The ''

Sefer Sefer may refer to: * Sefer (Hebrew), a term for a book People with the surname * Franjo Šefer (born 1905), Yugoslav tennis player * Bela Šefer, Yugoslav footballer playing in 1924 People with the forename * Sefer Reis, Turkish privateer and O ...

'' ''Chofetz Chaim'' (or ''Chafetz Chaim'' or ''Hafetz Hayim'') (, trans. "Pursuer of Life") is a book by Rabbi

Yisrael Meir Kagan Yisrael Meir ha-Kohen Kagan (February 6, 1838 – September 15, 1933) was an influential Lithuanian Jewish rabbi, Halakhist, posek, and ethicist whose works continue to be widely influential in Orthodox Jewish life. He was known popularly as t ...

, who is also called "the Chofetz Chaim" after it. The book deals with the Jewish laws of speech. The title of the ''Chafetz Chaim'' is taken from

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...

: The book's subject is ''Hilchoth Shmirath HaLashon'' (laws of clean speech). Kagan provides copious sources from the

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

, and ''

Rishonim ''Rishonim'' (; ; sing. , ''Rishon'') were the leading rabbis and ''posek, poskim'' who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the ''Shulchan Aruch'' (, "Set Table", a common printed code of Jewis ...

'' about the severity of

Jewish law ''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is based on biblical commandments ('' mit ...

on tale-mongering and gossip.

Lashon hara ''Lashon hara'' (or ''loshon horo'', or ''loshon hora'') (; "evil tongue") is the halakhic term for speech about a person or persons that is negative or harmful to them, even though it is true. It is speech that damages the person(s) who is tal ...

, literally "'the evil tongue", i.e., evil speech (or loosely

gossip Gossip is idle talk or rumor, especially about the personal or private affairs of others; the act is also known as dishing or tattling. Etymology The word is from Old English ''godsibb'', from ''god (word), god'' and ''sibb'', the term for the ...

and

slander Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making wikt:asserti ...

and prohibitions of

defamation Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

), is sometimes translated as "prohibitions of slander", but most commonly concerns the prohibitions of saying evil/bad/unpleasant things, whether or not they are true. The book is divided into three parts: * The legal text is ''Mekor Chayim'' ("Source of Life"). * ''Be'er Mayim Chayim'' ("Well of living water"), the footnotes and legal argument. * It is commonly printed together with the text '' Shemirath haLashon'' ("Guarding of the tongue"), an

ethical Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied e ...

treatise on the proper use of the faculty of speech.

The author

is commonly known as the ''Chafetz Chaim'', the name of his book. He was born in Dzyatlava,

Grodno Governorate Grodno Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Grodno. It encompassed in area and consisted of a population of 1,603,409 inhabitants by 1897. Gro ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(today

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

), on January 26, 1838. By 1869 his house became known as the Radin Yeshiva. Kagan published twenty-one books. His first work, ''Chafetz Chaim'' (1873), is the first attempt to organize and clarify the laws regarding ''

Lashon Hara ''Lashon hara'' (or ''loshon horo'', or ''loshon hora'') (; "evil tongue") is the halakhic term for speech about a person or persons that is negative or harmful to them, even though it is true. It is speech that damages the person(s) who is tal ...

''. Other notable works include the ''Sefer Shmirat HaLashon'', an ethical work on the importance of guarding one's tongue and the

Mishnah Berurah The ''Mishnah Berurah'' ( "Clear Teaching") is a work of ''halakha'' (Jewish law) by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (Poland, 1838–1933, also known as ''Chofetz Chaim''). It is a commentary on ''Orach Chayim'', the first section of the ''Shulchan Aru ...

(printed between 1894 and 1907) which is a commentary on the "

Orach Chayim ''Orach Chayim'' ("manner/way of life") is a section of Rabbi Jacob ben Asher's compilation of Halakha (Jewish law), '' Arba'ah Turim''. This section addresses aspects of Jewish law pertinent to the Hebrew calendar (be it the daily, weekly, mo ...

", the first section of the ''

Shulchan Aruch The ''Shulhan Arukh'' ( ),, often called "the Code of Jewish Law", is the most widely consulted of the various legal codes in Rabbinic Judaism. It was authored in the city of Safed in what is now Israel by Joseph Karo in 1563 and published in ...

'', and has been accepted among many

Ashkenazi Jews Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium CE. They traditionally speak Yiddish, a language ...

as an authoritative source of

Halacha ''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is based on biblical commandments ('' mi ...

References

External links

Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation

Online edition in Hebrew

A Lesson A Day: A Daily Learning Program

Devekut.com
has a link ("Chofetz Chaim") with an abstract of a book by Rabbis Shimon Finkelman and Yitzhak Berkowitz about Chofetz Chaim's ideas.
Mishpacha Magazine article, THE CHOFETZ CHAIM COMES TO WARSAW
{{Authority control 1873 books Hebrew-language religious books Rabbinic legal texts and responsa