Rav Elya Brudny explains that the Torah wants a child to learn even before becoming a Bar or Bat Misvah that words count. If we make a promise, we have to keep our word. If we say something, we should mean it.
The Hafess Hayim writes that if we teach our children when they are young not to speak lashon hara, it will not be difficult for them to avoid such talk when they grow up.
Rabbi Shlomo Finklestein brings us a beautiful story to illustrate the importance of what you say. Rebbetzin Faiga Zaks, youngest child of the Hafess Hayim, related, “One day when I was a girl, I was about to go outside and play with my friends when my father stopped me.”
“Faiga, a man is coming to pick up a set of Mishnah Berurah (a set of six volumes). You know that I never sell a sefer without first checking each page to make sure there are no mistakes (no blurry pages, no missing pages, no pages out of order). Please check the sefarim so that I can give them to him when he comes.”
I told my father that I would be happy to check the sefarim later, but right now I wanted to play with my friends.
My father insisted that the sefarim needed to be checked now, to which I responded, “Tatte, if you let me go out and play now, I’ll check even thirteen sets later.”
My father did not respond, which I took as a “yes.” I went out and played. When I returned, there were thirteen sets of Mishnah Berurah stacked on the table. “Uh, tatte, why so many sets?” I asked.
My father replied calmly and matter-of-factly, “These are the sets that you said you would check.”
“But tatte, I didn’t really mean it! I said it because I wanted so much to go out and play.”
“Mein kind,” my father replied lovingly, “You must learn from when you are young that a Jew must always honor his word.”
Rabbi Reuven Semah
Reprinted from the Parashat Matot-Masei 5785 email of Rabbi David Bibi’s Shabbat Shalom from Cyperbspace.
