By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
Did you notice the news headlines about a Spanish sportswoman who lived underground in a cave for 500 days?
Yep, you heard right. Last week on April 14’th Beatrice Flamini emerged from living solitarily in an underground cave in the Spanish hills for the better part of two years.
The timing couldn’t be better for the parsha topic which is about the laws of the ‘metzorah’.
And it is also immaculately timed to be just ten days before the new cycle of non-solitary ‘all of Torah – all of Us’ Rambam study begins on April 24th.
Let me explain what I mean.
Spending a week living in solitary conditions outside the city is the key ingredient in the purification of a ‘metzorah’.
What’s a ‘metzorah’?
in English it has been translated as ‘leper’, however it is not leprosy which is a physical ailment. A “metzorah’ is a halachic concept caused by a skin discoloration.
In Temple times, discoloration would sometimes appear on a person’s skin. It was not connected to any physical fungus, and it was not infectious or contagious. It was a G-dly inflicted discoloration that had no ramifications medically.
For all intents and purposes, it didn’t do anything.
Well, not physically, that is.
Spiritually though, it rendered a person impure. The ‘metzorah’ was one of the most intense impurities in the spectrum of impurities.
The purification process required a seven-day isolation outside of the camp. Not for dealing with some kind of contagion. Rather there was a Divinely ordained socially beneficial therapeutic aspect to it.
The Torah teaches that this Temple era skin discoloration came as an ‘early-warning-signal’ to a person who was engaging in negative communications regarding others. By this I mean ‘lashon harah’, spreading unfavorable information about someone else. Lashon harah is forbidden even if the information shared by the gossiper is true.
Yes, some people are surprised to learn this. That even spreading information that is true, if it portrays someone else in a bad light is disallowed by the Torah. (There are various exceptions to this rule particularly if there is a danger that can be mitigated by sharing pertinent information).
This does not mean we should keep our mouths zippered shut all the time. The power of speech is amazing when used correctly. We are mandated to use our mouths and power of speech to spread good energy about other people. To bring people together and create camaraderie and community.
There is a caveat to speaking nicely about someone else. As the world is still not a perfect place, it is not correct to speak too highly of someone else if you know that it will invite a boomerang of negative responses.
Say you praise someone for his extreme charitableness. You mean well. But you must first assess to which crowd you are saying this to. As sometimes, if for example the donor is not liked by his business competitors, this will elicit a cynical response. I have heard people downplaying generous gifts given by genuinely caring donors by saying ‘oh, he’s just looking to build up his ego by flaunting his wealth and acting philanthropic’. Even though I knew that this person was truly trying to be selfless and alturistic.
Just like you check for cars before you cross the road, we always ought to think before we speak. Even when it comes to saying something positive it requires forward thinking to know what to say and when to say it.
That is not the case when it comes to negative talk. Nothing to think about. Just keep your mouth shut. Lashon hara needs to be avoided always.
Spreading negative gossip tears society asunder and causes hatred and infighting.
How many family feuds and community flare-ups have been caused by the scourge of gossip – lashon hara.
During Temple times, Hashem backed up this commandment of not speaking lashon harah by sending the perpetrator a gentle physical reminder. That reminder would come in the form of a skin discoloration that would render the person a ‘metzorah’.
The purification process included a seven-day period of isolation outside the camp.
It was not punitive.
It was curative.
The path to healing someone who spreads gossip is to allow them to experience for themselves how painful it is when one is ejected from society.
Speaking gossip creates loneliness. The gossiper has caused others to be lonely through his negative and cynical talk. He needs to be walked through the process of identifying with the pain of those he has caused to suffer.
To truly feel remorse and make a firm resolution to mend one’s ways, it requires the perpetrator’s empathetic feeling of what it means to be in solitude.
If you are a Spanish mountain climber trying to break a world record and help test scientific theories about light and sleep cycles, living in solitude even for 500 days may be bearable. If however you are forced into solitude, in Temple times, without phones or communication with the outside world, you would likely feel the pain and difficulty of loneliness.
This parsha thus reminds us about the great gift of community and family.
My dear friends, as I am on the topic of speech, I would like to share something that I think is important to know. For while technology brings great things to our society, it also allows for new twists that can be used nefariously.
Continuing on the topic of lashon harah.
Imagine if you heard a recording of your best friend speaking slander about you to someone else. You would be horrified. You thought that this person was honestly and genuinely your trusted confidant. And then they go behind your back and defame you?
If someone asked you ‘are you sure that this friend actually double crossed you like that, maybe it was someone else speaking’? And you say, ‘no, I recognize my (former) best friends voice a million miles away, the inflections in their manner of speaking and many other details, I am completely sure that it was him’.
Till very recently you may have been right to assume that you had no room for doubt.
No longer.
Voice cloning via AI. Have you ever heard about this latest scamming tool?
Look at this headline:
Scammers are using AI-generated voice clones, the FTC warns The agency issued a consumer alert urging people to be vigilant for calls using voice clones generated by artificial intelligence. They can be used by criminals hoping to swindle people out of money.
The authorities are advising that before you go ahead and send money to someone based on your recognition of their voice, check with the person to make sure it if for real.
This newfangled development has an application to the age-old laws of lashon harah that we have just discussed. If you think you heard someone say something nasty and you are sure you know who said it. Don’t be so sure anymore.
The Torah laws of speech have not changed. They are instructions from G-d for eternity.
However, the ever-developing technologies require that we adapt and develop the laws to know how they apply to the advances that are made as the world marches closer to its final destiny.
The incredible revolution of the industrial age and the subsequent techonoly age is all a preparation for the explosion of G-dly knowledge that is developing as we are about to welcome Mashiach.
The coming of Mashiach will usher in a world of peace and utopia.
No wars, no jealousies and not even unhealthy competition.
All the reasons and excuses for societal discord will no longer be around.
This means that all of us will be totally united as one family and community.
This description of the way the world will be when Mashiach comes is depicted in the final chapters of the Rambams 1000 chapters of laws.
The Rebbe issued a call nearly forty years ago to join a study cycle of Rambam, this studying the entire oral Torah every year or three years.
The fact that so many Jewish people are on the same ‘page’ learning the same material all around the globe, is a unifying exercise that brings blessing and light to our nation.
Here is my call to action.
- As we are still close enough to the pandemic to appreciate the worlds emergence from Covid lockdowns,
- during this year of Hakhel gathering,
- as we read the portion of the Torah regarding ensuring that our speech doesn’t drive us apart,
- especially during this weekend as we finish the united study cycle of the Rambam (click her to join the new cycle),
Let us make efforts to appreciate the gift and power of gathering together with others.
Let us instigate and initiate gatherings of our families, extended families, communities, and any kind of group that has a commonality that binds them together.
If you are a leader in any kind of group, go ahead and make a gathering of your group and share Divine inspiration.
You will be bringing blessing for the group as a whole and for each individual therein.
It’s not a secret but sometimes we forget just how true it is.
Hashem blesses us most impactfully when we are TOGETHER.
May Mashiach come immediately and bind us TOGETHER FOREVER
AM YISRAEL CHAI.
May this be a reality speedily in our days. AMEN
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor