Keep It Clean: A Thought For Parshat Noach

"Of the clean beasts, and of beasts that are not pure, and of fowls, and of everything that creepeth upon the earth." (Genesis 7:8)

Why does the Torah speak at length and say "and of beasts that are not pure" when the Torah could have been brief and say "and of impure beasts"? Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi learned from the wordiness of this verse a very important lesson: That one should choose his words wisely, and not say things that are indecent (see Pesachim 3A).

This applies not only to the spoken word, but to the written word as well. In this blog I often deal with heated issues, and sometimes I wonder if I have passed the bounds of what the Torah permits to say/write. It is not hard to do so, especially when blogging as I do under an alias.

In short, let's keep it clean.