Tazria–Metzora: Lashon Hara as Spiritual Cannibalism—Tzaraas, Shame, and Human Dignity

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Today, we're going to speak about tzaraas metzora, the tzaraas. It's a big thing, tzaraas. People translate tzaraas—I think it's going, I believe it's going, right? ... is it going? I think it's going. Yeah. So, tzaraas, people translate as leprosy. There is a physical, actual disease called leprosy. Is the leprosy which the doctors and the medical professionals call leprosy, is that the leprosy of the Torah? Stam, not, probably not. Maybe it's, you know, taking a borrowed terminology, but the Rambam writes clearly that tzaraas is something unique. It's not—it's almost not an ailment that could be put in the books as a physical ailment. This is a Rambam in Hilchos Tumas Tzaraas, perek tezayin, halacha yud. Ha-tzaraas shema'oru b'shutafus kol inyanim harbeh. The word tzaraas is not definitive. For example, if a person walks into a doctor, they define and diagnose the machla. Says the Rambam, the word tzaraas is not defined or diagnosed on a specific thing, because it has many things. It could be— On the body, it could be on the clothing, it could be on the house. So once that is the metzius of a tzaraas, that's what a tzaraas is, it can't be. It can't be a physical thing. It can't be a disease. Because if it was a disease, it wouldn't be on the person and at the same time on the house. Tell me, do you know of a house that can get a strep throat? You know of a home that could get pneumonia? There's no such thing. So says the Rambam, this leads us to conclude that tzaraas is not a physical ailment. It can't be. Continues the Rambam, שהרי לבן על האדם קרוי צרעת, on the skin it's called tzaraas, on the hair it's called tzaraas, on the begadim, on the garments it's called tzaraas. So then what is tzaraas? Says the Rambam, אינה ממנהגו של עולם. It's not a norm. It's not a physical, it's not part of what we call an element which is based on teva, on nature. אלא אות ופלא היה בישראל כדי להזהירן מלשון הרע. It was something created as a miracle, an os and a peleh, a wonder, specifically to stop people from speaking lashon hara. So then the question becomes, is there a midah keneged midah in tzaraas? Is there a midah keneged midah? Now, l'chaira, if it's an onesh, if it's a punishment, then there has to be a midah keneged midah. And even if it's not a punishment, which of course it is, but even if it wasn't, if it was just a lesson in order to teach you, then it would also have to have a midah keneged midah. Because the only way you can learn the lesson, l'chaira, is when it's midah keneged midah. Mefarshim explain that every onesh is midah keneged midah because it has to be fair as a punishment for, and it also has to be a lesson at the same time, and therefore it needs to be midah keneged midah in order you could learn the lesson from it. Otherwise, what lesson would you learn? So again, it's clear that tzaraas cannot be defined a medical condition or a disease.

It's an ois a pehla, and it's directed to stop lashon hara. Now, we could say one of two things: it's either the onesh or the lesson. And either one requires it to be something midah keneged midah. So what is the midah keneged midah of tzaraas to the lashon hara? And even inherently in the word tzaraas, you have motzi shem ra, tzaraas, the wording of tzaraas, the letters. That's right. It has in it tzar and ra and meitzar. It has all the evil that lashon hara creates is already inherent in the word tzaraas. That is true. But what is the plague that plagues the person, the skin, the clothing? How is that midah keneged midah? That's the question I'd like to address today in this shiur. Yes, it's clear that it's not a physical ailment, which leads us even more to try to understand, if it's an onesh, why this onesh? Why is it the punishment for the lashon hara? And how is it also a punishment that will lead to a lesson? On how not to speak Lashon Hara. I do find the Chazal that addresses the halachos of the metzora as being middah keneged middah. For example, the birds. You have to bring birds. Birds chirp. They're mefatfet. They talk. They're constantly talking. They're constantly chirping in the background. The baal lashon hara sits there and chirps in the background. I do find the Gemara, the Gemara in Erchin, daf tezayin amud beis, the Gemara in Tezayin amud beis in Erchin, quoting the Rashi, perek yud-gimmel, pasuk mem-vav, that why does the metzora sit alone, badad, badad yeishev? Why does he sit alone? Says the Chazal, he sits alone because he also made partition. He also made mechitzos, separating people. And who does he separate? Hivdil b'lashon hara bein ish l'ishto, u'vein ish l're'eihu. You know how much machlokes lashon hara causes? He causes groups of people to stay away, to be separated from friends, neighbors, relatives. So therefore, with his lashon hara, middah keneged middah, he is put, cast, separated aside from society. So speaks Rashi, Chazal. So we find already that the Chazal, many of the Rishonim as well—I'm not going to elaborate on all the different cases and details of Hilchos Metzora—but we find that there is a search, a search, a search to find the midah keneged midah in tzaraas. The question is, what is the midah keneged midah in the actual machlah? And of course not a physical machlah, but whatever it is, the machlah of tzaraas. How is that midah keneged midah for speaking lashon hara? Now it's interesting, we find that tzaraas is meis. When a person is a metzora, the metzora is nechshav kemeis. As a matter of fact, the pasuk speaks by Miriam, Al na sihi kameis. When Miriam got her tzaraas, Moshe, Vaye'arenu Moshe, bi Adoni, al na sashes ali chatas.

