Maxon came home from school one day with a tale of a fight between some kids in his class. He told me what he heard happened, who was injured and how badly, who was punished and how severely. 

The next day, Maxon learned the truth from the teachers, and it wasn't a surprise to me that the two stories didn't match up.

"It didn't happen the way everyone said it did, huh?" I asked Maxon.

"Nope."

"That is gossip," I said (sadly not in an Irish accent like Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Doubt"). "In Hebrew we call it lashon hara."

Lashon hara, the evil tongue, is considered a weighty sin in Judaism – bad enough for God to saddle you with a nasty skin disease and banish you for a week, which is what happened to Miriam when she dissed her brother for marrying a Cushite.