"The Chofetz Chaim" (or Chafetz Chaim or Hafetz Hayim) (Hebrew: חָפֵץ חַיִּים) (trans. Desirer of Life) is a book on the Jewish laws of speech written by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan.
The title of the work Chafetz Chaim by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan is taken from Psalms 34:12–15:
- "Come, children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of God. Who is the man that desires life; who loves days, that he may see goodness ? Guard your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit; turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it."
The subject of the book is Lashon Hara (evil speech, or loosely: gossip and slander and prohibitions of defamation.) Rabbi Kagan provides copious sources from the Torah, Talmud and Rishonim (early commentators) about the severity of Jewish law on tale-mongering and gossip. Lashon hara, meaning evil speech, is sometimes translated as prohibitions of slander, but in essence is concerning the prohibitions of saying evil/bad/unpleasant things about a person, that are true.
The book is divided into three parts:
- Mekor chayim ("Source of Life"), the legal text.
- Be'er mayim chayim ("Well of living water"), the footnotes and legal argument.
- It is commonly printed together with the text Shemirath ha-Lashon ("Guarding of the tongue"), an ethical treatise on the proper use of the faculty of speech.