Tearing Flesh, Building Soul

Why gossip, cruelty, and exploitation corrode communities, and how universal principles can transform decay into renewal.

The Setting

It’s often when I’m in community or large family settings that I notice it. During the week, when I’m buried in work, I don’t really hear lashon hara. We just do business.

But weekends are different: the bungalow colonies, the shul kiddush after davening, the women’s retreat.

These become the feeding grounds.

That’s where private lives are hauled into the public square and stripped bare.

Where misfortune, jealousy, ego, unhealed traumas, and malignant narcissism all get paraded.

Someone is chosen. The identified patient. The sacrificial lamb.

And the herd feeds.

Predators in the Ecosystem

A true ecosystem can’t thrive if it’s swarming with predators and scavengers. Whenever there’s stench, decay, or blood, you go to the source. You ask: how did we get here?

• The hyena is too cowardly to attack head-on, it plots and laughs, waiting for weakness, licking its lips when the wounded stumble.

• The jackals and wild dogs, restless and hungry, circling the edges, eager for the moment when someone falls behind so they can lunge.

• The buzzards, circling overhead, whispering like “concerned friends,” making sure everyone knows they’re “there for you,” while really just angling for scraps.

• The herd, a mix of blind sheep swept up gullibly, thinking they are safe, when in truth the predators wait for their turn to stumble. Because tomorrow, hunger returns, and the cycle of feeding must continue.

• The vermin, contaminating quietly in the corners, spreading decay unless they are called out and obliterated.

• The maggots, fattening themselves on dead tissue, multiplying in rot, but disappearing the moment the wound is cleaned and the necrotic flesh is debrided.

The Universal Principle

The Torah is direct about this. Among the Seven Noahide Laws, the universal moral code given to all humanity through Noah, is a striking one: Do not tear a limb from a living animal.

On the surface, it’s about cruelty to animals. But in truth, it is deeper:

• It forbids benefiting from the suffering of another.

• It condemns exploitation, even when it looks “useful.”

• It says that survival, gain, or pleasure cannot be built on someone else’s wound.

That principle is universal. It applies whether you are in a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a boardroom, or a family gathering.

It asks every human being: Will you consume and exploit, or will you create and sustain?

This is why lashon hara, gossip, and cruelty in community feel so corrosive, because they violate a law written into the DNA of civilization itself.

Building New Ecosystems

So what do you do when flesh-eating animals are all around?

You build your own ecosystem. One where they can’t thrive.

Ecosystems can be as small as a single person, or as wide as family, friendships, or business partners. They can be rooted in values, sustained by creation rather than destruction, and generative instead of predatory.

Because kosher animals: cows, goats, chickens, give milk and eggs every day. They feed others by producing, not by tearing apart.

That is the Business of Soul: creating spaces where light replaces darkness, positivity overwhelms decay, and life is sustained by what we build, not by what we consume.

A Final Question

So ask yourself:

When you open your mouth, in family, in community, in business

what kind of animal are you?

Are you feeding on decay, or creating life?

Glossary of Images & Terms

Lashon hara — Hebrew for “evil speech” or gossip; destructive talk that harms others and corrodes communities.

Shul kiddush — the post-prayer gathering in synagogue where food is served and, too often, where gossip or “news” circulates under the guise of community connection.

Bungalow colony — the summer vacation communities in the Catskills where families gather, relax, and (often) where communal gossip flares up.

Women’s retreat — intimate gatherings that should inspire, but can sometimes become breeding grounds for lashon hara cloaked as “sharing.”

Identified patient — the scapegoat in a family or community who becomes the focus of blame, projection, or gossip.

Sacrificial lamb — the individual who bears the brunt of communal judgment or humiliation, serving as the “offering” for others’ unresolved issues.

Herd — blind followers, sheep swept along by groupthink, unaware predators are waiting for their stumble. Their gullibility fuels the cycle.

Hyena — symbolic of cowards who plot in the shadows, waiting for weakness.

Jackals / wild dogs — opportunists who circle, restless for a chance to strike.

Buzzards — scavengers who disguise themselves as “concerned friends,” whispering their care while ensuring everyone else knows the story. Gossip cloaked in false empathy.

Vermin — hidden corrupters spreading decay, only stopped by being exposed and eliminated.

Maggots — those who thrive on rot, multiplying in others’ misfortune, but disappearing once truth and healing cleanse the wound.

Debridement — the surgical act of removing dead or infected tissue so that true healing can begin. Here, a metaphor for cutting away gossip, rot, and decay in community.

Herd mentality — the group impulse to follow, mimic, or pile on, even when it leads to cruelty or moral failure.

Seven Noahide Laws — the universal moral code given through Noah to all humanity, forming the ethical foundation of civilization.

Ecosystem — a living environment, whether biological or communal. In this piece, both literal nature and metaphor for business, family, or community.

Business of Soul — your framework for building values-driven ecosystems that are limitless, self-sustaining, and generative.

Kosher animals — creatures that sustain life by producing (milk, eggs) rather than by tearing flesh; a metaphor for people who create abundance without harm.