Al nosi kameis. Miriam got the tzaraas. Shouldn't be like a meis. Dead? Miriam was dead? She had tzaraas. So Chazal say, shehametzora chashuv kameis. Rashi quotes it on that pasuk in Beha'aloscha, perek yud-beis, pasuk yud-beis. Al nosi kameis, hametzora chashuv kameis. It's like a dead person. Ma meis metameh b'bi'ah, af metzora metameh b'bi'ah. And it's not just an analogy, but it has halachic ramification. And that is that just like the meis is metameh b'bi'ah, you walk into the room where a meis is, it's metameh. So too, you walk into the room where the metzora is, metameh, metameh b'bi'ah. So we find that the badad yeishev is important. You know what badad yeishev is important? He's metameh. You got to stay away from him. Metzora is metameh. Chofetz Chaim used to explain that that is a midah k'neged midah, because hachayim v'hamaves b'yad halashon. Life and death. Life and death is... The tongue. So you spoke lashon hara, you brought death. So the halachos of the metzora, midah keneged midah, is like a dead person. You hear? You hear, rabosai? We're looking for the midah keneged midah in the metzora. So we're finding it in the halachos of the metzora, in the badad yeishev, in the badad yeishev, that he sits alone. He separated people. He made partitions. He made people to be badad one from another. We also find it that he has a halacha of a meis. He has a halacha of a meis. Tell me, are meisim in society? No. Meisim are put away out of society. The cemetery is not going to be in the middle of a—no one's going to walk in the middle of Main Street and have a fish store, a sefarim store, and a cemetery, right? It doesn't go together. You ever saw a place like that? One store is fish, the other store is sefarim, third store is pizza, and the fourth store is dead people, meisim. You don't have that, right? It's usually outskirts. In Europe, it used to be out of the city. So almost badad yeishev, like a dead person. We put him as if he's dead. On the outskirts, away from... Because what? Hachayim v'hamaves b'yad halashon. But, rabosai, let me go one step further. Let me go one step further. Many meforshim learn, many Rishonim speak about this, that Badad yoshev, he must alone. Why? Because the diburei, the hevel diburei, which means, with his... the whatever comes from his mouth, I don't know what the right word is. No, not the speech. When a person is contagious with his mouth, whatever he says, which means even if you don't touch him, if you're in his proximity, he can hurt you. He can be mazik. If you're in his proximity, he can be mazik. He can hurt you. What is that all about? I mean, if it's not a physical ailment, we know there's something called contagious, right? Germs. Here we're learning that there's something called spiritual germs. Interesting.

