When you read this column you will either be preparing for Pessah, or there already. You should already be receiving the fruits of The Wisdom Project, the texts/tweets/e-mails from our congregation that remind you to count the Omer, and share with you wisdom that our fellow Etz Hayim members live by. If you haven’t signed up yet you still have time to get the daily reminders. Look for the link on our homepage (www.etzhayim.net).

Let me share with you the words that I shared as my first post in this series: “Don’t speak ill of the irrelevant.” These words were shared with me by a dear and very wise friend, Bonnie Leal. Bonnie is one of the smartest women I know. Her insights are profound and she has a very straightforward way of explaining the most complex issues.

The idea behind Bonnie’s saying is that most things we speak about are truly irrelevant, when you give it some thought. We should strive to discuss ideas and actions that are truly important, and not waste our energy or tongue talking about things that will not benefit our world. In Judaism, we have a related concept called Shmirat Halashon. The exact translation is “keeping one’s tongue,” but more specifically it means “to keep one’s tongue from saying bad things.” An even more pointed translation of this idiom is: “Keep your tongue inside your mouth and think about the ramifications of your words before you speak.”

The intersection of Jewish tradition and my friend Bonnie’s wisdom is especially poignant when encountering the internet behaviors “trolling” and “cyberbullying.” According to knowyourmeme.com, “Trolling is an Internet slang term used to describe any Internet user behavior that is meant to intentionally anger or frustrate someone else, though not to be confused with cyberbullying, a form of online harassment carried out against an individual in a deliberately hostile manner, often without any reason.” Shmirat Halashon and Bonnie’s maxim apply just as much in these instances, if not more. The anonymous and consequence-free nature of the internet emboldens people to say disgusting, harmful and reprehensible things they might not say out loud. We should all strive to keep our virtual tongues in check, and teach this same discipline to our children.

I am taking an online class with Dr. David Kraemer, professor of Talmud and head of the library at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. The class focuses on issues of food and ethics, and we were assigned two videos to watch. The first video was about Agriprocessors, the Postville, Iowa, kosher meat processing company that in May of 2008 was raided and closed for a series of violations. I had never seen that footage before, and was completely outraged by it. I never bought their meat, but still, it was horrible to see their practices. (The very little meat consumed in my home comes from Grow and Behold, and you can join the buying club for their kosher, pastured meat.) The second video was by Dr. Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, a best-selling author, an autistic activist, and a consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior. Grandin talks about ways of slaughtering animals that respect the life of the animal. Orderly and humanely done, which is the process used at Grow and Behold, the death of these animals had a different, dare I say sacred, dimension.

At the end of the video, Grandin explains that she herself eats meat, and as long as it is done in the correct way, she has no problem doing that. Here is an expert in animal behavior, and also one of the most accomplished autistic persons in the country, giving her well-researched and thoughtful opinion. For curiosity’s sake, I went to the comments section. I was appalled by the amount of both trolling and cyberbullying directed at this professor. All the vitriol, all the derisive comments, all the hurtful comments, made me wish Dr. Temple Grandin never saw that section. If she has, I hope she was able to dismiss the comments for the garbage they are, did not pay attention to them, and then just said to herself: “Don’t speak ill of the irrelevant.”

As we go about our life, may we not be trolls or bullies. Focus on doing good things for our world. Keep our tongues free from deceit, and let us not speak ill of the irrelevant.