NUM113 One should act kindly toward other people and speak well of them, judge them favorably, not malign them, and forgive them for speaking ill of him and disparaging him--even if they do not deserve it, as it says: “Do not curse the king, even in your thoughts” (Koheles 10:20); “Your mouth you release for evil, and your tongue you cleave to deceit. You sit and slander your brother; you malign the son of your mother” (Tehillim 50:19-20). An example of forgiving slander and disparagement is found in Scripture. It says, “Miriam and Aharon spoke against Moshe” (Bemidbar 12:1); then it says, “Now Moshe was an exceedingly humble man” (ibid. 12:3)--because he forgave them! Furthermore, the Wise One said, “Pay no attention to the words they speak....For you know in your heart that, many a time, you too have ridiculed others” (Koheles 7: 21-22). Our sages, of blessed memory, said, “It once happened that R. Eliezer stepped down before the ark and offered twenty-four supplications, and was not answered. R. Akiva then went down and said, ‘Our Father, our King...,’ and was answered. A Heavenly voice proclaimed, ‘It is not that this one is greater than the other, but only that this one is forbearing, while the other is not’” See Ta’anis 25b). One of the pious, it is told, passed by the carcass of a dog, which gave forth a dreadful odor. His disciples said to him, “How dreadfully does this carcass smell!” He said to them, “How white are its teeth!” They then regretted the disparaging remark they had made about it. Now if it is blameworthy to speak ill of a dead dog, how much more so is it blameworthy to speak ill of a living human being. And if it is proper to praise a dog’s carcass for the whiteness of its teeth, it is certainly a duty, then, to praise an intelligent and insightful human being. The pious one’s intention was to chastise his students, that they not accustom themselves to speaking evil, lest it become part of their nature. So too, if they trained themselves to speak favorably of others, this would become second nature to them. As it says: “He did not accustom his tongue to slander” (Tehillim 15:3), and conversely, “Your tongue thinks of injuring, like a sharpened razor that works deceit.... You love all injurious words” (ibid. 52:4, 6); and it says further: “A treacherous tongue-- what will it give you, what will it add to you? [A warrior’s sharpened arrows with hot coals of broom]” (ibid. 120: 3); “The words of a wise man's mouth are pleasant, but the lips of a fool devour him” (Koheles 10:12).