just work on your words, and be more sensitive….awareness in and of itself will cause you to think about what you say. Don’t obsess over it, just be aware, balanced and sensitive, and daven that Hashem put the right words in your mouth. If you do say something you regret, then depending on who you said it/wrote it too, maybe you can say you’re working on it, and apologize–even if it’s to yourself. Sensitizing oneself to such things usually breeds success (Hashem gives siyata dishmaya). Much hatzlocha!
BS”D
Do u mean here on the board? I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
We all say things that we later regret. It’s really about slowing the brain down a bit to think before you speak.
Remember, Silence is Golden.
Practice makes perfect and you are a good, honorable person to acknowledge that when you speak you sometimes get it wrong.
Another thing you could do is apologise if you have the opportunity. Sometimes as soon as the words come out you can regret them in which case you could say….”I’m sorry that was out of order, let me rephrase that”. You will find in doing so people will listen to what you say as oppose to thinking badly of you later.
My daughter tends to add “chas v’sholom” when making a statement like that. So she might say, “I would chas v’sholom die before I would go there,!” Personally,I think it’s better to do a little preventive medicine and follow the adage of n’tzor l’shoncha mairah, to begin with, rather than try to “fix things” later on. We are not always able to watch what comes out of our mouths, but we can try. I am also guilty of this at times, though I do try to be tactful most of the time. Naybe the answer is to mentally count to three before speaking. Anyhow, the fact that you recognize that this is a problem for you, is a good thing. You can work on it. Many people do not realize or even care that something they say can have koach one way or the other.
like all habits, it takes time to change. one small idea is to read the introduction of the english shmiras haloshon, it speaks about our speach, and when a person realizes how important our speach is , we will slowly think before we speak. hatzlocha.
if you’re not 100% sure, then DONT SAY IT!!!
BS”D
Sick has become something positive in today’s slang? Loshon sagi nahor? Turning negative into positive is never such a terrible thing (but actually the Lubavitcher Rebbe suggested that the word beit refuah be used instead of beit cholim and in Lubavitch we don’t use “hacholeh”/”hacholanis” or anything similar when saying misheberach for those who need rachamei shamayim).
What bothers me far more is that a word which is one letter off from sick is used freely by frum people who have no idea what the source of that expression is. That word, used to describe something unpleasant or of low quality, is pure nivul peh and is no better than the word which begins with the 6th letter of the alphabet.
But Syriansefardi, don’t be obsessed about things you say that are just slang (especially in English) so long as you are not inadvertently using vulgar slang.
Do u mean here on the board? I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
This is a terrible attitude. You should worry about everything you say and try to treat people with more respect. If anything, words you write on the internet reach more people than in a general conversation, so you should be EXTRA careful.
If someone cannot handle this responsibility, perhaps they shouldnt be on the internet.
BS”D
Nothing is more terrible than your holier than thou attitude, SJSinNYC, coming as it does from someone who is posting borderline kefira and giving those who waver more downward momentum.
I have had it with the acts put on by the barely frum crowd all over the Net who hide behind a facade of politeness and mentschlichkeit as they post information with no basis in Torah and use their facade to convince those who are wavering that their way is the right one. I have most of those sites in my filter; here B”H your voice and the voices of a few more like you are drowned out in a tidal wave of proper Torah based discourse.
Give me a rude, sloppy 300 pound 13th Avenue shopkeeper type with kishke all over his shirt who’ll run out any moment of the day and start a car whether or not he’s officially a member of Chaverim, compared to the oh, so genteel MO world which, when push comes to shove, relies on the 300 pounders and their sometimes loud wives for chessed. The first guy’s children will probably grow up to be slightly neater 250 pounders who still run out and fix cars; the MO children will either join the charedi world or go off into this YCT style kefira-lite that calls itself “Orthodox” but is really “conservative.” B”H far more are turning right rather than out. What’s more, the 300 pounder davens to Hashem bearichus from his heart every day; your ilk see the mitzvos as an imposition, one more bill to pay lehavdil. (and from the little bit I know about Lakewood and similar communities the people out there doing the right thing are every bit as presentable and polite as the barely frum crowd even if they do not have secular education – something about crowded NY makes people become rude and rushed).
I was distracted when writing that post (from now on I post only at night :)) and I meant to add that here we are using screen names and that we are often being very informal. I know Syriansefardi is far from rude here and I did not want her to think that her sometimes informal replies are impolite or anything she should ever regret.
syriansephardi: you make us proud!!!