Is mitzora contagious? Now, it's very interesting. I thought about this many, many, many a year, as they say. The leprosy, which was named leprosy, the physical, after the leprosy that once was in the times of Chazal that we don't have anymore, which is a big question for itself. Why don't we have that tzaraas anymore? What happened? How come we don't have that tzaraas? So many mefarshim explain, many Acharonim tell us that this was only a time and a place where Yidden were on such a level where they were able to receive this ois u'pela b'Yisrael. You have to be spiritually elevated to be able to be punished for not being spiritually elevated. Today we're so far gone, ... you're too krank, you're too sick. We're so sick that we can't even tell that we're sick. That's very, very— that's pretty bad. When you're that sick that you think it's normal to be like that, that means we're very sick. So this is the same pshat why we don't have tzaraas today, many mefarshim explain. We're that sick, we're that removed, we're on that spiritual level to receive, so we're not holding there. So therefore we don't even get the tzaraas. But it's interesting that tzaraas, which has to be studied, how did the tzaraas, the leprosy, the physical, which does exist—interesting, it does exist. So the question is, is that leprosy a lesson? Does that leprosy become now the physical ailment that's supposed to remind us? You know, every disease has its lessons, rabosai. And I'm saying a chiddush. I know I'm saying a very big chiddush. I understand I'm saying a very big chiddush. It's something I thought about. Every physical disease that we do have today is also a lesson, and it's rooted in a malfunction of spirituality, of ruchnius. You know, when a person gets a strep throat, maybe because he's not using his throat properly. Maybe. But just we just happen to get strep throats today. Maybe. You know, I'm not telling you that I have an inner—to understand all the mystical and deep sodos habriyah—but as a simple Jew who believes that everything has a cheshbon, and that everything is a lesson, and everything that happens has a purpose and a reason, so when a guy gets a strep throat, you know what he should think? The first thing that should come to mind: he's not using his throat properly. Maybe he's not davening the way he's supposed to daven. Maybe he's not learning enough. So therefore, the throat gets an infection. Something's infected, huh? If someone has heart trouble, maybe he's not using his heart properly, I don't know. Maybe if the arteries are clogged physically, they're clogged spiritually. I am again in big trouble for saying all this. You know what? Let me not go there, because everyone has heart trouble and everyone has high blood pressure. Okay, so let's leave that one alone. All right? But who knows that the person bangs his leg and he has a bruise. Maybe it's because he should have used his leg for something proper. It's a lesson. With the Chumah Yidden, we believe that everything has its reason and its cause and effect. So is there a connection between the leprosy of once was, what the Torah calls tzaraas, and the leprosy which recently, in Israel it was a big epidemic of leprosy. In the African countries, leprosy is still something that exists to some extent. Is there a connection? You know, years ago I heard from a very big Talmud Chacham who sat by a shmooze by Reb Chatzkel Levenstein.

Zecher tzaddik livrachah. Reb Chatzkel Levenstein, the mashgiach of Ponovezh Yeshiva, zecher tzaddik livrachah, he saw everything in the light of emunah and HaKadosh Baruch Hu and spirituality and kedushah. So this talmid chacham told me that Reb Chatzkel once got up in Ponovezh Yeshiva and he said, and I just quote it first in Yiddish and then I'll re-quote it in English: Mizogt me geben a schum fun gelt, far dem vos ken vayzen di refuah fun yene machlah. Zol zei kumen af der barg un ich vel zei geben dem yesod fun dem yene machlah, un zist. Dos kumt fun shinei hateva, shinei hateva, shinei hateva, shinei hateva. And he said an entire shmooze, sichah, shinei hateva. And now let me translate that. He says they're offering a reward, a total of a certain amount of money at the time, probably it was big money. It's not like today; it would be just enough to pay your grocery bill. But he said that anyone who offers, who gives, who delivers this side, the concept of cancer, yene machlah, which would lead to the cure, they would give so much and so much amount of money as a reward, Nobel Peace Prize. Let them come on this mountain. This mountain, Pontovich is built on a—it's on an elevated mountain, like a small little mountain, a mound. So he called, Let them come on this mound and I'll tell them the secret of the cancer. It's shinui hateva, where man goes and changes the teva. He puts a hand to change the teva. Hashem created a perfect world, and man feels that he could manipulate, could play with, with the beautiful briah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu created. This talmid chacham, who happened to have also had, yena machliat, cancer, at the time that he told it to me, and he said that when Reb Chatzkel said it, nobody understood what he was talking about. Normally, when Reb Chatzkel would give a shmuz, when the mashgiach gave a shmuz and bachrim didn't understand, they would go over to him and, you know, and challenge him: What did you mean? What did you say? He said, By this one, nobody said anything because they didn't even know what he was talking about. Nobody had any idea what he was saying. He said, Years and years later, the talmidim, they started to understand what he meant, and he said an interesting thing. Cancer is a shinui hateva. The nature of a cell is to multiply properly. When it starts to multiply in a way that it's aggressively multiplying more than— It's normal multiplication. It turns into a mass, a tumor. So it's a shinui hateva of the cell. And what causes that? Man's manipulation, shinui hateva of the briyah. The Ribono Shel Olam created a perfect world. The Ribono Shel Olam created a perfect world. And when man tries to put his hand, to put his print on the physical creation of this world by changing with his science and his hashkafah that he's kochi v'otzem yadi, so Hashem responds by having the teva be mishaneh, that it changes its course. And he says, you understood what the mashgiach was saying when they talk about all the not natural food and chemicals that cause the cancer? It's because chemicals is what? It's man's manipulation on the nature, on the natural of the briyah, and that, they say, causes a change in the cell. So man's kochi v'otzem yadi and his not being subordinate to the Ribono Shel Olam results in a physical machlah. It's interesting, the Chazon Ish...

