The disease of tzaraas would afflict people due to their having spoken lashon hara.
Lashon Hara, speaking ill of others, is a subject about which a lot has been said. There are some very important points here. On the one hand, it is a very serious aveirah. The Chofetz Chayim wrote a whole book about it. And the strongest comment Chazal ever made might well be what they said about lashon hara: There are four things for which a person is punished in this world and the principal punishment is still there for him in the World to Come. They are idolatry, forbidden gender relationships, bloodshed, and lashon hara is equal to them all.
What more could be said? If you take all the worst things a Jew could possibly do, and put them all together, that’s how bad lashon hara is. You can’t get more serious than that.
On the other hand, it is among the most common sins of all. Chazal say about it something they don’t say about other sins:
The majority of people commit theft, and the minority commit forbidden gender relationships, and everyone commits lashon hara.
All of us, without exception, are guilty of lashon hara. This is an astounding statement.
Of course, Chazal immediately qualify this by clarifying that it refers to the “dust” of lashon hara. But it’s for sure that when it comes to the “dust” of lashon hara, we are all guilty of it.
This presents a highly unusual picture. The exceptional severity of the sin, and the fact that we are all guilty of it to a certain extent. It’s inescapable. That’s one subject.
Parsha Topic
Can’t Stop Talking
The second, which is also a very special one, is sinas chinam, baseless hatred. Chazal tell us that it caused the destruction of the second Beis Hamikdash. The big Churban.
The Churban, properly speaking, refers only to the destruction of the second Beis Hamikdash. Because the destruction of the first one was merely temporary. We were promised from the outset that after seventy years, it would be rebuilt. So the main destruction is that of the second Beis Hamikdash.
Also here, we find Chazal saying something similar to what they said about the severity of lashon hara:
Why was the First Temple destroyed? Because of the three things that existed then: idolatry, forbidden gender relationships and bloodshed. But the Second Temple, when they occupied themselves with Torah and mitzvos and acts of kindness, why was it destroyed? Because there was baseless hatred. This teaches that baseless hatred is equal to the three sins of idolatry, forbidden gender relationships and bloodshed.
Chazal then immediately pose a question about this. They ask whose sins were greater – those of the first Beis Hamikdash or those of the second? R. Elazar answers that we need only look to the Temple itself to know the answer. We see that the First Temple was merely destroyed temporarily, while the Second Temple’s destruction is enormously longer. The difference between sinas chinam and the three most severe sins is enormous. Sinas chinam is so very serious!
Again, the most severe aveirah is one that is really tough to avoid, and awfully common.
Let’s take a deeper look at lashon hara and sinas chinam.
