Among the list of “aruruim” [curses] mentioned in this week’s parsha is someone who smites his fellow man in secret (Devorim 27:24). How does someone hit his friend “secretly”? Rashi says the reference is to lashon horah. Speaking gossip about one’s fellow man behind his back can cause him untold damage. His business can be ruined, his marital prospects can be ruined, his life can be ruined. This is known as “Makeh es Ray’ei’hu b’Saser.”
Rav Eliyohu Boruch Finkel in his sefer on Chumas cites an incident about lashon horah that I would like to share:
This incident has a pedigree which testifies to its veracity: The Chofetz Chaim wrote the story in the Kisvei Chofetz Chaim. He heard it from Rav Yehoshua Heller, the Choshen Yehoshua, who heard it from his Rebbe, the Nachlas Dovid (Rav Dovid Tebel), who heard it from Rav Chaim of Volozhin, who heard it from the Vilna Gaon. This is not just a “bubba ma’aseh” – this is a ma’aseh with documented yichus!
The Gaon was going somewhere and hired a wagon driver. The wagon driver was driving the horse and buggy. The driver fell asleep. Today, when someone falls asleep at the wheel, the consequences are likely to be fatal. What happened then? The driver fell asleep, so the horse drifted off to the side of the road and started eating some of the produce that was growing in the field on the side of the road.
The non-Jewish owner of the field saw the horse of a Jewish wagon driver helping itself to supper at this Gentile’s expense and he became all angry. He ran over to the wagon and saw one person sleeping and one person studying out of a book. He figured the person who was sleeping was the passenger and the person who was up reading the book was the driver. In other words, he assumed that the Gaon of Vilna was the ba’al ha’agalah who owned this horse. The farmer beat him up. He physically let him have it.
Somebody asked the Gaon – “Why didn’t you say something? You should have protested – ‘It is not me who is at fault. It is this other person!'” The Gaon answered, “I did not say that because it would have been lashon horah.” He went on to add “And if I would have said lashon horah, all the Torah that I have written in my life would not save me, and I would come back to this world in a gilgul [transmigration of the souls] as a barking dog!”
This story needs to give us a lot of pause. Cursed be he who smites his fellow in secret. Such was the fear the Gaon had from something which might not have even been lashon horah.
