Par sha t Met zor ah

T he Sanct it y Of Speec h
Ra bbi Ari Kahn

One of the main topics of Parshat Tazria and Metzora has been the idea of
Tzara’at. Tzara’at has been translated as leprosy, but virtually all our
commentaries tell us that this is not the type of leprosy with which we are familiar
today; the tzara’at discussed in the parsha is of a spiritual nature. Consequently
the Kohen, who deals with issues of spirit, and not a doctor, "treats" the victim.
The spiritual implication of Tzara’at is that the sufferer is guilty of slanderous
speech, the term Metzora being connected with the term "Motzie shem ra" ,
which describes the classical case of slanderous talk:

Further did R. Johanan say in the name of R. Joseph b. Zimra: Any one who
bears evil tales will be visited by the plague of leprosy, as it is said: He who
slanders his neighbor in secret, him azmit [will I destroy]. And there it is
said: Le-zemitut [in perpetuity], which we translate as ‘absolutely’
[permanently]. And we learned: The leper that is shut up differs from the
leper that is certified unclean only in respect of unkempt hair and rent
garments. Resh Lakish said: What is the meaning of: This is the law of the
leper-- mezora (Lev. XIV, 2) This is the law of one who utters evil [reports]
(mozi [shem] ra’).(Erachin 15b).

There are two sections of the Torah where we can see this association, the more
prominent one being the section dealing with Miriam's slander of Moshe, where
she is punished by leprosy.

And the Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of
the Tent, and called Aharon and Miriam; and they both came forth. And He
said, ‘Hear now my words; If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord will
make myself known to him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream. Not
so with my servant Moshe, for he is the trusted one in all my house. With
him I speak mouth to mouth, manifestly, and not in dark speech; and he
beheld the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against
my servant Moshe?’ And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them;
and he departed. And the cloud departed from off the Tent; and, behold,
Miriam had become leprous, white as snow; and Aharon looked upon
Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous. (Bamidber 12:5-10).

The second incident which ties leprosy to slander concerns Moshe himself: When
he stands before the "Burning Bush" he states that the people will not believe that
G-d has sent him. G-d instructs Moshe to put his hand into his cloak; when he
removes the hand it is striken with leprosy, ostensibly because of the slander said
about the Jewish nation.
 And Moshe answered and said, ‘But, behold, they will not believe me, nor
listen to my voice; for they will say, The Lord has not appeared to you.’ And
the Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ And he said, ‘A rod’. And
He said, ‘Throw it to the ground.’ And he threw it to the ground, and it
became a serpent; and Moshe fled from it. And the Lord said to Moshe, ‘Put
forth your hand, and take it by the tail.’ And he put forth his hand, and
caught it, and it became a rod in his hand; ‘That they may believe that the
Lord G-d of their fathers, the G-d of Abraham, the G-d of Isaac, and the G-d
of Jacob, has appeared to you.’ And the Lord said furthermore to him, ‘Put
now your hand into your bosom.’ And he put his hand into his bosom; and
when he took it out, behold, his hand was diseased, white as snow.(Shmot
4:1-6)

We might ask why slander should have such a direct effect on its perpetrator.
Perhaps if we go back to the origins of speech we will better appreciate this issue.

When man is created, the Torah describes him as being formed from the dust of
the earth. When this body is combined with the spirit - or soul- which G-d breathes
into him, the result is

"Man becomes a Nefesh Haya" (Breishit 2:7)

The Targum translates this phrase as: "The spirit of speech." According to this
approach, the ability to speak is the result of the merger of the physical and the
spiritual within man. Man alone is endowed with this ability, and this is what we
mean by "soul", or perhaps it is the result of having a soul.

Speech itself makes an earlier appearance in B’reishit; creation itself is described

With ten [divine] utterances was the world created. And what is this
[scriptural] information [meant] to tell, for surely it could have been created
with one utterance? But it is that penalty might be exacted from the wicked
who destroy the world that was created with ten utterances, and to give a
goodly reward to the righteous who maintain the world that was created
with ten utterances. (Avot 5:1).

Here we find G-d the Creator speaking and man, created in the image of G-d,
endowed with the ability to speak. To take this analogy one step further, Man
speaks for the first time giving names to the animals. Man’s creativity is unlike G-
d’s. G-d creates something from nothing by virtue of speech, whereas man
creates categories and names of animals by virtue of speech. Man's creative
ability surely differs from G-d’s, but we can gain an appreciation for speech based
on the comparison: Man’s speech is "G-dly" activity.
The first time that speech is misused is, of course, the sinister, seductive
comments of the serpent. This is therefore the archetype for evil in general, and
misused speech in particular.