The Chazon Ish, who knew medical based from the Gemara, from the Chazalim, from the Torah Kdosha. When people came to the Chazon Ish, he was able to diagram for them how surgeries should be made. Doctors would come to him to discuss brain surgeries that they were going to make. The Chazon Ish, of course, never went to Harvard or to NYU or to, I don't know, all the great John Hopkins, I don't know, whichever, the great, will be the great medical hospitals. I said them already, huh? Okay. Huh? Okay. He never went to all these places. Sat in a little room in Bnei Brak, and yet he knew all the medical. How did he know all the medical? How did he know medicine? How was he able? I myself sat in Lakewood Yeshiva by the davening next to a person that was a product of one of these consultations that the Chazon Ish gave about a brain surgery. The family went to the Chazon Ish, and the Chazon Ish said that they should cut, he drew a diagram of the brain, and he said they should cut a certain amount and no more. When the doctors were in the surgery, during the surgery, they felt that they could do a drop more and they should clean here or go there, and they did not listen to the Chazon Ish's recommendation and consultation, and the person unfortunately suffered tremendous brain injury. I knew the person, but he was zoche to get married and have children, and b'nes, it was a miracle. Very, very special person. Talmud chacham, he worked for the yeshiva at the time. But it was noticeable on him, and he had something which was really, really a malfunction of the surgery. It was a doctor's malpractice, based on the fact that they didn't listen to the Chazon Ish. So how did the medical doctor, who studies his whole life to make these surgeries under the greatest professors, know less than the Chazon Ish, that the Chazon Ish was right and he was wrong? And the Chazon Ish, like I said, let him know more than the Gemara. The answer is, every physical ailment has in it a spiritual ailment. It has a ruchniyusdike, and the Chazon Ish understood the ruchniyus of it, maybe. He understood the olam haruchni that's involved in the person, was able to diagram physical machlah and refuah. Machlah and refuah. Chazon Ish, famous that he once claimed that he could give the cure for, again, a machlah for cancer, but if he does, a different machlah will come, which might be worse, and they wouldn't know how to treat it, and they wouldn't know how to treat it. So he didn't want to give it. The point being, the point being, machlos are addressing, disease addresses spiritual ailments. And every generation, every generation. So based on its spiritual default and malnutrition and malfunction, its spiritual malfunction has unique specific diseases. We find there was something called the Black Plague, killed out so many. We don't hear of it today. You know, certain machlos were only at a certain time, only, and then it stopped. What happened? And the answer is because these machlos were unique for the chataim of that generation. They were unique, specific, directed, targeted for the machlo of that generation. Now let's go back to tzaraas. Maybe we don't have the spiritual tzaraas. I don't know if the leprosy is supposed to be an example, a replica. I don't know, because I don't know, you know, the word leprosy, who gave that disease that they call today leprosy, if it's based on anything in the Torah about leprosy. But one thing I could tell you, that the ...

