{"id":32410,"date":"2016-10-07T16:10:36","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T22:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=32410"},"modified":"2016-10-07T16:11:57","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T22:11:57","slug":"on-yom-kippur-atoning-for-our-online-sins-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/on-yom-kippur-atoning-for-our-online-sins-2\/","title":{"rendered":"On Yom Kippur, atoning for our online sins"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>By EDMOND J. RODMAN<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>(JTA) \u2014\u00a0If you\u2019re like me, you blog, read and share a lot of political stuff. But who really reads these posts and articles all the way through? Especially with the longer stories, who has time to look up the sources, or check if that odd\u00a0photo was first posted on some sketchy partisan\u00a0website?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_32412\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/computer1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32412\" class=\"wp-image-32412 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/computer1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"computer\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/computer1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/computer1-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/200;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32412\" class=\"wp-image-32412 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/computer1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"computer\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/computer1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/computer1-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-32412\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">We are probably all candidates for a keyboard confession this Yom Kippur, JTA columnist Edmon J. Rodman writes. (Pexels)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Instead, we\u00a0click and we\u00a0skim; we\u00a0copy and we\u00a0paste.\u00a0But then comes Yom Kippur.<\/p>\n<p>If we accept the accounting in the Talmud that says &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chabad.org\/library\/article_cdo\/aid\/920718\/jewish\/Gossip-and-Slander.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Evil gossip kills three<\/a>: the one who says it, the one who listens and the subject of the gossip,&#8221; we may need to ante up for an awful lot of headstones come Atonement Day.<\/p>\n<p>The heart of the Yom Kippur liturgy is the Viddui, the two-part confessional composed of the shorter Ashamnu, an alphabetical acrostic of our wrongdoings, and the longer Al Chet, which explores, at length, the areas where we have fallen short.<\/p>\n<p>When the Day of Atonement arrives, we will confess to\u00a0both \u201cunwillingly and willingly\u201d acting out of\u00a0arrogance, speaking ill of others and rashly judging others and gossiping. And in this year of extreme partisanship,\u00a0that has me thinking: Has the\u00a0season of politics gerrymandered our personal boundaries, reshaping the areas of shortcomings for which we need to ask forgiveness? Have we\u00a0wittingly or unwittingly emailed unchecked &#8220;truths&#8221; \u2014 and sometimes checkered \u2014 to family, friends and people we don\u2019t even know?<\/p>\n<p>This summer, the problem hit home when a friend forwarded me an email breathlessly purporting to show that by comparison to previous first ladies, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton each had an unprecedented high number of paid White House staff. Not passing my sniff test, I looked it up on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.snopes.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Snopes.com<\/a>, a\u00a0fact-checking website. I discovered\u00a0the story was filled with false comparisons and easily researchable errors. Yet it was forwarded to me as if the truth.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing to beat our chests\u00a0over, you say? Or is it? When we wittingly or otherwise pass along something that damages the reputation of another \u2014 not that <em>you<\/em> have done it, but, um, somebody <em>like<\/em>\u00a0you \u2014 is this something that\u00a0we should confess, or make amends for, on Yom Kippur?<\/p>\n<p>Many of us blindly (or with one eye open) resend or post links to all kinds of things. It seems harmless, makes us feel like we are with it, and our hearts (mine included) go all aflutter when our \u201cfriends\u201d praise us even for the most outrageous stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Posting or forwarding unchecked or unread articles\u00a0may seem innocuous, but it&#8217;s not.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe speed and ease with which utter personal destruction and irreparable social division \u2014 whether the result of malice, misinformation, or well-intentioned miscalculation \u2014 can be brought about through the transmission of words is staggering,\u201d wrote <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ohrsaadya.org\/our-rabbi\/\" target=\"_blank\">Rabbi Daniel Z. Feldman<\/a> in his book \u201cFalse Facts and True Rumors: Lashon HaRa in Contemporary Culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking ill of others\u00a0is known in Judaism as &#8220;lashon hara&#8221; \u2014 \u00a0evil speech or, simply, gossip. It represents the\u00a0understanding that words can do real damage \u2014 quite unlike the &#8220;but words will never hurt me&#8221; maxim we learned as children.