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Laws of Lashon Hara: A Guide to the Halachos of Proper Speech

Laws of Lashon Hara is a series teaching the practical halachos of guarding one's speech — lashon hara, rechilus, and their fine distinctions — in the tradition of the Chofetz Chaim.

A subject, taught as a series

Laws of Lashon Hara is a subject-based series, not a person — a structured course through the halachos of guarding one's speech. That is worth stating plainly, because the material is organized around a body of law rather than around a personality. Its aim is to teach what Jewish law actually says about speech: when it is forbidden, when it is permitted, and where the boundaries fall. It is halacha, taught systematically.

This kind of series stands in the tradition of the Chofetz Chaim, whose classic works codified the laws of shmiras halashon and made them learnable step by step. Treating lashon hara as a defined area of halacha — with rules, cases, and exceptions — is precisely what turns a vague ideal about "watching what you say" into something a person can actually study and keep.

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The categories of speech

The heart of the subject is distinction. The halachos separate lashon hara (true but damaging speech) from rechilus (talebearing that sets people against each other) and from motzi shem ra (outright falsehood), and each has its own rules. A series like this walks through those categories so a listener learns not a slogan but a working knowledge — able to recognize which case they are in when a conversation turns.

Crucially, the halacha is not a blanket ban on speaking. There are well-defined situations where information may, or even must, be shared — to protect someone, for instance. A serious treatment of the laws teaches those permissions alongside the prohibitions, which is what keeps the subject practical rather than paralyzing. Knowing when speech is allowed is as much a part of the halacha as knowing when it is not.

Why study it as halacha

Guarding one's speech is easy to admire and hard to practice, and the difference usually comes down to knowledge. Someone who has actually learned the categories notices, in the moment, what they are about to do — and has the framework to decide correctly. Studying lashon hara as halacha, rather than as general encouragement, is what makes that real-time awareness possible.

For a family, few areas of Torah touch daily life as constantly as speech does. A series on the laws of lashon hara gives a household a shared vocabulary and a common standard for how people talk to and about one another. Learned steadily, it does quiet, lasting work on the atmosphere of a home — which is exactly what the Chofetz Chaim intended.

Finding kosher Torah video for your family

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If your family enjoys learning topics like the laws of lashon hara, search FilteredTube for the speakers and topics that matter most to you. With a daf yomi shelf, a weekly parsha shelf, topic shelves, audio-only listening for the car, and a kids mode with a PIN, kosher Jewish video is easy to reach — and the approved catalog keeps growing every day.

At a glance

Key takeaways

  • "Laws of Lashon Hara" is a subject-based series on the halachos of speech, not an individual speaker.
  • It stands in the tradition of the Chofetz Chaim, who codified shmiras halashon.
  • It teaches the distinctions — lashon hara, rechilus, motzi shem ra — as a working body of law.
  • It also covers when speech is permitted or required, keeping the halacha practical.
  • Search FilteredTube for kosher, approved Torah video — the catalog grows every day.