Parshas Metzora (Hagadol) 5779
King David famously writes in Psalm 34: “Which man desires life, who loves days of seeing good? Guard your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceitfully…â€
The commentators on the Book of Psalms explain that “life†in this verse refers to the eternal life of Olam HaBa (“The World to Comeâ€), while “days of seeing good†refers to the fleeting days of Olam HaZeh (“This Worldâ€).
The Chafetz Chaim, in his classic work Shemiras HaLashon (Chapter 1) asks a serious question: Why was this particular mitzvah of “guarding one’s tongue†(from speaking Lashon Hara and slander) singled out by King David as the way of guaranteeing that one will merit life and good? After all, the Torah commands us to keep all 613 mitzvos, and, as a reward, promises us days of good in This World and eternal life in the Next World (as stated in Deuteronomy 30:15-16)?
Rabbi Rafael Hamburger ZTâ€L, in his work Marpei Lashon, offers a fascinating explanation of the verse in Psalm 34, based on a famous teaching of the 11th century Torah scholar and philosopher Rabbeinu Bachya ibn Pakuda, author of Chovos HaLevavos (“Duties of the Heartâ€).
[WARNING! The following might very well be the scariest thing you‘ll ever read – so proceed with caution!!]
The Chovos HaLevavos in Sha’ar HaKeniah (“The Gate of Submissionâ€) Chapter 7, is addressing someone whom others are slandering and spreading vicious lies about, and he writes the following:
“If the bad thing that was said of him was false, he should say to the person who reported it: "…Stop my brother, and be concerned for your merits, that you do not lose them without your noticing it. For it is told of a pious man about whom someone spoke badly of, that when he heard of this, he sent a basket full of the choicest fruits of his province to the one who spoke badly of him and wrote to him: 'I have been notified that you sent me an offering of your merits, and I am sending you this gift in return' "
Another pious man once said: "Many people will come on the Day of Judgment, and when they are shown their deeds, they will find in the book of their merits, good deeds that they did not do, and they will say: 'we did not do these things'. They will be answered: 'these are the good deeds of people who spoke against you'. Likewise, at that time, those who spoke badly of others will find that some of their merits will be missing, they will seek them, and will be told: 'you forfeited your good deeds when you spoke against others'.
Similarly, some people will find in their book of sins, sins they did not do, and when they will protest saying "we did not commit these things", they will be told "these are the misdeeds committed by the people you have spoken against", as it is written: "And return to our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom, their reproach with which they reproached You, O L-ord" (Psalms 79:12).â€
WOW! Did you catch that? I don’t know about you, but when I first read that teaching of the Chovos HaLevavos it scared the living daylights out of me! I mean, think about it … a person spends much of his life accumulating mitzvos and good deeds, but then he speaks Lashon Hara and gossip about another person and all those merits that he accumulated now go to that person whom he spoke about!!!!
And even worse, by speaking badly about another person, one inherits the other person’s sins – horrible sins which he never committed but which are still added to his account because of the Lashon Hara that he spoke against that other person!!! That, my friends, is scary!!
It is this scary teaching of the Chovos HaLevavos – explains Rabbi Rafael Hamburger – that King David is referring to in Psalm 34 when he writes: ““Which man desires life, who loves days of seeing good? Guard your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceitfully…†Of course it is the observance of all 613 commandments that will be rewarded in This World and The World to Come. The only reason why the mitzvah of guarding one’s tongue is being singled out by King David here is because the only way that we will be able to maintain and preserve all those good deeds that we have accumulated – and to guarantee that they will still be there when the Day of Judgment comes - is only if we guard our tongue from speaking Lashon Hara. Otherwise, we run the danger of losing all our mitzvos to the people whom we talked about, G-d forbid, and on the way picking up the other people’s nasty sins because we gossiped about them.
But don’t despair, though, because there’s always Teshuvah (repentance). So, if we regret our past misdeeds and commit to never speaking Lashon Hara again, then G-d, in His infinite mercy, will accept our Teshuvah and return all those missing mitzvos back to our account and get rid of all those nasty sins that accrued to our account but that we never actually committed.
As the Bible commentators explain homiletically the second verse in this week’s Torah portion, Parshas Metzora: “This shall be the Torah of the metzora on the day of his purification …†(Leviticus 14:2): The word metzora can be read as a conjunction of three words ‘motzi shem ra’, meaning ‘one who slanders’, with the intent of the Torah that one who slanders others will get back his Torah “on the day of his purificationâ€, i.e. when he does a proper Teshuvah.
[Of course, the greater the person is who slanders others, the greater are the mitzvos that those who are slandered by him receive, and vice versa.]
A story is told about the great Torah scholar and Chief Rabbi of Krakow, Rabbi Tzvi Dovid Hirsch ZTâ€L, who certain wicked gossipmongers were spreading vicious lies about him, until the point where he became the talk of the entire town and virtually all the Jews – including the drunkards in the local pub – were speaking Lashon Hara and slander against him. That Shabbos in the synagogue the Chief Rabbi began his weekly sermon with the following question: King David writes in Psalm 69: “They gossip about me, those who sit by the gate; The drinking songs of drunkardsâ€. In this verse, King David seems to be ‘lamenting’ the fact that drunks and other no-good-niks are spreading Lashon Hara about him. This is difficult to understand. Would he rather have great Torah scholars and other prominent members of the community gossiping about him instead?! The answer – explained the Chief Rabbi – is that if only great Torah scholars and righteous would speak Lashon Hara about him, then at least he would inherit all their Torah study and their many mitzvos,- as taught to us by the Chovos Halevavos. But now that the only people spreading lies about him are the local bums and drunks, what kind of mitzvos can he hope to get from them?!
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