1t le ot

Lashon Hara Just a Click Away 33

always clear. The feeling of a linear past, present, and future becomes more obscure as we move back and forth through synchronous and asynchronous communication. As a result, this altered state of consciousness in cyberspace tends to shift or destabilize self-boundary. The distinction between inner-me and outer-other is not as clear. The person shifts to what psychoanalytic theory calls"primary process thinking" in which boundaries between self and other representations become more diffuse, and thinking becomes more subjective and emotion-centered. Within the transitional space of online communication, the psyches of self and other feel like they might be overlapping. We allow the hidden self to surface because we no longer experience it as a purely inner self; but at the same time we also sense, sometimes vaguely and sometimes distinctly, the intrusion of an unknown other into our private world, which results in suspicion, anxiety, and the need to defend our exposed and vulnerable intrapsychic territory.”

19. The Jewish Publication Society translation of Leviticus 19:16 reads:“Do not deal basely with your countrymen,” and provides a footnote that the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.

20. Maimonides YadhaChasakah, Tum’at Tzara’at 16:120.

21. Sifrei Metzora on Numbers loc.cit.: Avot de-Rabbi Natan loc.cit. 22. Babylonian Talmud , Arakhin 15 b .

23. Midrash Tanhuma, parshat Metzora.

24. Of the 43 sins enumerated in the traditional al Cheit confessional of Yom Kippur , eleven are sins committed through speech.

25. One dramatic example of the confluence of these many new facets of communication via the Internet will suffice to dramatize the degree of the problem. A popular advice column,“Ask Amy,” authored by Amy Dickinson and syndicated In newspapers across the country, printed a letter on February 14 and 15, 2011 in which a customer service employee claimed she was fired due to an angry young customer who refused to speak with the manager yet tweeted her complaint later that evening, Managers at the headquarters learned of the tweet and fired the employee. {The.letter. was available. on 4/3/2011 at http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/1 16183554.html.)

26. Two additional pieces of advice to reduce lashon hara at the keyboard:(1) Impose a waiting period before forwarding or sending anything that might contain