[First posted in 2015; ‘lashon hara’ is the Hebrew equivalent for evil speech or evil tongue.  How do we know if we’re guilty of such?—Admin1.]

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A ‘search term’ most frequently entered in this website is the phrase “uncircumcised lips”.  And of course, we do have a post with that phrase in the title which is not originally ours; it comes from a man recorded to have said it first, referring to himself:  Moses.   Later, the prophet Isaiah would use the same term, also referring to himself.

What? ?!! Handpicked mouthpieces of YHWH feel unworthy to utter ‘the very words of God’?  Who chose them in the first place, shouldn’t that make them say “Who, me? How privileged am I!”  Yet one sees their humility when they say instead, “but I am a man of uncircumcised lips!”

Moses and Isaiah, two towering figures in the Hebrew Scriptures you would least accuse of having “uncircumcised lips” . . . so what could it possibly mean?  To save us from explaining and encourage you to do your homework, read this post first:

• Exodus/Shemoth 6-b: Do you have “uncircumcised lips”?

The first thing that should come to mind in our generation, living several millennia later is this:  if we had the same assignment as Moses and we felt we were not a ‘fit vessel’ to deliver a message from no less than God Himself who appears as a ‘burning bush‘, would we use the same terms as Moses did?  “Uncircumcised lips”? Most likely not;  in fact that is why we think the post with those naughty words in the title is so popular with searchers, it is clicked so frequently.

The word ‘circumcision’ referring to a medical procedure applied to human genitalia is not normally nor casually used in our language and particularly applied to another part of the human body!  Truly,  how often would we use the term except to refer to the medical procedure that is performed only in cultures or religions that require it?  And for what? These days there are pros and cons on circumcision being medically and hygienically beneficial to sexual partners regardless of different or same gender. But let us not get into that diversion here.

The word “circumcision” has been metaphorically applied such as “circumcision of the heart” and let’s not forget “people of the circumcision” (Israel) and “the uncircumcised” (Gentiles), specifically used at a time when Israel was identifiable specifically with that requirement for the male population.  Movies about the holocaust use that same identifying process when Germans search out Jews from among the occupied European countries.   (Note:  Circumcision is the sign of the covenant with Abraham; and it was kept by both Isaac and Ishmael, and presumably the generations that were born and grew up in Egypt and all generations from observant Israel thereafter, presumably to this day.)

David says it dramatically before he slingshots Goliath,

“for who is this uncircumcised Philistine,

that he should defy the armies of the living God?” 

[1 Samuel 17:26].

Why so graphic a term is used in biblical language should not surprise us; the Creator/Revelator/God of Israel who designed the human anatomy finds nothing wrong in using words we might not want to utter in polite conversation, if and specially if the meaning hits home like a bullseye, no further explanation needed;  though understandably, the unschooled in literary or figurative speech struggle with such metaphoric use of  words avoided in polite society.  Examples are found in some prophets who used such words about idolatrous Israel as “whoring” and “lifting up your skirt” in sexually characterizing them as being unfaithful to their husband, YHWH.  Whew, talk about “uncircumcised lips” indeed, we might say today to the foul-mouthed,  “gargle with spiritual chlorox” instead of “circumcise your lips!”

How unfit are we to speak God’s words to others?

What about the Hebrew phrase  lashon hara or evil speech/evil speaking?  Is it the same as “uncircumcised lips”?  When does speech become evil?  When do we cross the line?

We know lying in all forms is ‘lashon hara‘ but when does speaking the truth become evil speech?  We know the Torah is all and always about our treatment of ‘the other’ which includes friend and foe.  When words hurt ‘the other’, is that a no-no? What are the criteria for one to cross the line in speaking the truth because it’s the wrong context?

Most of us who think we’re not the ones being addressed by most of the Decalogue would think:

•  “well, I’m right with God in terms of commandments #1-3;
• I’m a Sabbath-keeper so I’m OK with #4;
• I honor my parents so I’m fine with #5;
• I don’t murder, commit adultery in keeping with #6 and #7;
• I don’t covet my neighbor’s spouse or goods, so there’s #9 and #10.
• What did I miss? #8—

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.  

