It’s amazing, though each word in the Torah has so much value and nothing is redundant, when it comes to sins of speech we have two full parashiot that deal with tzaraat and the metzora.
The level of spiritual life of the Jews back in that day was very high, with standards that would be above most of our heads. If a person said the wrong thing, immediately he would be struck with tzaraat. Each person was “forced” to correct himself as he was isolated from the camp and in his separate “divine jail”. If every time someone did something wrong there would be Divine intervention, does one really have a free choice? Perhaps we wish to correct ourselves and grow on our own. Whose world is really better, ours of today or theirs of yesterday? How come today we don’t have such a privilege, or is it really a privilege?
There is a tremendous difference between a person doing something evil and someone being evil. When a person who is not evil does an evil act, it’s not intrinsic to him, as he will correct himself as soon as he can. A person who is inherently evil and wants only to be bad, but is in an environment that has no opportunity to act on his desire to be evil, is a much worse person. This is because he will, G-d forbid, do evil as soon as he has the opportunity.
Chazal teach us that the word metzora is from the two words ”motzi ra”- the removal of evil. The level of Am Yisroel, with neviim and prophecy, was so exalted in the power of speech that conversely the challenge of lashon hara was so great. It had the power to bring a person to the level of inherent evil, and people needed Divine intervention to help remove that terrible evil. The immediate consequence of tzaraat is what gave them a fighting chance to grow and move forward, without the metzora it would be impossible to resist evil. For them, the metzora is what balanced the scales and gave them free will. The Torah elaborates so much on this subject to illustrate the great challenge and importance of keeping our mouths pure.
As the generations pass, although we feel weaker and we may not have the great luminaries of yesterday, most of the integral evils have been conquered and removed. Today it’s an act of evil, and we feel bad after we speak lashon hara. That guilt and regret is an instant teshuva. The awareness of lashon hara is so great in our times that soon the day will come when we won’t have the challenge anymore, much like Avodah Zara. It will become like smoking tobacco cigarettes. When I was a kid it was super cool to smoke and many adults had the habit of doing so. Today our culture is into health and strength, and smoking tobacco cigarettes has become a nisht – stinky, smelly, and looked down upon. This is our world today, quite different than it was back in the times of the Mishkan. We have a lot we are missing out on, but we have made some strides, and for that we are grateful.
