The Sefer Chofetz Chaim (or Chafetz Chaim or Hafetz Hayim) (, Translation "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:
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.
The book is divided into three parts:
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The legal text is Mekor Chayim ("Source of Life").
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Be'er Mayim Chayim ("Well of living water"), the footnotes and legal argument.
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It is commonly printed together with the text Shmiras halashon ("Guarding of the tongue"), an ethics treatise on the proper use of the faculty of speech.
The author
Yisrael Meir Kagan is commonly known as the
Chafetz Chaim, the name of his book. He was born in
Dzyatlava, Grodno Governorate,
Russian Empire (today
Belarus), on January 26, 1838. By 1869 his house became known as the Radin Yeshiva. Kagan published twenty-one books. His first work,
Chafetz Chaim (1873),
is the first attempt to organize and clarify the laws regarding
Lashon Hara. Other notable works include the
Sefer Shmirat HaLashon,
[( Online edition in Hebrew] an ethical work on the importance of guarding one's tongue and the
Mishnah Berurah (printed between 1894 and 1907) which is a commentary on the "
Orach Chayim", the first section of the
Shulchan Aruch, and has been accepted among many
Ashkenazi Jews as an authoritative source of
Halacha.
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