No problem, what I do say about my neighbor is all true! How could that be a violation? 

Of course, there are contexts where the truth should be told regardless of the hurt it will cause another;  such as —

• testifying in court;
• exposing wrongdoing for the good of another, if not the majority;
• protecting the interests of others (lies being said of an innocent party; spouse cheating on your friend or kin; etc.)
• you can think of other situations where truth must be told despite the hurt it will cost another, particularly if the purpose and the end is for the good of the innocent ‘other’ and justice is served the guilty ‘other’.

Now, are there circumstances and times when Truth should be withheld?  The key to Torah-observance, besides obedience to God is to be ‘other-conscious’ and ‘other-centered’.  So when does telling the truth hurt the other?

Ponder the message in this image:

Image from www.torahtrendy.com

Here  is a Jewish perspective (always good to eventually check them out as the first or last recourse) from an article published: April 25, 2015 in one of our favorite Jewish websites listed on our link, aish.com:

http://www.aish.com/ci/s/Robert-Downey-Jrs-Awkward-Interview.htmlwritten  

by Yvette Alt Miller.

. . .  many of us instinctively understand that words hurt and can do as much damage – or more – as physical harm. The Torah juxtaposes both types of harm: physical and verbal. After listing a long litany of ways that it is prohibited to cause another person financial or physical damage, the Torah admonishes—

“And you shall not wrong one another,

but shall fear your God…” (Leviticus 25:17).

To “wrong” in this context means to wound with words, and it’s considered infinitely worse than causing financial harm, for financial losses can be reversed, while emotional damage can be impossible to undo.

The Talmud provides a concrete example of what it means to wound with words:

“One must not say to someone who has changed their ways: Remember your former deeds” (Bava Metzia 58b).

Jewish law prohibits us to humiliate someone by bringing up his or her checkered past. People can change and their past no longer represents who they are now. It’s demeaning to straightjacket people with any label, all the more so with negative, outdated ones.

It’s easy to try to justify our speech by saying that our intentions were good, that we only brought up painful or awkward subjects in order to accomplish something important. That’s why the verse warning against humiliating another person concludes with the words “you shall fear your God.” The Almighty knows our true intentions. We can’t fool him.

So back to our title:  “uncircumcised lips” in the context of Moses is not the same as “lashon hara” because he himself explains, he merely has a speech impediment and feels inferiority in speaking for YHWH God of Israel, to deliver a message to Pharaoh to let God’s people go.  So elder brother Aaron is commissioned to be the spokesman and scripture records something unusual that Israel’s God YHWH said:

If not,  good excuse to suggest one more post:  Exodus/Shemoth 4 – Excuses, Excuses.

NSB@S6K

[First posted December 29, 2013; reposting on the occasion of the writer’s death anniversary on December 30, 1896, the date he was executed by firing squad upon being accused of treason by Spanish colonial authorities.–Admin1]

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“Through reasoning and by necessity, rather than faith, do I firmly believe in the existence of a creative Being. Who is he? I do not know. 

What human sounds, what accents are we to use in pronouncing the name of this Being whose works overwhelm the imagination? Can anyone give him an adequate name. . . We call him Dios but this only comes from the Latin deus and ultimately from the Greek Zeus. What kind of being is he? 

I would attribute to him, to an infinite degree, all the beautiful and holy qualities my mind can think of, but the fear of my ignorance constrains me. . . Even so I venture to think of him as infinitely wise, mighty, good. . . when I behold the wonders of his works, the order that reigns over the universe, the magnificence and expanse of creation, and the goodness that shines in all. . .The thought of him humbles me and sends my mind reeling; and whenever my reason rises to reach this Being, who created planets, suns, worlds and galaxies without number, it falls back stunned, puzzled and crushed. Fear overcomes me and I rather remain silent. . .