<\/p>\n<p>And\u00a0once that damage is done, how do you repair it? The classic example is of breaking open a feather pillow in the wind and then trying to recover all the feathers.\u00a0Now imagine the wind as the internet, spreading the &#8220;feathers&#8221; to an almost infinite number of unknown destinations. There is no way to get them all back.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes lashon hara is permitted \u2014 for instance, when it is necessary to give information to someone whom you feel\u00a0will be harmed without it. However, people who are concerned about lashon hara are scrupulous with their speech about others. In places where traditional Jews do business, it\u2019s not unusual to see a sign that says \u201cNo Lashon Hara.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While\u00a0I don\u2019t expect to see campaign signs dotting lawns with a similar message, perhaps a computer graphic saying\u00a0\u201cStick to the Facts\u201d would be useful at this time of year.<\/p>\n<p>Being passive listeners or readers of gossip isn&#8217;t an excuse, either. According to Feldman, a person \u201cwho is on the receiving end of lashon hara must be careful not to act in a way that endorses or supports the offending speech. As such, we must evaluate to what degree clicking on websites, and all the more so linking to a website or distributing a link, acts as an extension and facilitation of the original message,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>So how should we respond if we have fallen short online? Feldman observes that lashon hara \u201ccauses greater spiritual corruption to the offender than a standard transgression causes,\u201d since it registers \u201ca dual effect\u201d &#8212; harming the subject and the speaker at once.<\/p>\n<p>In addition \u201cto the appeal for forgiveness from the victim,\u201d he offers that the three \u201cbasic steps of general repentance are called for: confession, regret and commitment to better behavior in the future.\u201d\u00a0In other words, Feldman contends that the traditional response to lashon hara is equally applicable in the digital world.<\/p>\n<p>But how exactly are online amends\u00a0accomplished? Once these digital &#8220;feathers&#8221; are released, how do we get them back?<\/p>\n<p>When someone needs to make amends for something they have said, most <a href=\"http:\/\/www.glamour.com\/story\/phone-empathy-isolation\" target=\"_blank\">experts\u00a0suggest a face-to-face apology<\/a>, where responsibility is taken with no excuses. For those who we know that we have hurt online, I believe a face-to-face &#8220;please forgive me&#8221; \u2014 or at least a phone call \u2014 is very much in order.<\/p>\n<p>Though a similar apology to our online minions seems a physical impossibility, I am wondering if, taking apologies into the digital age, amends could be made by posting a correction. And not just an &#8220;oops,&#8221; but a link to an analysis of the offending post that reveals its factual flaws, along with several sites useful for fact checking.<\/p>\n<p>As election frenzy reaches its peak during the High Holidays, chances are the shoddily sourced story you forwarded\u00a0won&#8217;t cause personal damage to a\u00a0candidate; some big-time politician is probably not going to be affected\u00a0by your post. But what about your reputation, and your relationship with your community? Attitudes, and possibly\u00a0votes, may have changed as a result of your untrue post. An online apology won&#8217;t\u00a0get all the feathers back, but it is a start in sewing up the pillow. And providing your list with the tools to fact-check in the future would be a move toward a more aware online community.<\/p>\n<p>For some, confessing our online mistakes to our friends may be the hardest part. For others, it is acknowledging our shortcomings as part of Yom Kippur&#8217;s acts of atonement. On the Day of Atonement, it is custom that with each word or phrase of the Ashamnu we strike our chests. And this year, in particular, I am also going to apply the words from my prayer book to my own keyboard behavior:\u00a0We transgress, we quarrel, we mock, we neglect, we gossip.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, in this new year, amid the heat of\u00a0an election battle, we are probably\u00a0all\u00a0candidates for a keyboard confession.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Edmon J. Rodman is a JTA columnist who writes on Jewish life from Los Angeles. Contact him at\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:edmojace@gmail.com\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"clickable ClickableEmail inactive\">edmojace@gmail.com<\/span><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"On%20Yom%20Kippur%2C%20atoning%20for%20our%20online%20sins\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,642],"tags":[8118,8790,8795,8788,445,8821],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32413,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32410\/revisions\/32413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}