החפץ חיים

The Chafetz Chaim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir HaKohen of Radin, is the man who made the guarding of speech into a whole Torah. In his first book, after which he is named, 'Chafetz Chaim,' he gathered and arranged all the laws of evil speech and gossip, which had been scattered and forgotten, and reminded an entire people that the mouth is an instrument with which one can build and destroy worlds.

But his greatness did not stop there. He wrote the 'Mishnah Berurah,' a commentary on the Shulchan Aruch Orach Chayim, which became the most widespread practical halachic work in the Ashkenazi world, and there is scarcely a house of study without it. One man, in humility and without authority, gave the people both the ethics of speech and the halachic order of the day.

Tradition tells of his humility and immense simplicity: he lived in poverty, earning modestly from a small shop his wife ran, and sought no honor. It was said that when he saw the depth of another's grief, he wept with him. His love of Israel was not an idea but a way of life, and his devotion to the community, in caring for refugees and Jewish soldiers, was known to all.

What do we learn from him? That guarding one's speech is truly the service of God, and that a single word can build or destroy. The Chafetz Chaim teaches that one can be the leader of the generation and live in poverty and complete humility, and that one who reminds an entire people to guard its mouth performs a repair of the world no less than any scholarly innovation.