Is there such a thing as Lashon Tov?

The sages understood Tsarat, the theme of this week's parish, not as an illness, but as a miraculous public exposure of the sin of Loshan Harrah,

Lashon-Hara, speaking badly about people.

Judaism is a sustained meditation on the power of words

to heal or harm, mend or destroy. Just as God created the world with words, so we create

or we can destroy relationships with words. The rabbi said much about Loshan horror,

but virtually nothing about the corollary Lashontov, good speech.

The phrase doesn't appear in either the Babylonian Talmud or the Talmud Yurushalmi.

It figures only in two midrashic passages where it refers to praising God.

But Lashen horror doesn't mean speaking badly about God. It means speaking badly about human

beings. So if it's a sin to speak badly about people, is it a mitzvah to speak well about them?

My argument will be that it is. And to show this, let's take a journey through the sources.

In Pirkehavut, the ethics of the fathers, we read the following.

Raban Yohann bin Zaki had five great disciples. Rabbi Eliezer bin Herkynus, Rabbi Yosua

Ben Khananiah, Rabbi Yosea Khan Khan, Rabbi Yosea Khan, Rabbi Yosea Khan, Rabbi Yose-Ban-Kohan.

Who Hayat Monash Shivchan. He used to recount their praise.

Eleazar Ben Harkana, a plastered well that never loses a drop.

Joshua Ben Chanania, Ashra Yeladato, happy the one who gave him birth.

Yose Haqoen, a pious man, Shimon Ben Netano, a man who fears sin.

Eliza Ben Arach, Mayana met gabber, an ever-flying stream.

However, the practice of Rabin-Yochanan in praising his disciples seems to stand in contradiction to a Talmudic

principle. The Gamarian Arachin says, Ravdimi, brother of Ruff Saffer, said, let no one ever talk in praise of his

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