Even the leprosy, of the leprosy that they had recently, is the same ... The person had to be in isolation because he was extremely contagious. Leprosy was something that came from Africa, and in Israel they had this problem. In the 30s, the 40s, they had this problem. Rav Moshe finds he's a chacham levrachah. The yeshiva zatzal even has teshuvos, because the law of the land of the country in Israel was that any belongings to lepers, those that had leprosy at the time, needed to be completely confiscated, burnt, destroyed, to the point that there was a question: what do you do with the tefillin? What do you do? Are you allowed to burn the tefillin of such a choleh, of such a person? It might be contagious. You hear how fire contagious it was, that the person who wore it, that leprosy could go into the bottom of the tefillin, and someone who could wear it a week or two later might still have the problem. And Rav Shlomo Zalman deals with this question. There's a very famous story which Rabbi Levine—Rabbi Levine, zecher tzaddik livrachah—would visit these lepers. And when they asked him, It's completely contagious. It's dangerous. You have a family, you have children. He would always say the same thing: Don't worry, it's not going to affect me. Shomer mitzvah lo yeda davar ra. Someone who does a mitzvah, nothing bad can happen to him. And they write in the books of Rabbi Levine, the story history books of him, he went and went and went, and never once did he ever contract the disease. You hear how contagious, and yet, when you're pure, when you're a tzaddik, when you're bein adam l'chaveiro, like Rabbi Levine was a gem. He was polished to perfection. In bein adam l'chaveiro, it didn't affect him. There's a beautiful story in one of Rabbi Levine's books. It was Ish Tzadik Haya. I don't know if it's in the English version. I think it's in the second volume of the Hebrew version, Ish Tzadik Haya, that Rabbi Levine said a story himself, repeated the following story. He said that he was once by a funeral of a classmate, a friend. Many years from the day that they were together in school, but they kept up as a group, as a friend, as a class. So he went to the funeral of this classmate that passed away. In Israel, from the funeral home to the beis hakvaros, you walk the meis in the streets. That's how they would. So as they walked in the streets of Geula, en route to the beis hakvaros, one of the classmates, one of the friends, one of the bnei hachaburah, he moved away from the group, and he went into a store that sells atzitzim. Atzitzim are plants. In Israel, it was a common thing that every home, they would buy plants. We used to hang them. Anyone who ever was in Israel knows about atzitzim. Atzitz is a plant. That was the furniture, so to speak. I don't know how much more furniture you were able to afford in the thirties and forties, so the house was decorated with atzitzim. So the person, the friend, the classmate from Rabbi Levine, attending the friend's funeral, one of the other classmates, he breaks away from the group and he walks into the store and he buys a tzitz. Rabbi Levine was bothered by it. In the middle of a levaya, in the middle of a funeral, your friend passed away. That's what you have in mind? That's what's concerning you? A plant, to buy a plant for your house in the middle of a levaya of a friend? Rabbi Levine was—hadinu, he was very soft and very sensitive and sweet. He was contemplating, should he say something? But he couldn't hold himself back. He said, I have to say something. So he told his friend, What are you doing? How could you do this? He says, Rabbi, you don't understand. If I'm buying the plant for my house. You know so-and-so? Oh yeah, the leper. Yeah, he has leprosy.

Yeah, yeah. I visit him. I follow your footsteps, so to speak, and I also go visit, and I don't pay attention to the danger and to the fear of getting this leprosy. The doctors want to take all his belongings and burn them, including his tefillin. So I told the doctor, who was a religious Jew, his tefillin. Let's save his tefillin. I'll take them. The doctor said, It's the rule. I can't go against—I mean, I'm a doctor in a hospital. I can't let you just take the tefillin. I can't let you do it. Here, but it's tefillin. Come on, we're religious Jews, you know, we're not afraid. Come on, let's be strong and let's save the tefillin. The doctor said, You know what? I have an idea. I have an idea. What I will do is—I have an idea. What you should do is go get yourself a plant. Come, show that you're visiting with this plant as a gift, and in the earth you'll hide the tefillin, and you'll take the tefillin out with you as you leave the hospital. And like this, you'll sneak the tefillin out of the hospital. So after the levaya, I was scheduled to go to the bedside of this leper. I bought the atzitz, I bought the plant to follow up on the plant to hide the tefillin to save it. The Baal HaLevi used to say, Take a look what it means to be dan l'kaf zechus. He would have never put that together, right? Who would ever think that you're buying a plant has to do with saving tefillin in a hospital from a leper? He says, imagine if I didn't ask the guy, I would have lived all the rest of my days thinking, the guy did something which wasn't... the guy did something which was not proper. He brought a plant in the middle of a... Now, not only is it something which is a chisaron, it's something beautiful that the guy did, and I would have never known had I not asked him. Now a person has to take a lesson how one should be dan l'kaf zechus, okay? The point being, leprosy was extremely contagious. The baalat yeshev, contagious, extremely contagious. So the question is, is the baalat yeshev of the real metzora, which is replicated in the metzora, maybe of the metzora that we have lepers of today, meaning years ago in Israel or whatever it was at the time, what is the point of the contagious? And maybe it's a lesson, because every baal lashon hara is very contagious. You know, lashon hara is a contagious disease, rabosai. You grab people with it. You infect people with it. People don't realize the infection that you cause people, the infection that you cause. When a person speaks lashon hara, an infection. He becomes... In your mind, yeah, contract, what do you call it, connected, that you can't get away from it. Maybe, maybe, maybe it contaminates people, vinyan of tumah, and maybe it's contagious. The lessons of direct from metzora to the halachos of the metzora. You hear, rabosai? It's very possible that part of tzaraas, which is contagious and infectious, and is metameh, because that's all the things that lashon hara does. Lashon hara is infectious and contagious, possibly. But then, rabosai, I would like to go one step further, all right? Because I'm trying to understand the idea of badad yeishev and the midah kneged midah of the tzaraas. What is the midah kneged midah? And I came up with an idea, and I came up with a thought that I'd like to share with you this year. I saw Reb Yerucham.

