One morning I got up and discovered an uninvited guest – a snail. It might be nice for children to learn how a snail stretches out of its shell and carries its home on its back, but it is not so pleasant to meet one up close, in our house instead of on some green leaf.
If it was only a single snail, we could bear it. But an entire group of snails showed up, and it was quite unappetizing. I swept them out of the house, never imagining that at that moment a new chapter was beginning in our lives.
The next morning I discovered them again, as though they couldn’t take the hint, or as though friends of the first group had come to seek revenge for them. I hurried to dispose of them as well, before the children would wake up and scream in fear.
On the third morning it was really upsetting, and on the fourth morning I was fed up. What did the snails want in our home? What was attracting them? What food that they like did I need to hide from them? What was there on our tiles that was inviting to them?
We really didn’t know what to do. We tried exterminating substances and a few other tricks, but nothing helped. The snails were stubborn, and they embittered our lives.
“This is something extraordinary,” I said to my wife. “We need to understand what Hashem is telling us.” I opened Perek Shirah and looked for what the snail says. I did not find an entry for chilazon, but I did find one for shablul. And indeed, the shablul – the slug – said, “Like the slug ... that never sees the sun” (Tehillim 58:8) The mefarshim describe the slug, which melts when the sun shines upon it. Who is likened to the shablul? The people who incited Shaul against Dovid and spoke lashon hara about him. This is brought in the Midrash Yalkut Shimoni: Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to them: You spoke lashon hara; you will go to Gehinnom and the fire will consume you, as it says, “like the shablul you will melt ... and they will never see the sun.”
The message was clear: We needed to improve our speech, and I knew exactly which topic caused us to speak a lot of lashon hara. My wife suffered a lot at work from her boss. She would share with me what had happened to her over the course of the day, and that’s how she dealt with her pain. But these words had become more than just letting go of pain; they had turned into real lashon hara.
I called a rav who is well-versed in laws of shemiras halashon, and I asked him what I could do. On the one hand, my wife could not leave her workplace, and on the other hand, she was suffering and had to unburden her heart. The rav told me that we should not speak badly about her boss at all. We should only describe the difficulty. We were to speak on the basis of understanding that her difficulty was not because the boss was bad, but rather because it was difficult for my wife to deal with certain characteristics of her boss.
The following day, when we spoke about work, we were careful to refrain from any lashon hara, and many fewer snails invaded our home. There were only two.
We saw how Hashem saw our efforts, and we strengthened ourselves more and more. We got an exact mirror of our behavior: When we would guard our speech while talking, the snails did not come, and when we slackened our guard they would show up again.
We continued improving and changing, and we stubbornly worked on seeing things positively and judging favorably. I am now relating what happened after two whole weeks that our home had been free of snails.
May Hashem continue to help us guard our tongue and bring the brachah to our home.
