Saturday, June 28, 2008

Lashon hora and other discontents

So somebody who hosted a shabbat dinner I went to last night, was talking the next afternoon. She was complaining about a certain person who supposedly has a lot of health issues, needing food to be a certain way, needing windows opened just so and the like, which would contribute to the inconvenience of hosting for her. Just chiming in I said "is it psycological?" I guess I was trying to include myself in the conversation. I should've kept my mouth shut.
She gave me one of those looks of shame and retorted, "It's SHABBAS." I mean, how dare I mount Lashon hora upon her Lashon hora? Than five minutes later she was back to railing on about this woman, who I guess would call her up at the last minute wanting to come for shabbat but having a list of requests which were virtually impossible for said host to keep up.
My lesson here: when I don't know someone very well, I'm not going to chime in when they're criticizing someone. I guess she had a right to and I didn't. It definitely sort of caused me some embarrassement that I could have done without.

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