Filled by this vague but irresistible sentiment in face of the inconceivable, the superhuman, the infinite, I leave this study to brighter intelligences and hold in abeyance what the religions have to say. Unable to pass judgment on what surpasses my powers, I settle for studying God in his creatures like myself and in the voice of my conscience, which only can have come from him. 

I strive to read and find his will in all the surrounds me and in the mysterious sentiment speaking from within me, which I strive to purify above all else. The various religions claim to have God’s will condensed and written in books and dogmas; but apart from the many contradictions, conflicting interpretations of words and many obscure and untenable points I find in them, my conscience, my reason cannot admit that he, who like a wise father had provided his creatures with everything necessary for this life, proceeded to bury what was necessary for eternal life in the obscurities of language unknown to the rest of the world and hide it behind metaphors and deeds that go against the very laws of nature. . .

But I do not mean by this that I completely disregard what the sacred books, religious precepts and religious dogmas have to say. On the contrary these books are, in the final analysis, the insights of men and whole generations put down in writing. . . When there arises a conflict among them, I decide in favor of that which most conforms with nature’s law because for me nature is the only divine book of unquestionable legitimacy, the sole manifestation of the Creator that we have here in this life – clear, perennial, living, powerful, capable of overcoming our blunders and errors, incorruptible, one that cannot play false in spite of human caprice, with its laws constant and unchangeable in all places and for all times.”

Dr. Jose P. Rizal,

Philippine National Hero

Image from brokenarrowlove.wordpress.com

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“I go where there are no slaves,

hangmen or oppressors;

Where faith does not kill;

where the one who reigns is God.” 

“Mi Ultimo Adios” st. 13 – poem written on the eve of his execution

(29 December 1896) 

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“The war of the United States with Spain was very brief.

Its results were many, startling, and of world-wide meaning.”
–Henry Cabot Lodge

Hispanic Division, Library of Congress

From :  http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/rizal.html

José Rizal  1861-1896

José Rizal, son of a Filipino father and a Chinese mother, came from a wealthy family. Despite his family’s wealth, they suffered discrimination because neither parent was born in the peninsula. Rizal studied at the Ateneo, a private high school, and then to the University of St. Thomas in Manila. He did his post graduate work at the University of Madrid in 1882. For the next five years, he wandered through Europe discussing politics wherever he went. In 1886, he studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg and wrote his classic novel Noli me Tangere, which condemned the Catholic Church in the Philippines for its promotion of Spanish colonialism. Immediately upon its publication, he became a target for the police who even shadowed him when he returned to the Philippines in 1887. He left his country shortly thereafter to return to Spain where he wrote a second novel, El Filibusterismo (1891), and many articles in his support of Filipino nationalism and his crusade to include representatives from his homeland in the Spanish Cortes.

He returned to Manila in 1892 and created the Liga Filipina, a political group that called for peace change for the islands. Nevertheless, Spanish officials were displeased and exiled Rizal to the island of Mindanao. During his four years there, he practiced medicine, taught students, and collected local examples of flora and fauna while recording his discoveries. Even though he lost touched with others who were working for Filipino independence, he quickly denounced the movement when it became violent and revolutionary. After Andrés Bonifacio issued the Grito de Balintawak in 1896, Rizal was arrested, convicted of sedition, and executed by firing squad on December 30, 1896.

Image from www.photoworldmanila.com

Following the revolution, Rizal was made a saint by many religious cults while the United States authorities seized on his non-violent stance and emphasized his views on Filipino nationalism rather than those of the more action-oriented Emilio Aguinaldo and Andrés Bonifacio.

And when my grave by all is no more remembered,
With neither cross nor stone to mark its place,
Let it be ploughed by man,  with spade let it be scattered

And my ashes ere to nothingness are restored,
Let them turn to dust to cover thy earthly space.

. . . Farewell to all I love; to die is to rest.