Words are very powerful. My friend’s son procratinated when he was supposed to get a kittle for his wedding. When my friend kept telling him to get it already, he answered: So, what’s the worst, I’ll get married in a borrowed kittle. Well, came the wedding, and after he badecked the kallah, the door to the chassan room jammed. They worked on it for almost an hour then someone went and got a different kittle. As he said, my friend’s son got married in a borrowed kittle.
Makes you think, huh?
just me: wow, we can see from this, Hash-m works in mysterious ways.$
syriansephardi: that’s great.$
“(i’m even careful who i say “bless you” to when they sneeze, hameivin yavin).”
You know what the basis for that is ? When in the Middle Ages (or so I am told) people began dying in the plague, people would sneeze before they died, so others started saying Bless You to anyone who sneezed, hoping to save them from the Angel of Death.
oomis:
Prior to Yaakov Avinu, there was no sickness before one died. Rather, the soul just left the body as it had been breathed in, through the nostrils, with a sneeze, so to speak. Yaakov acknowledged the “gift” of being sick before death, so that one can put his affairs in order. A sneeze is no longer a sign of death, but just a reminder of illness (sometimes a symptom and sometimes just a reminder). This is why people say ASUTA or LIVRIYUT, or something like that, to a person who sneezes. But the sneezer himself quotes the words of Yaakov Avinu. And even though people are more familiar with ASUTA (or whatever someone else says when someone sneezes), it is closer to a requirement for the sneezer himself to say LISHU’ATCHA KIVITI HASHEM. [from Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ginsberg, shlita]
syriansephardi: encouraging you to keep up the good work!!!
Nothing is more terrible than your holier than thou attitude, SJSinNYC, coming as it does from someone who is posting borderline kefira and giving those who waver more downward momentum.
Itzik, what you wrote clearly shows that you have no been listening to what I’ve beensaying over the few months I’ve been here. I considered not responding at all, but decided that might lead someone reading this to think your statement is valid at all. I would like to start with this:
I forgive you. I forgive you for directing your misplaced anger at some other anonymous internet posters and placing the blame in my lap.
I will respond to your other points, and try to keep it civil. If I cannot, I will not send it through.
BS”D
SJS, I do not need your forgiveness.
I see where you are coming from, and I know of what I speak.
Keep putting on your show, but even the teenagers here are no longer falling for it.
I have no interest in your response to my other points.
yikes! ironic that some of the comments here are being submitted on this thread topic. I much prefer the civil tones. much more pleasant when comments breed unity.
Ironic that Itzik made his posting under “Not So Smart Comments”.
I think you need forgiveness from many more people besides SJS.
Itzik_s,
I’m not writing this because I think SJS needs me to defend her, because she can express her thoughts more articulately and gracefully than I can my own, but rather because your post pained me as well.
The people you describe may well exist, but SJS clearly is not one of them. And calling another frum person a “borderline kofer” is one of the most vicious insults possible, because it strikes at the heart of who we are. Thus such an insult is much worse than accusing someone of being rude, or of posting without thinking.
If every frum person posted as respectfully and carefully as SJS, this would do a lot towards counteracting the anti-frum attitude that exists on the internet. The worst anti-frum insults from others cannot hurt us as much as our own words, and the impression they create, can hurt us.
In the past I’ve found your posts informative and amusing, and this kind of nastiness towards another poster is just not like you.
syriansephardi,
Good for you for working on this!
BS”D
Sorry, but when it comes to these things I am a very big kanoi. I stand by my words.
Obvious borderline kefira is easy to detect.
Unmasking those who hide behind facades is unpleasant to be sure but it has to be done.
A post that seems oh, so polite but is meant to challenge emunah, on a forum where people are questioning, is like putting heroin in chocolate milk and giving it out free of charge in a schoolyard.
The good thing about this forum compared to a couple of others out there is that B”H it is not a free for all and it has standards. That means that B”H I am free to be as much of a kanoi as I feel I need to be, while the divrei kefira are allowed up so that there is a dynamic debate going on.
There is a (rare) time and a place for what I half-jokingly refer to as “shygetz aross” (ubearto es hara mekirbeicho) and I have more than enough reason to believe that this is the time and the place.
Itzik,
“In the past I’ve found your posts informative and amusing, and this kind of nastiness towards another poster is just not like you.”
I second the motion.
Although (as many of you know) I disagree with 95% of Sjs’s thoughts :-), personally I feel that she is by far the most sincere of all those on that side of the argument.
Although I do agree with a fair amount of your thoughts in your post (& have made that clear in the past) I must say that this time I think you attacked the wrong person.
BS”D
Like all good kanoim I will not give up.
It is precisely that false sincerity that makes the posts dangerous – or, yes SJS is sincere – sincerely wrong and dangerous. The last time I went kanoi it was against someone whose posts were rambling, ridiculous and full of errors. That was easy. This is hard.
