I was not going to send a message this week. The short weeks due to the High Holidays make it difficult to keep to the weekly schedule. But as I sat in Yom Kippur services and listened to a rabbi speak about hurtful speech and the power that words have to cause harm and damage to people, I realized that I had to share what is on my mind. In the hours before Yom Kippur and in the hours since an email message titled “Warning on Steven Levin” has been circulated to many members of our community attacking Cantor Levin in a particularly vicious way. Several people have been in touch with me about this message to express their concern and dismay that such a hurtful and disgraceful message would be distributed in this kind of way. The emails have been sent from a variety of false addresses. As far as I know, no one knows who is sending them, or how they have gotten hold of people’s email addresses. I won’t comment on the content of the message. It is frankly beside the point. Whatever issues anyone may have with a member of our community, whether they are an employee of one of our community institutions, or simply a private member of our community, launching an anonymous attack in such a vicious way is about as counter to the spirit of Yom Kippur as any act I can imagine. I remember participating some years ago in a family education program at our synagogue in Cleveland about the High Holidays, and having our children squeeze toothpaste out of a tube. Of course, once the toothpaste is out, it is impossible to put back in. So, too, with gossip, slander, and other forms of hurtful speech – once they have been spread it is impossible to pull them back. And as wonderful a tool as email can be, as I have personally found through my weekly message, we have before us a terrible example of the ways in which this tool can also be used. I don’t know who has initiated these messages. I can only hope, as I know many others in our community do, that the messages will stop. Whatever issues or concerns have prompted them, this is not the way. Shabbat shalom.
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