Tazria-Metzora

The rabbi Friday night didn't focus on the parts of lashon hara (evil speech) that I expected him to; he mostly talked about when you should speak up about someone and how to go about it. So that left me free to talk more about it Saturday morning, though I didn't want to come off as presumptuous by saying anything along the lines of "you should[n't] do X". I'm not a rabbi, after all; I have no standing to lecture people about behavior. (And anyway, there's the whole glass-houses thing; I should work on myself before I try to change others.)

As an aside, I've tried a few different approaches to giving these mini-sermons. They're long enough that speaking entirely from memory is iffy. The setting is informal enough that reading from a prepared text feels awkward; in addition, I just don't have the dynamic down yet of reading while looking at people. (When I've given Friday-night sermons I've done this, though; the podium-style reading desk helps hide the paper while putting it where I can see both it and the congregation.) This week, I tried just talking from an outline, something that has sometimes worked in the past. It worked pretty well this time, so I think that's my answer.

For the record, then, my outline read as follows:

tzara'at <-- LH
other sins?
pillow
no undo; must change
3 phases w/rebuke [all white?]
not punishment - prod
LH harm widespread

This is (approximately) what I said from that outline: ( Read more... )