Das Chochma Musar, Chelek Aleph, page 10. He also speaks about in Daas Torah and Bamidbar, page Kuf Tzadik Vav. This is a very interesting observation. He says when you speak lashon hara, and you see, or you see someone speak, how do you view that? You view it that a person is not nice, not a nice thing to do, right? Let me give you an example. If let's say you walked into a house, and you see somebody sitting at a table, all right, and he's eating a live mouse. A live mouse. Didn't shecht it or anything. And the mouse is squealing, screeching, and the mouse is in pain. How would you react to that and say, This guy is completely—he needs to be animal cruelty, yeah? He needs to be locked up. What is it? He's subhuman, huh? Subhuman. Here, let me give you an example. Imagine a guy is sitting at a table, and they bring out, instead of a chicken that was shechted and slaughtered, yeah, and cooked delicately for human consumption, that's not what happened. They bring the live chicken on the table, all right, and he takes the neck, takes a bite out of the neck, and the chicken is screeching. What would you call the authorities, right? This guy doesn't belong among human society. Now let's give a different example, says Reb Yerucham. Yeah? You come into a guy's house, and guess what's on the table? A human being. They're good men. A human being is on the table, and the guy goes, he takes a bite out of the guy's neck, you hear? Mmm, that's delicious. Mmm. And the guy is—you're laughing. That's how Reb Yerucham brings it. I love it, Reb Yerucham. He says, do you realize, you're eating—can you speak lashon hara? You're worse than the guy who's eating the rat. You're worse than the rat. He says you should reconstruct in your mind, to reconstruct in your mind what you just did. If you viewed in hindsight, in reverse what you did, you'd be disgusted. You'd go, What? I'm a cannibal. A cannibal doesn't even eat live people; he eats dead people, and it's— He brings a pasuk. The pasuk says—he brings a beautiful pasuk. The pasuk says, I'm sorry, not pasuk, a Mishnah. Mr. Gimmel, Aleph, Gimmel, Beis. In a mareh mekomos, ish asher yeihu chayim boi. Man is capable of swallowing alive the other guy. That's lashon hara. Had the guy known that you're speaking lashon hara about him, he would scream and beg you, You're killing me! You're hurting me! What are you doing to me? You know, there's an interesting piece of history which is כדאי to share with the oilam. Rav Hutner, zicher tzaddik livrachah, used to say over a very interesting anecdote of history, a piece of history which is interesting. I don't know if the word anecdote, but some historic point, something interesting. He said over that the Chofetz Chaim, originally when he wrote his sefer Chofetz Chaim, went to Rabbi Yisrael Salanter to get a haskamah on the sefer. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter said that he has to study it. He has to see what's written there. So now, you say the word Chofetz Chaim, everybody jumps on it. Anything the Chofetz Chaim wrote is—

He was a young man at the time. So Rabbi Yisrael Salanter said, I want to read this to see, to give you a haskamah. When the Chofetz Chaim came back to Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter said, I have an issue. I take issue with one of the things you wrote. In Klal daled, siman yud beis, you wrote that if somebody speaks lashon hara on his friend, he needs to go back to the person and ask him mechilah and tell him, Listen, I spoke lashon hara about you. I spoke lashon hara about you. I need to ask you mechilah that I spoke lashon hara about you. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter said, You need to take that out. You can't print that. Otherwise, I can't give you haskamah. You don't take that. Why? I hold you can't go back and tell the guy, I spoke lashon hara about you. So the Chofetz Chaim said, But I got this straight out of Rabbeinu Yonah. Rabbeinu Yonah, Shaarei Teshuvah, os zayin, it says clearly that you should go back and tell the guy that you spoke lashon hara, and you ask him mechilah. So Rabbi Yisrael Salanter said, It's impossible that that's what the Shaarei Teshuvah meant. You wrote it. He said you should go back. He said that's not what he meant. You know what he meant? The guy knows. The guy knows you spoke lashon hara about him. So once he knows anyway, so you go back and know... Admit that you did it. Admit your guilt. Come clean and tell him that you did it. But if he doesn't know that you did it, chas v'shalom for telling him. You can't tell him. It's impossible, said Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, that you should go back and tell him. What's the reason for this? You have to understand, when you tell a person, you spoke, it's like the worst thing you could do about it. It means that you