Your soul is precious. You came to this world in a pure way, unaffected by all that happens in this world. A pure soul, pure speech and pure thoughts. The embodiment of modesty, to be pure and modest in all that you do.
At the bottom of this post, you will find book recommendations. P.s. I don’t recommend any books I haven’t read myself, of course, so you have my word when I say that they’re incredibly good!
Guarding your speech
We learn our speech from our surroundings. We are not unaffected by our surroundings whilst growing up. We copy behaviour and speech from our family and friends, like a sponge, soaking it all up.
Amongst us girls, gossiping is no strange phenomenon. Other girls around me gossiped and so did I. Trying to distance yourself from this when you get older can be hard. Especially once you learn the halochos of loshon hora, you see how much of our speech is that of loshon hora, even that of more casual speech.
A shochet is required to constantly review the laws of shchita until he knows them by heart. Similarly, everyone is required to be thoroughly familiar with the laws of loshon hora. When one speaks, one must be aware of what is permissible to say and what is prohibited.
(chofetz Chayim in Chovas Hashmirah 3).
All that we say has an effect on ourselves and it shows who we are. Do we want to be someone who talks nivul peh and loshon hora or do we want to use our mouth for good things? Hashem gave us a mouth; it is a privilege, we must use it for the good.
As I said before, our surroundings affect our speech, especially as children. We can bring a change to our surroundings and make them more holy by changing our speech. When you speak loshon hora and nivul peh, you will cause others to do the same. How much more worthwhile is it if you can cause others to do good. 🙂
When a person relates loshon hora, he not only sins himself but also causes the listener to sin. Our sages have said, “causing someone to sin is a greater crime than murdering him. A murderer terminates a person’s life only in this world; one who causes another to sin takes away eternal life.”
Bamidbar Rabbah 21:4
Let us all be constantly aware that Hashem hears our every word, sees our every action and our every thought. Why talk nivul peh and loshon hora when we know Hashem is listening to us?
Guarding your eyes
Our eyes are windows to the world outside of our minds. Just as we cover our windows when it is dark outside, so too do we have to guard our eyes from the “darkness” outside.
We humans love to discover the world outside. We are curious beings. We want to know what else is out there. But we have to be careful with what we look at.
Ask yourself questions like the following:
- Do I really want to watch a movie with indecent scenes?
- Do I really want to listen to that song with nivul peh?
- Do I really want to scroll around on social media and see pritzus everywhere?
Be more mindful, ask yourself these questions before undertaking such things. Oh, do I know how hard that can be, especially when everything is just a click away! Phones are made that way, to grab your attention and to lock you in. Cry out to Hashem, and ask Him to help you.
For us girls I haven’t seen a lot of people talk about guarding our eyes. I have read it in books but there isn’t much out there in general, compared to men. I believe that for us, too, it is important to guard our eyes.
When we look at all these impure things, it affects us, it influences us with a world that’s not connected to Hashem. Be it a social media post, the regular news or anything else… When we don’t connect ourselves to Hashem we have no lasting purpose. When we don’t guard our eyes and see pritzus it causes immodest and impure thoughts. Are we somehow immune to impure and immodest thoughts as girls?
When we don’t guard our eyes it has dire effects. Even if we might have already seen a lot of pritzus that doesn’t mean you should see yourself as a lost cause, no! How meaningful is it to Hashem when you truly want to return back to Him?
Till the next one, take care!
If want to reach out, you can find my e-mail in the “about-me” section 🙂
-R
Book Recommendations
Modesty an adornment for life & The Tznius Handbook
-Rov Pesach Eliyahu Falk Ztz”l
Der kroyn fin Tznius – דער קרוין פון צניעת
Rov Daniyel Frisch Ztz”l (for Yiddish speakers)
Guard your tongue
-Rov Zelig Pliskin Shlita
Aydelkeit 
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