Image from www.gov.ph

     “Mi Último Adiós”
Adios, Patria adorada, region del sol querida,
Perla del Mar de Oriente, nuestro perdido eden,
A darte voy alegre, la triste, mustia vida;
Ya fuera mas brillante, mas fresca mas florida,
También por ti la diera, la diera por tu bien.

En campos de batalla, luchando, con delirio,
Otros te dan sus vidas, sin dudas, sin pesar.
El sitio nada importa: ciprés, laurel o lirio,
Cadalso o campo abierto combate o cruel martirio,
Lo mismo es si lo piden la Patria y el hogar.

Yo muero, cuando veo que el cielo se colora
Y al fin anuncia el día, tras lóbrego capuz;
Si grana necesitas, para teñir tu aurora,
Vierte la sangre mia, derramala en buen hora,
Y dorela un reflejo de su naciente luz!

Mis sueños, cuando apenas muchacho adolescente,
Mis sueños cuando joven, ya lleno de vigor,
Fueron el verte un dia, joya del mar de Oriente,
Secos los negros ojos, alta la tersa frente,
Sin ceño, sin arrugas, sin manchas de rubor.

Ensueño de mi vida, mi ardiente vivo anhelo,
¡Salud! te grita el alma, que pronto va a partir;
¡Salud! ah, que es hermoso caer por darte vuelo,
Morir por darte vida, morir bajo tu cielo,
Y en tu encantada tierra la eternidad dormir!

Si sobre mi sepulcro vieres brotar, un dia,
Entre la espesa yerba sencilla humilde flor,
Acercala a tus labios y besa al alma mia,
Y sienta yo en mi frente, bajo la tumba fria,
De tu ternura el soplo, de tu hálito el calor.

Deja a la luna verme, con luz tranquila y suave,
Deja que el elba envie su resplandor fugas;
Deja gemir al viento, con su murmullo grave;
Y si desciende y posa sobre mi cruz un ave,
Deja que el ave entone su cántico de paz.

Deja que el sol, ardiendo, las lluvias evapore,
Y al cielo tornen puras, con mi clamor en pos;
Deja que un ser amigo mi fin temprano llore;
Y en las serenas tardes, cuando por mi alguien ore,
Ora también, ¡oh Patria!, por mi descanso a Dios.

Ora por todos cuantos murieron sin ventura;
Por cuantos padecieron tormentos sin igual;
Por nuestras pobres madres, que gimen su amargura;
Por huerfanos y viudas, por presos entortura;
Y ora por ti, que veas tu redención final.

Y cuando, en noche oscura, se envuela el cementerio,
Y solos solo muertos queden velando alli,
No turbes su reposo, no turbes el misterio;
Tal ves acordes oigas de citara o salterio;
Soy yo, querida Patria, yo que te canto a ti.

Y cuando ya mi tumba, de todas olvidada,
No tenga cruz ni piedra que marquen su lugar,
Deja que la are el hombre, la esparza con la azada,
Y mis cenizas, antes que vuelvan a la nada,
El polvo de tu alfombra que vayan a formar.

Entonces nada importa me pongas en olvido,
Tu atmósfera, tu espacio, tus valles cruzaré;
Vibrante y limpia nota sere para tu oido;
Aroma, luz, colores, rumor, canto, gemido,
Constante repitiendo la esencia de mi fe.

Mi Patria idolatrada, dolor de mis dolores,
Querida Filipinas, oye el postrer adois.
Ahi, te dejo todo: mis padres, mis amores.
Voy donde no hay esclavos, verdugos ni opresores;
Donde la fe no mata, donde el que reina es Dios.

Adios, padres y hermanos, trozos del alma mia,
Amigos de la infrancia, en el perdido hogar;
Dal gracias, que descanso del fatigoso dia;
Adios, dulce extranjera, mi amiga, mi alegria;
Adios, queridos seres. Morir es descansar.

Jose Rizal

Spanish (Original Version)

Image from www.hollandamericablog.com