Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

Good evening, everybody. Welcome back. It is so wonderful to be here together to learn on this beautiful Monday evening here at the TORCH Center. We're deeply grateful. I'm honored that we can learn more Torah tonight together. All right. We are beginning a new chapter here on page 759 in the Yeruch Hasidicim, Ways of the Righteous in the Treasure for Life edition, chapter 25, gate number 25, the gate of slander, Lashon Hara.
We know Lashon Hara is so dangerous. Lashon Hara is so, it's so important for us to be conscious of the words we use and to be careful not to talk negatively about another person. Lashon Hara. So many times when you tell someone, you know, maybe you shouldn't speak Lashon Hara. You're saying, speak Lashon Hara about another person. Like, what are you talking about? It's true. Nah, Lashon Hara is when it's true. Lashon Hara is when it's true.
And the Torah teaches us that one who says something about someone else that isn't true, that's not Lashon Hara. That's actually Motsi Shemra. That is bringing forth an evil name. But, Lashon Hara is when Yoshi says, So, the verse has very harsh things to say about someone who talks about a person, talks about his ancestors, talks about his ways of of the past. If someone does Teshuvah,
someone repents, you're not allowed to bring up their history. You're not only, oh, you remember back in the day when you were a thug? You remember back in the day? The other guy already did Teshuvah. You're not allowed to bring that up. As the verse states in Psalms, Let Hashem cut off all smooth-talking lips, the tongues that speak haughtily. A sage of blessed memory said as follows, Anyone who speaks slander, it is as if he denies God.
It's a very, very strong thing. To deny God is a very serious sin. Our tongues, we will prevail. Our lips are with us. Who is a master over us? And therefore, our sages tell us that we consider him one who denies God. You're doing a terrible harm to your fellow friend, to your fellow man. So what do you do when you speak negatively about, when you speak slanderously about another person? No, you're actually doing. You're damaging your fellow. You're hurting them both as a human,
but also the potential for other people to like them, for other people to do business. If someone comes over to you and says, you know that guy that you're working for? Do you know that guy that you're planning on starting your business with? You know that guy? And they tell you something, and now you're like second-guessing. You're going to rethink whether or not this partnership is a good idea. Based on what? Based on the slander that you heard from someone else.
The craziest thing is, is that the person who speaks in a bad tongue has no benefit. Definitely, one who has the habit of speaking slanderously about others removes himself from the yoke of heaven, because he's a sinner without pleasure. There's one thing if someone sins, and they get a pleasure out of it. But what's the pleasure out of speaking negatively about somebody else? You're just putting another person down. You're not getting elevated from it, and that's the psychological challenge when someone speaks slander, is that they're really not benefiting.
You know, it may help your self-esteem for a quick moment, because you feel like you're better than them. Look at them. They're so low, and you say the negative things about them. But really, it doesn't make you any better. He says it's even worse to speak in a bad tongue than to be a thief or an adulterer. Okay, they're running after their pleasures. This one's the pleasure with money. This one is physical pleasures. Okay, but what's the pleasure of speaking in a bad tongue?
There's no removal of the yoke of heaven comparable to that of speaking in a bad tongue. And even more, our Sages of Blessed Memory said, that the speaking of slander is equivalent to all three of the cardinal sins, that of idol worship, illicit relations, and spilling of blood, of murder. These are three cardinal sins. You're telling me the bad tongue is that severe? We know that each one of them, each one of those sins, those three cardinal sins,
it's better to get a bullet to the head than to commit one of those sins. We see that in each of these, whether it be someone who denies G-d and serves idolatry, whether it be someone who is a murder, each of them, it says that it's worse than committing the sins against the entire Torah. And you're saying that speaking in a bad tongue is even worse than that. He says, let's give a reason for this.
He says it's a different kind of sin when someone speaks slander against another person. He says ten times or more daily, he humiliates and shames people aside from harming the object of his slander, the subject of his slander. He says when someone sins one time, so it's one sin. You sin another time and another, it's like here, one here is easy to pull out, but ten here is very difficult to pull out. It becomes a big bunch. He says someone who sins with the sin of
slander is a very severe sin. In fact, the Chavetz Chaim in his magnificent work on Shemira Selassie, why he was named the Chavetz Chaim is because of the book he wrote called Chavetz Chaim, taken from the verse in Psalms where King David says, Who is the man who desires life? Chavetz Chaim desires life. Loves days of seeing good in every person, seeing the positive of every person. Withhold your tongue, your lips from speaking evil and your tongue from speaking negatively.
This is a very, very powerful thing. Lashon Hara. We say, well, it's not such a big deal. There was a one of our students here at Torch once told me that she gets together with all of her friends, they'd get together for coffee, they'd sit at Starbucks. I said, and what was, you know, what transpired? She says, oh, all we did was speak Lashon Hara. All we did, we would talk about this. Did you see what she was wearing to synagogue this week? Oh my goodness.
And they would talk about the husbands and talk about the wives and talk about the children and talk about their house and about their cars and to talk about their clothes and talk about talking about other people for hours. I said, you know, this happened, this conversation transpired after we spoke about the laws of slander and how terrible the laws of Lashon Hara, how terrible of a deed this is. She said, what am I supposed to do? This is the only thing we do when we get together.
We sip on our lattes and we talk about other people. Well, this is a terrible thing a person should avoid at all cost, getting into conversation with, about other people. So this concludes day number 135.

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