Itzik_s,
The nastiness and cruelty you are typing in the name of “kana’us” gives much ammunition to the anti-frum websites that you claim to be so concerned about.
Itzik_s:
Shema Hichlafta Bein Eyov L’Oyev?
I also do not think the moderators would have allowed borderline Kiferah on the site.
(GMAB is not SJS)
BS”D
When they use this or any other ammunition (and for them ANY Torah viewpoint to the right of YCT is ammunition) they only dig their own holes further and further by revealing their true nature. I know because I caught one of these troll bloggers red handed.
BS”D
Syriansephardi, it is never worth it to understand what a fight is about LOL and that is why I told you not to worry so much because you’re one of the good ones here and you’re probably the same in real life as you are online.
Gavra, I have no problem with the moderators allowing YCT type hashkafah on the site in small doses (and I define same as BORDERLINE kefira because you can find an obscure minority viewpoint for anything out there save for eating pork, gilui arayois and the like) but I also feel free to expose it where I see it. Not everyone has to agree with me and I don’t mind being the lone kanoi :).
“It is precisely that false sincerity that makes the posts dangerous – or, yes SJS is sincere – sincerely wrong and dangerous. The last time I went kanoi it was against someone whose posts were rambling, ridiculous and full of errors. That was easy. This is hard.”
The attitude which you demonstrate by remarks such as these, makes it more difficult to appreciate the halachically accurate remarks that you have made and will, I am sure, continue to make. People who speak offensively to others simply because they disagree with them, eventually are tuned out. If you REALLY wanted to make a point that might alter someone’s hashkafa in a way that you view as more positive, the old adage “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” might apply (even if you hate flies).
You sound very angry at times, and might want to take a leaf from Hillel. SJS did not deserve your response. And neither does anyone else. You only give strength to the point that people who are zealous, usually have an agenda other than avoda l’Shem Shamayim, even if they themselves do not recognize it. It’s the need to be RIGHT. I won’t call you a kanoi, because it has a negative connotation these days. An emesdig kanoi has no agenda other than doing avodas Hashem according to His Will. That is not what I am seeing here – but rather a whole bunch of statements insulting other people, which is an oxymoronic concept when one is a frum Yid who should be showing Ahavas Yisroel, not the opposite.
Itzik,
“or, yes SJS is sincere – sincerely wrong and dangerous.”
I personally agree with you that her views are dangerous to herself & others which is why I attempt to speak these issues out with her.
However, being that she IS sincere & not just an obnoxious anti chariedi idiot I feel that she deserves to be spoken to with a modicum of respect.
BS”D
Syriansephardi, I know you are writing quickly here and your responses are very informal – but not stupid by any means.
And when SJS saw that my first response on my thread was a quickie, she should have known that I usually write bearichus and she was way out of line to talk of a terrible attitude when it was obvious that I wrote it in a hurry (which is why I won’t post here during the business day anymore). I would have let it pass but I had just finished undoing the damage that she and someone who is umm..far to the left of her did on a science thread.
While I am sorry for the machloikes I caused, sincerely wrong is the same as wrong. It is in fact MORE dangerous because anyone can detect the ramblings of an obnoxious idiot and all they do is show that we are right and they are wrong.
Thank you for all the support everyone! I am going to make a donation in the zechus of all of you!
Itzik, feel free to debate with me anytime! I welcome the chance to broaden my mind and hear different opinions/psak halacha/minhagim/viewpoints.
While it is debatable if he said it in too strong language, I do agree with Itzik’s point in his comments in this thread.
Hill of beans can you please clarify? Does that mean you think I have a holier than thou attitude and spew kefirah?
BS”D
Because you started a thread entitled “Not So Smart Comments”, that’s why!!!! :)))
I just think some of you just post and don’t even bother to read what you wrote before you hit that send button.
I think I will give up the CR for now. I am really starting to see Ames point of view. Some of you, just seem to post things, without any thought whatsoever. When someone asks a question to someone, and the other replier goes on the defensive, and then accusues the other person who gave you Haskama for going on the Internet? It has not only happened to me. I have seen the same individual, who gets questioned about their religous practices and that individual goes on and says, well, who gave you permission to be on the internet. I mean I think that is a very cheap shot. You know who you are. I will not add more. We are all on the internet for that matter. Hashem created things to be used for holy or the unholy. Everything has its counterpart and it is up to us to use it for holy purposes only.
mazel77: the thought of you leaving deeply saddens me!!! farewell!!!
Yeah, I’m sure you feel terrible.
mazal77: i hope had nothing to do with your departure??!!! hatzlacha with everything!!!
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