What separates man from the animal world? There are probably a variety of different answers for that question. I would like to offer one answer from this verse: “Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). The words for living soul in Hebrew is Nefesh Chaya. Targum Onkelos translates this into Aramaic as Ru’ach Memalela, a speaking spirit. This extra vitality that is in man is expressed by his speech, for better or worse.
If a person’s speech is littered with profanities, he is abusing this precious gift. The same goes for the written word. Perhaps some of you remember how embarrassing it was during the “Watergate” scandal when the phrase “expletive deleted” appeared on the transcripts of conversations in the White House. Unfortunately, this sense of shame seems to be getting rare. The expletives, not deleted, are all over the Internet. What happened to class and decorum?
People talk about keeping the environment clean: using less fossil fuels, recycling etc. Let’s try to keep our Internet clean as well. That would be a great improvement in the standard of living.
(Crossposted here.)
A Jew's view from the capital of Israel and the future site of the Third Temple, may it speedily be rebuilt.
1 comment:
Hazak Uvaruch for making a Kiddush Hashem over at LGF.
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