Rav Joshua of Siknin said in R. Levi's name: He [the serpent] began

Rav Shim’on b. Yohai learned: The serpent was the first to make a breach in
the world's fence, and so he has become the executioner of all who make
breaches in fences. The serpent was asked: ‘Why do you bite? What do you
gain thereby? The lion tears his prey and eats it, but you simply bite and
kill!’ He answered: ’Does the serpent bite without a whisper? (Eccl. X, 11) Is
it conceivable that I should do anything unless instructions were given me
from on high? ' He was asked: ‘How is it that you bite into one limb and your
poison travels to all the limbs? ' He answered: ' Do you say this to me? The
master of the tongue has no advantage (ib.), for he can dwell in Rome and
slay in Syria, or dwell in Syria and slay in Rome.’ Why is a slanderer called
‘third‘? Because he kills three: the one who utters [the slander], the one
who listens to it, and the one about whom it is spoken. (Midrash Rabbah
Leviticus XXVI:2)

The response of G-d to man's sin may be better understood based on the holiness
of speech. After eating from the tree, man feels alienated and hides from G-d. For
His part, G-d tries to engage man in dialogue in order to give him the opportunity
to admit his guilt:

‘Where are you?’ G-d of course knew where he was, rather He engaged him
in dialogue so as not to shock him" (Rashi Breishit 3:9)

Only when man fails to find the proper words, and blames Eve or perhaps G-d for
giving him his mate, is man expelled from the Garden.

The laws of Teshuva include the requirement to verbalize one's sins.1 Given our
present perspective, we understand that this requirement will enable man to
reacquire his exalted status, his own ‘image of G-d’. 2

The People of Israel were guilty of many transgressions during the 40 years in the
desert. During the first months alone, the Jews rebelled on numerous occasions,
but one transgression stands out from all the others: the sin of the spies. As a
result of that sin the entire generation died in the desert and the People’s
entrance to the Land of Israel was delayed for some 40 years. The Mishna
teaches:

1
See Rambam’s Laws of Teshuva
2
See my comments on B’reishit
 Thus it is found that he who speaks with his mouth suffers more than he
that commits an act. Thus we do also find that the judgment against our
fathers in the wilderness was sealed only because of their evil tongue, as it
is written: ‘Yet have put me to proof these ten times, etc.’

The Zohar explains

R. Simeon said: ‘Had Israel entered the Land under the sign of the evil
tongue, they would not have endured an instant. Observe how much evil
was wrought by the evil tongue: it called forth the decree that our ancestors
should not enter the Land, those that uttered it died, and weeping was
decreed for succeeding generations [the reference is to the 9th of Av]. Their
calumny of the Holy Land was, as it were, a calumny of the Almighty, and
therefore G-d was indignant on account of this, and all Israel would have
been destroyed but for the prayer of Moshe. (Zohar, Section 3, Page 161a)

For the sin of the Golden Calf the nation was forgiven; for complaining about G-d
having taken them from Egypt the people were forgiven. But for speaking evil
about the Land of Israel, the Jews are punished for millennia! The Zohar explains
that this sin of misusing words - evil speech - is the sin of the serpent, and G-d will
forgive all except the sin of Lashon Hara (Zohar ibid).

The Zohar added that the 9th of Av, the day the spies returned to the camp,
became the saddest day in the calendar due to evil speech. Had the spies not said
these terrible things, and had the people not believed them, the Jews would have
entered into Israel immediately. However, there may be a deeper message in this
passage. The Chofetz Chaim, in his monumental work on "Lashon Hara," cites the
passage from the Talmud that the first Temple was destroyed because of sexual
crimes, murder, and idolatry.

Why was the first Sanctuary destroyed? Because of three [evil] things which
prevailed there: idolatry, immorality, bloodshed. (Yoma 9b)

The Second Temple was destroyed because of "groundless hatred":

But why was the Second Sanctuary destroyed, seeing that in its time they
were occupying themselves with Torah, [observance of] precepts, and the
practice of charity? Because therein prevailed hatred without cause. That
teaches you that groundless hatred is considered as of even gravity with
the three sins of idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed together . (Yoma 9b)

In a separate discussion the Talmud teaches:

The School of R. Ishmael taught: Whoever speaks slander increases his sins
even up to [the degree of] the three [cardinal] sins: idolatry, incest, and the
shedding of blood.(Arachin 15b)
The Chafets Chaim therefore concluded that Lashon Hara is part and parcel the
sin of "groundless hatred". The motivation for evil speech is groundless hatred.
The connection made in the Zohar between the sin of the spies and the 9 th of Av,
the day of mourning for the Temple, becomes all the more poignant: Lashon Hara
is the common element, the core at the heart of each of these disasters.
Therefore, the Zohar states, Lashon Hara caused the 9th of Av to be a day of
crying throughout the millennia.

