Chofetz Chaim

The Sefer Chofetz Chaim (or Chafetz Chaim or Hafetz Hayim) (Hebrew: חָפֵץ חַיִּים, trans. "Pursuer of Life") is a book by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, who is also called "the Chofetz Chaim" after it. The book deals with the Jewish laws of speech.

The title of the Chafetz Chaim is taken from Psalms:

Come, children, hearken to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life ("Chafetz Chaim"), who loves days to see goodness? Guard your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceitfully. Shun evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.

— Psalm 34:12–15

The book's subject is Hilchoth Shmirath HaLashon (laws of clean speech). Kagan provides copious sources from the Torah, Talmud, and Rishonim about the severity of Jewish law on tale-mongering and gossip. Lashon hara, literally "'the evil tongue", i.e., evil speech (or loosely gossip and slander and prohibitions of defamation), is sometimes translated as "prohibitions of slander", but most commonly concerns the prohibitions of saying evil/bad/unpleasant things, whether or not they are true. ^[1]

The book is divided into three parts:

• The legal text is Mekor Chayim ("Source of Life").
• Be'er Mayim Chayim ("Well of living water"), the footnotes and legal argument.
• It is commonly printed together with the text Shemirath haLashon ("Guarding of the tongue"), an ethical treatise on the proper use of the faculty of speech.