came and you, in Yiddish's expression, du host gegesen a lebedik. You ate him up alive. You realize what it means to speak? A person would rather have physical pain than busha. We know this. Chazal tell us. Tamar was ready to throw herself into a fire not to be mevayesh Yehuda. Busha, embarrassment, is killing somebody. It's killing somebody. Maybe we could go back and say the midah k'neged midah of the metzora, that he's chashuv k'meis, is because he killed the other guy. When you talk lashon hara, it's not only because a chai bamaves, talui b'yad halashon. It's not only because life and death, who knows what you could do with it. It's more than that. Speaking lashon hara means I killed the guy. And if you don't understand that you killed the guy, you'd be embarrassed. Imagine a person goes and, like I said, and he kills an animal for no reason. He's cruel. Animal cruelty. What about human cruelty? You know, there's a whole society that cares more about animal rights than human rights. You know, in the media today, it's something pathetic. How many times do we hear on the news a story about a guy who was cruel to a dog? Was cruel to a dog, yeah? Animal cruelty. He's cruel to a dog. He left the dog outside when it was cold, bara shreklach. And the same reporter could sit there and speak the most evil and hurtful and painful things against people. It's a ... shafela. It's a shafela. Rabbi Ruchin, the Mashgiach, was so things straight. He cares so much about a dog, about a cat. Don't hurt the feelings of the cat, the cat, the dog. So how much more you shouldn't hurt the feelings of a human being. You're killing him. It's a melei yachashiv, what? Yachashiv kemeis, a metzora, by speaking lashon hara.

Kill the other guy, because busha is maybe more than what? Than killing somebody. There are many people who would rather give up their life than to be embarrassed, to be embarrassed. It's a type of herig. It's a type of killing somebody. Okay. But this—okay, I didn't go back to the end of the story. The end of the story is that Rabbi Yisrael Salanter did not give, did not give the haskamah to the Chofetz Chaim's sefer. Why? Because the Chofetz Chaim said he can't take out what Rabbeinu Yonah wrote, because Rabbeinu Yonah wrote it. So he wanted that Rabbi Yisrael Salanter should write in his haskamah how he interpreted Rabbeinu Yonah, that Rabbeinu Yonah just meant that if the guy already knows anyway, you should go back and tell him, but not chas v'shalom to go and tell him that you spoke lashon hara. What are you going to tell him? What, I was mevaish you? I was mevaish you b'rabim? It's the worst thing you can tell somebody, right? So Rabbi Yisrael Salanter said, I don't want to do that. Why? Because people might read the haskamah, but they won't read the fine print, the details of where I explained the Rabbeinu Yonah. They might not read that part, and therefore they're just seeing the Chofetz Chaim. You should go back and tell the guy who—yeah? You listening? It's unbelievable. He was afraid that maybe, that in the letter that Rabbi Yisrael is going to write, people are not going to read that line. And they could end up just following what it says, to go back and always tell the guy, I spoke lashon hara about you, which is like killing him, and therefore he didn't give haskama at all on the chafetz chaim. I heard from my rebbi, Reb Dovid, shlita, Reb Dovid Feinstein. He was discussing where the Chafetz Chaim writes that l'toeles, where it's for the good purpose, a good cause, you're allowed to speak lashon hara, for example by shidduchim and whatnot. He said, had the Chafetz Chaim known—I heard this from my rebbi, Reb Dovid, quote, word for word, the way I heard it, quoted word for word—had the Chafetz Chaim known how they would abuse this halacha one day, and they'll use it in context where it's not the right place to use it, thus killing people innocently, it wouldn't be worth the whole halacha to be written in the first place, and he would have never wrote it. Again, it's very hard to say, because the Chafetz Chaim we feel almost is like written b'ruach hakodesh. But this I heard from my rebbi, Reb Dovid. Had the Chafetz Chaim known how people would abuse, and in what context they'll use this halacha to kill people—words mean to kill people—he would have never wrote it, because it was just not worth it. Because you make— which is really what Rav Yisrael Salanter is saying—telling the guy that you spoke lashon hara about him is killing him. It's cool. You murdered, killed the guy. And it can't be that that's halacha to go and tell him that you spoke lashon hara about. Now, rabosai, let's go back to the pesukim. If you take a look, Miriam got the tzaraas. Al naha, see kameis. Asher b'tzeiso meirechem imei, vayeiochel chatzi b'saroi. What is the vayeiochel chatzi? Bishlama the meis, I see. Rashi tells us, because the metzora is kameis. What about the part where he says that he ate up half the flesh? What's the analogy, the kesher to tzaraas? Nu, rabosai, I'll let you finish the shiur. Nu? What's the vayeiochel chatzi b'saroi? You're eating up the other person, Rabbi Yerucham. The metzora is eating, and therefore the tzaraas eats at the person. It's a type of cannibalism, for lack of a better analogy. People think cannibalism is if I sit there and I ate his drumstick with ketchup. No, it's not. If I eat his—