The Talmud discusses the possibility of a cure for Loshan Hara:

"If he is a scholar then let him be occupied with Torah;... a common person,
let him humble himself" (Arachin 15b)

The person who speaks Lashon Hara misuses his mouth and words which were
given to him for the purpose of speaking Torah; the cure is to correct the flaw and
spend ones energies on Torah. The simple, “common person” should endeavor to
spend his time with Torah as well, but until he becomes proficient, let him at least
humble himself. How will humility help? If the core of Lashon Hara is groundless
hatred, when a person practices humility then they will avoid the jealousy which
leads to hatred. This lesson may be learned from the very same serpent in the
Garden who introduced Lashon Hara. Our Sages teach that the serpent was
spurred by his jealousy of Adam; the serpent envied Adam on account of Eve, but
had he been suitably humble he would not have thought himself worthy of such a
helpmate3.

The sin of Evil Speech is the tarnishing of the image of G-d within us. This image
may be likened to the human mind4: the capacity to speak is the ability to bring
the divine into this world. Therefore, at the moment when the soul and body
merge, speech is the result. Speech is the defining capacity of man. This is why
misusing speech is so evil. Furthermore, to speak about another person in a
negative manner is tantamount to rejecting the image of G-d in that person.
Therefore we may say that evil speech is the misuse of our divinity in order to
reject the divinity of G-d. It is no wonder, then, that the Temple was destroyed
because of Lashon Hara.

This awareness of the sanctity of speech will also give us an appreciation of

‘Speak to the rock in front of them (the congregation) and it will yield its
water...’ Moshe lifted his hand and struck the rock with his staff... And G-d
said to Moshe and Aharon, ‘Because you didn't believe in Me to sanctify Me
in front of the Children of Israel, you will not bring this nation to Israel"
(Bamidbar 20 8-12)

3
See Avot D’Rebbi Natan Chapter 2
4
See my notes on Tzav
What was the great offense which Moshe and Aharon committed? They were told
to speak, to sanctify G-d by speech. This would have cured the Lashan Hara
uttered by the spies, but by not using the power of speech Moshe and Aharon lost
the opportunity to enter the Land.

Perhaps now we understand why the Metzorah - the leper - came to the Kohen.
The role of Aharon was to "Love peace and pursue it" (Avot 1:12). The text of the
Kohen’s blessing, uttered before the Priestly Blessing, regularly reminds us of this
task:

Blessed art Thou, O Lord our G-d, King of the Universe, Who has sanctified
us with the sanctity of Aharon and has commanded us to bless Your People
Israel in (with) love.

The person guilty of misusing speech was commanded to spend time in the
presence of a Kohen in order to learn how to love. Furthermore, the sages explain
that the various rites of purification of the Metzorah, including shaving the hair,
washing the body and clothing, and finally ritual immersion, were designed to
foster humility. We may also understand why Lashon Hara brings tzara’at to the
perpetrators home as well as to his body: The lesson is that loshon hara, and the
groundless hatred at its core, can spread beyond the individuals involved,
effecting even G-d’s House and bringing about the Temple’s destruction.

Addendum:
In most years this parsha is read after Pessach, during the time of year known as
the "Sefira". The Sefira is a time of mourning for the students of Rabbi Akiva who
did not treat one another with respect.

It was said that R. Akiba had twelve thousand pairs of disciples, from
Gabbatha to Antipatris; and all of them died at the same time because they
did not treat each other with respect. The world remained desolate until R.
Akiba came to our Masters in the South and taught the Torah to them.
These were R. Meir, R. Judah, R. Jose, R. Simeon and R. Eleazar b.
Shammua; and it was they who revived the Torah at that time. A Tanna
taught: All of them died between Pesach and Shavuot. R. Hama b. Abba or,
it might be said, R. Hiyya b. Abin, said: All of them died a cruel death. What
was it? R. Nahman replied: Croup. (Yevamot 62b)

Perhaps this is the perfect time to think about the value of each
person, the image of G-d in each person, and to use our words
judiciously.