Keeping People's Secrets

The story I'm about to share is over 30 years old, but I still think about it frequently.

When I was in middle school, I had a friend who went to a different school; let's call her "Connie." One day, we were hanging out with some other kids, and I said to her:

"Connie- you know, I don't think I've ever heard you speak 'lashon hara!'"

Lashon hara literally means "bad language" but it generally refers to gossip or slander- unnecessary negative talk about other people, and is a Torah prohibition, which most people do transgress sometimes. 

Now, Connie was not a show-off at all, on the contrary, she actually was and is very modest, but her answer was:

"Oh, I don't talk lashon hara."

And I'm like: "What do you mean you don't? Everyone sometimes does!"

And the way I remember the next part of the story was that she explained:

"When I was a little kid, I learned about tzara'ats (the Biblical, physical skin disease that afflicted people as a consequence for sin, most famously, lashon hara, in ancient times.) I didn't realize that people don't get it nowadays, and I was scared to get sick for saying the wrong thing, so I just didn't talk for a while. Eventually I learned that this wasn't going to happen to me, and so I started talking again. But I was so freaked out from that time when I thought talking lashon hara would make me sick and need to go into exile, that to this day, it's like I'm allergic to it. So I just never say anything bad about people. I don't think I could even if I wanted to."

I remember actually feeling a little jealous of her trauma- like I wish someone had terrified me into being such a good person.

As an adult, I still appreciate what a great quality that is in Connie, but I'm not sure that I would deliberately go about teaching that lesson that way. (In fact, I am sure: I wouldn't.) But it is something I think about a lot.

As a therapist, I'm bound legally and ethically by a code of strict confidentiality. Not "try your best," "everyone slips up occasionally," "it's ok to be imperfect" discretion- but "zero room for error," "people depend on it," "you could lost your license or worse" confidentiality. When friends ask me if I'm worried I'll break it, I just say "no- when you're a mental health professional you just know you have to be a vault- full stop. It's not optional." It's not just the threat of losing my reputation or my job- it's the intrinsic knowledge that it would be heinous to betray a client's trust that way, so it's just simply not an option.

One thing I pray for is to be able to apply the level of conviction and discipline I naturally have for professional confidentiality, to my own interpersonal and spiritual discretion. I don't know why I can guarantee with Connie's level of confidence that my professional confidentiality is iron-clad, but still see myself as imperfect with regard to social lashon hara. I mean I try- and I'm certainly better at it than I used to be, but it's still a work in progress.

Not to make excuses, but I'm sure a big part of that is that it's socially acceptable and normative to talk about others- in fact, it's hard to avoid. But a professional disclosing private information about clientele would be appalling socially as well.

Another factor is that there are times where it's necessary and useful to talk about other people in general, whereas there's no gray area, judgement call, or exceptions when it comes to professional privacy (ok yes, if someone is a danger to him/herself or others, but that's like.. really specific.)

But I often think about the Connie story as a parent, educator, and mental health professional. There are some values that are worth enforcing with a little bit of healthy fear. If kids don't run out into oncoming traffic because they've been taught that it's very dangerous, then that's a physical reality that will make them safer. If they don't try drugs because they're scared of getting sick that feels ok to me too. But I do see and hear about "cautionary lessons" taught to enforce religious beliefs that create an unhealthy neurosis around observance, and that worries me.

For example: I've had clients tell me that they learned that if they watch or read inappropriate material, those thoughts create spiritual energy-demons, "shaidim," which will come back to haunt them at their weddings. Not only do I not know a source for this, but it feels like an unhealthy, unhelpful way to motivate viewing discretion, and creates awful anxiety after the fact.

This week's Torah portion discusses the disease of tzaraats in great detail, along with its purification protocols. It also discusses other types of natural impurity, the delicate subject of genital discharge: uterine blood, semen, and other biological secretions. The sort of content that some would be surprised to find described so openly, graphically, and unapologetically in the Torah, but there it is. Because the human being- our character flaws and repairs, as well as the body and its functions, all the variations of what come forth from us are not separate from holiness and serving G-d; they are vehicles for it.

Follow up: This post was originally sent as a subscriber email a few years ago. "Connie" receives those emails, and gave me permission to let you know that her real name is actually Bonnie, and that she had replied to confirm the story, and even shared some extra details. (Since then, our daughters have met on a summer program and become friends, which is a very specific kind of joy:)

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