Watch Your Words
Dear Friends,This week's Parashat Tazria, discusses the laws of a person afflicted with Tsaraat. Tsaraat was a rare disease in which the skin of a person grew some grotesque like features. The inflicted person would then be isolated from the Jewish people for a period of time until his/her Tsaraat would go away. Interestingly enough, though this disease showed physical manifestations, its cause unlike other diseases, was not physical in nature. Some people even mistakenly translate it as leprosy. In truth however, Tsaraat was a disease brought about by what we Jews regard as a spiritual sickness, "Sins". The sages explain that Tsaraat was caused by the particular sin of Lashon Hara, (speaking bad about someone). In fact, the root of the word Tsaraart comes from the Hebrew words "Motsi-Rah", which mean, "Saying Evil". We all know that speaking badly about people is not a good thing, but many of us don't understand just how serious this sin really is. This supernatural disease teaches us about the severity of gossiping and speaking badly about others. Gossip and evil speech only bring division and destruction into the world, separating people and causing hatred. This is why the Torah requires that the afflicted person become isolated from the rest of the people. Just as he/she caused division and separation between people through their evil speech, so should they become separated from the rest of society. In life we often feel licensed to express how we feel about certain individuals and their actions. We may feel justified in speaking negatively about them on the grounds that what we say is "true'. In truth however, every time a person says something bad about someone else, they just bring more evil into the world. Each bad word doesn't only harm the person who we are speaking about, it harms all the people engaged in the conversation.
Shabbat shalom
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