Funny Money

One of the things that I have struggled mightily to improve in recent years is my evil speech, or lashon hara. In some ways it’s got better – (although now that I’ve just written that, I’m scratching my head trying to come up with examples to prove it…I guess that it bothers me more when I say horrible things. Sometimes.)

But in other ways, I found that I was getting rather stuck on the fact that I have a very wicked sense of humor. If / when I take a dislike to people (which in fairness to myself, is usually more than amply justified – and yes, I know I’m meant to JUDGE EVERYONE FAVORABLY TOO, but let’s stick to one area of bad character traits at a time) – I can churn out an endless stream of amusing insights at the other person’s expense, which have me rolling around the floor.

It’s all very funny! Except, spiritually, it’s not at all, because each ‘funny’ comment is costing me a fortune in depleted spiritual merits and heavenly help, and as usual, I need a lot of heavenly help at the moment.

So a few weeks’ ago, when I was reading my daily lesson in the book ‘Purity of Speech’, I had a brainwave. The book was talking about the massive spiritual paycheck we get each time we keep our mouth shut, and forego the juicy gossip, or the amusing comment at someone else’s expense.

All we have to do is think of all those spiritual zeros, and that’s it! Problem solved!

Mmmmm. I started thinking to myself: right now, I’m in a position where I need a million to pay off my old mortgage, and another couple of million to buy a nice place in the next location I need to move to (which is a long story, for another time.)

I could really do with a few more positive ‘zeros’ in my bank account….but at the same time, it’s so hard to pass up a sharp comment, especially when I can often get my husband chortling away for ten minutes (which I KNOW is ANOTHER MASSIVE SIN, especially as he has really long side curls and a beard now.)

So what to do? That’s when G-d sent me the amazing idea: I took a few sheets of paper, and I created some ‘funny money’, from the Bank of the Chofetz Chaim, in denominations of 10,000.

I printed up a million bucks’ worth, and I made a deal with myself: every time I managed to keep my mouth shut, and passed up the chance to say something ‘bad’, I would pay myself 10,000 spiritual bucks, until I paid down the three million I needed. (In case you’re wondering, I did toy with the idea of making the ‘funny money’ in denominations of a million, but I figured that G-d may not be so impressed if I tried to take too big a shortcut, and I really, really need a couple of ginormous miracles right now.)

After about a month, I’d got to the first million. I’ve still got the mortgage (at the moment) but amazingly, it really is getting easier to keep my mouth shut. Then, last week, a bizarrely good thing happened: someone I really don’t like very much did something very horrible to my husband.

As is usually the case with nasty, arrogant, crazy people, this one has a whole bunch of catch-phrases and mannerisms and ideas that I could have really gone to town on. I had about ten funny comments bubble up in my brain, one after another – and I kept my mouth shut! That jerk has helped me to pay off around 200,000 so far, and it’s still going.

My husband now knows that when I start laughing hysterically at the table, it’s a sign that I’m about to earn myself another bunch of my ‘funny money’. Today, the blessings continued: someone I’ve been trying to avoid for months accosted me on the joggers’ path near my house, and tried to start up a conversation.

In the past, I would have come home all het up, and have to tell my husband every last detail of what happened, how much I don’t like them, what stupid things they said etc etc. This time, I told my husband: “I met So-and-So on the path” – and then, I went and stuffed another 40,000 in my spiritual cash stash.

At this rate, I’m aiming to get the second million paid down by the end of the week. (I’ll keep you posted on how all this spiritual money translates into hard currency – I have no idea how G-d is buying me that fancy garden apartment with high ceilings, but that’s His concern, not mine.)

But what I can tell you, is that the funny money is giving me some amazing motivation to keep my mouth shut – although inevitably, a few comments are still getting through.

I have a big picture of the Chofetz Chaim up on my wall. For two years, I’ve been waiting for him to smile at me, even a little bit. Nothing. Nada. Just the same stern face. Last week, I think I caught the shadow of an amused chuckle. The Chofetz Chaim is finally warming up to me…