Cry than his dignity, together with a piece of kugel and a schnapps at a kiddush, that's also called cannibalism. Did you hear what I just said? Could we repeat it? Cannibalism isn't just eating a guy's drumstick, okay, eating his arms and his legs with ketchup or with rib steak sauce. Cannibalism is eating his dignity. It's eating his dignity together with a schnapps and a piece of kugel at a kiddush as well. Vayochal chatzi besaroi. Vayochal chatzi besaroi. Vayochal chatzi besaroi. It's an analogy. So that's the answer of the midah keneged midah and the tzarasra place. You hear? Tzaras could be midah keneged midah, that he's chashuv k'meis, but the actual tzaras, tzaras, which at one level I could say is even deeper, it's a type of decadence, of rot, it's a type of molding where the body rots, because the truth is those that speak lashon hara is rooted in rottenness. That's the person. But it's also what you did to the other guy. Vayochal chatzi besaroi. It's like eating up the guy alive. And this I saw in the words of Rabbi Yerucham. Rabbi Yerucham saw speaking lashon hara as botel fianim, estufianim. You're eating up the other guy. Now let's understand the baal lashon. What would you do with a person who eats animal cruelty? Where do we put him? Out of society, right? What happens if a person—here, no—if a person eats people? What do you do with a guy like that? He's mazik. He's a danger. You know, if a person would walk around with a yielding sword or with a gun, what do you do with a guy like that? You lock him up. He don't belong in society, right? When a guy walks around with a gun that is called his tongue, baal lashon hara, he doesn't belong in society, rabosai, because he's a mazik. You know, in halacha, the baal lashon hara is compared to the nachash. The pasuk says by the nachash, the pasuk says by the nachash, u'ma yisron... the nachash. The lashon of the pasuk by the nachash, he's compared to the nachash. What's the comparison of the nachash to the baal lashon, to the baal lashon hara? And the answer, rabosai, is very poshut here. The nachash. is the ultimate mazik. There's a shaila in the Mishnah: what do you do with a wild animal? So there's a whole question on all the other animals, but by the nachash it says clearly, what do you do? Mishnah says you have to kill him right on the spot. Why? Because there's nothing you can do with a nachash. The nachash is the ultimate mazik in society, the ultimate predator. The baal halashon is the ultimate predator as well. I want to tell you something interesting. You know, a nachash, there are many different nachashim, rabosai, that kill in many different ways, and I thought a lot about this as well. I always, throughout the years, my wife used to schlepp us every Yom Tov to the zoo and to the aquarium and to... So the first time you get excited over the fish and the animals. What do you do the thirty other times that you went with the kids and everyone's crying and everybody wants their candy, right? I studied every animal to try to see, in the bigger picture, the ruchniyusdike world, what role they play. Most animals...

Moles have one method of killing. The nachash has many methods. There are some nachash that they bite. There are some nachash that swallow in one shot. There are some nachash that wrap around your neck and choke you to death. The nachash in the Baal Lashon Hara is very analogous. It's the same. There's a tremendous kesher. It's not only the bite, they inject poison. Poison is also. That's why they get to in two seconds. Sometimes it's the bite, and sometimes it's the poison that poisons further. Lashon Hara and the baal lashon hara sometimes swallows, ishes re'eihu chayim b'loi. Sometimes the nachash, he chokes you. Sometimes the nachash swallows you alive. And sometimes his venom, his poison. The analogy of the nachash and the baal halashon in the pasuk is the poison of the nachash, okay? And what do you do with the nachash? He belongs only in one place, in a cage in a zoo. No other place does he belong. Badad yeishev, michutz lamachaneh. That's why the halacha of the baal halashon is badad yeishev, and it's tzaras, because it poisons, vayochel chatzi basaro, that it swallows and it poisons the flesh, and it eats up the person. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.