Balak, king of Moab, feels threatened by Israel’s presence in the area. He knows that conventional weapons will not be enough to combat this people who counts with the help of HaShem and an army of 600,000 soldiers. Balak decides to use a more sophisticated strategy. He hires Bil’am, a famous wizard, for the power of his words. Bil’am knows how to invoke curses and use magic words that supposedly destroy the enemy. Nothing more suited to defeat this unconventional enemy. But God intervenes and does not allow Bil’am to curse Israel. On the contrary, Bil’am is forced to pronounce blessings for Israel. Some of them so beautiful that we have incorporated them into our daily Tefilot.
Words are very powerful. Human beings were granted the incredible ability of language. HaShem gave us this gift that allows us to communicate with each other and express our ideas, thoughts and feelings.
A person’s speech reflects his or her intellectual and spiritual level. An educated and refined person will stay away from bad words and negative language. We have a number of Mitsvot in the Tora warning us about the pain that negative words can cause others.
As parents we must take every opportunity we have to teach our children to stay away from using toxic language. For example, if I hear my daughter talk to her friends about another friend, I must remind her the damaging effects of Leshon haRa. Obviously, the most effective teaching process happens when my children observe that my husband and I, in our conversations, stay away from negative comments.
But it is not all about being careful with negative speech. We must also realize the power of positive speech. For some reason, Balak did not think that the best way to help his army would be to bless them, instead of looking to curse the enemy. Bil’am and Balak were only able to think of cursing and criticizing.
We are different. We know that good words, blessings, praise, have enormous power to do good to others. When someone is having a hard time, is sad or depressed, the words of support from a friend give him courage and lift his spirit. Same with words of gratitude and recognition to the efforts made by others. Sometimes doing Hesed with others it’s so easy! All you need is only a handful of positive words that can do so much good.
Once again, in this area we must teach our children by example as well. We criticize them when they do something wrong, right? Well, we must learn to praise them when they do something right!. The power of praising is amazing. And we need to use it. Usually we correct the negative behavior of our children and very often we forget to praise. No doubt there are so many positive actions we can acknowledge. If our children only receive criticism they will likely suffer from low self-esteem. And it is quite possible that they would also become critics.
We must learn to find a balance between constructive criticism, which as parents we have to exercise, and praise, words of encouragement and appreciation to our children that will nurture their self-esteem and will allow them to become good people, men and women who know how to use positive language.
