Parshas Mattos - Masei
By Rabbi Dovid Zauderer
The Talmud in Yoma 9b states that the reason why the Beis HaMikdash HaSheini (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans on Tishah B’Av (the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av) - and consequently why we are all still languishing in the Galus (in Exile) all these years - is due to the Sinas Chinam, or baseless hatred, that Jews had for each other.
The Chafetz Chaim (in the introduction to his classic work on the laws of Lashon Hara named Chafetz Chaim) explains that were it for baseless hatred alone, the Temple would not have been destroyed. It is only because the hatred led to the Jewish people speaking Lashon Hara against each other that they were so severely punished.
I guess that means that if we Jews ever want to get out of the Galus and go back to our rightful homeland together with the rest of the Jewish people living the dream that is the Messianic Era – we had better improve our ways and be careful about not speaking Lashon Hara anymore.
Problem is that a lot of us are creatures of habit, and many of us have already become “addicted” Lashon Hara speakers. In fact, the Chafetz Chaim, in Chapters Thirteen - Sixteen of his classic work Guard Your Tongue, lists seven habits of “highly habitual gossipers”, i.e., seven ‘causes’ that might have brought us to becoming habitual Lashon Hara speakers.
The Chofetz Chaim abbreviates the seven habits using the first letter of each of the seven words. Together the letters spell “Kol Gehinom”, which translated means “all hell”. Let’s briefly look at each of them.
(1) Ka’as (anger): Someone who gets angry a lot – and very quickly – can easily fall into the habit of speaking Lashon Hara. This is because once he is taken over by his anger, he simply can’t hold back and control what comes out of his mouth. The Chafetz Chaim writes that anyone who has ‘a brain in his skull’ should run away from this bad habit of ka’as just like one runs away from fire.
(2) Leitzanus (mocking): Once a person has become a leitz, i.e. someone who sits around cracking jokes all day long, he can easily go from there to making jokes about others and mocking them. The Chafetz Chaim cites from Midrashic sources that one who engages in leitzanus will not merit to see the Shechinah (Divine Presence). So it is important to try to rid ourselves of this spiritually dangerous habit, before it’s too late.
(3) Ga’avah (arrogance): One who is haughty and full of himself can easily fall into the habit and trap of looking down at others and gossiping about them. Now if this arrogant fellow would only realize how little Torah and Mitzvos he truly has, he would have absolutely nothing to feel haughty about.
(4) Yee-ush (giving up): Many of us give up trying to keep the laws of Lashon Hara and gossip, saying that it is not realistic to expect a ‘regular person’ who is not a tzaddik (saintly person) to refrain from speaking lashon hara. The fact is, though, that the Torah did command each and every one of us not to speak Lashon Hara (see Leviticus 19:16), and we have another rule that the Torah would never command us to do a mitzvah that we can’t do. So obviously the Laws of Lashon Hara are definitely do-able, if not easy!
(5) Hefker (abandonment): i.e., his seeing that this thing [i.e., guarding one's tongue] has been "abandoned" by many people in our many sins, and [that Lashon Hara] is not considered a sin at all, so that he becomes weakened in his observance.
(6) Nirganus (negativity): A person who possesses this trait looks at everything as if it was done against him. Such people read negative meanings into people’s words, they imagine that no one likes them, and everything bad that someone else did by accident will be interpreted as if it was on purpose. It is not hard to see how such a person would come to speak negatively of others.
(7) Omer Muttar (one who thinks the forbidden is permissible): And there are people whose habituation to their sin originates in their considering it permitted. That is, the yetzer hara (evil urge) deceives them [into thinking] that this thing is not in the category of lashon hara or that the Torah did not forbid speaking lashon hara against this [kind of] man, [and that] to the contrary, it is a mitzvah to demean him for this and this reason.
“And, in truth – concludes the Chafetz Chaim - almost the majority of people stumble into lashon hara because of this failing; that is, the lack of [adequate] knowledge. And there is no remedy for this failing but prior study of all the aspects of the prohibition of Lashon Hara according to the Halachah (Jewish Law)”
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