Musar for Arakhin 30:58

Torah study is also a preventative against one's coming to (speak) lashon hara, as they said there (Arachin 15b): "What is the preventative against lashon hara? If he is a Torah scholar, let him occupy himself with Torah." The reason is obvious, as we find in Sanhedrin 99b: "All men are created for toil, viz. (Iyyov 5:7): 'For man is born for toil.' I would not know whether for toil of the lips or toil of labor — if it were not written: (Mishlei 16:22): 'For he saddles his mouth with it,' which indicates that he was born for toil of the lips. And I still would not know whether for the [lip] toil of Torah or the toil of converse — if it were not written (Joshua 1:8): 'Let the book of this Torah not depart from your mouth,' which indicates that he was created for the toil of Torah." The idea is that the nature was given man, when speech was given to him, that the tools of speech do what is theirs without becoming fatigued, unlike the other organs, which man must spur himself to put into operation. Not so, the faculty of speech. And this is the intent of "the toil of the lips." But a man must reflect that this power was given him only to merit Torah. Therefore, it is stated that the preventative of speaking lashon hara is only occupying oneself with Torah, for lacking this, he will certainly stumble into forbidden speech. For it is man's nature that his tools of speech not be inoperative (unless he is able to overcome his yetzer and make himself "mute," as they say in Chullin 89a).

And, especially, one who scrutinizes carefully the introduction to the Chafetz Chaim, and, the first two gates of all of its chapters will see that in fulfillment of the trait of guarding his tongue there will be deducted from him every year several hundreds and thousands of sins and added to him in exchange many hundreds and thousands of mitzvoth. For even if there only be deducted from him through this ten words of improper speech each day, that he has muzzled his mouth from speaking, it would still amount to over three thousand per year (And in this way I have explained what Chazal have said (Arachin 15b): "All who speak lashon hara increase sins until the heavens," the meaning being that if one is habituated to this sin, then from this itself his sins increase greatly), and those [muzzled] words would be reckoned as mitzvoth for him in the world to come. As Chazal have said (Makkoth 23b): "If a man sits [idle] and does not commit a sin, he is rewarded as one who has done a mitzvah, and, for every moment that he muzzles his mouth, etc." And he will also arrive, as a matter of course, at many holy traits, as I have written in the Second Gate of this work.

See the aptness of these words of Chazal, who compared one afflicted by this sin to one bitten by a mad dog. For, in truth, both are alike. As stated in Yoma 84a: "One bitten by a mad dog has no cure." And about lashon hara they have also said that there is no remedy for one who is habituated to this sin, G-d forbid, viz. (Arachin 15b): "If he has already slandered, there is no remedy for him."

And we learn also in Pirkei d'R. Eliezer: "Anyone who speaks lashon hara against his friend in secret has no cure, as it is written (Psalms 101:5): 'He who slanders his neighbor in secret, him will I cut off [forever].' And it is stated elsewhere (Devarim 27:24): 'Cursed be he who smites his neighbor in secret.' Come and see [what happened to] the serpent. Because he spoke lashon hara between the Holy One Blessed be He and Adam and his wife, the Holy One Blessed be He cursed him (Bereshith 3:14): 'And dust shall you eat all the days of your life.'" (That is, just as it is written there "all the days of your life," the intent being that he not be cured even in the days of the Messiah, as stated in Berachoth 12b: "the days of your life" — this world; "all the days of your life" — to include the days of the Messiah" — so, here, he [the speaker of lashon hara] has no cure forever.) And I have seen also in the holy books that if one speaks lashon hara, his sustenance diminishes, like that of a serpent [i.e., "And dust shall you eat, etc."]

We have also opened in this part an additional gate, the third gate, "The Gate of Torah," which subsumes all of the gates, as Chazal have said: "He who lacks this [Torah], what has he acquired? And he who has acquired this, what does he lack?" (And it [Torah], too, is of great benefit to the man who wants life. As they have said (Arachin 15b): "What is the amendment of the "man of lashon hara? If he is a Torah scholar, let him occupy [himself] in [the study of] Torah.") And in it will be explained the greatness of the reward of the man who sanctifies his speech with Torah, and the reward of him who dedicates his sons to Torah, and various other things that branch out of this. And because there will be in this part, with the help of the Blessed L-rd, many things that are essential for a Jew to know and to fulfill, it [this part] is especially beloved of me, and I have given it a name by itself. It shall be called "Shmirath Halashon" ["The Guarding of the Tongue,"] as per Mishlei 21:23: "One who guards his mouth and his tongue guards his soul from troubles."

Now when we come to assess the greatness of the sin of lashon hara, the damage one can do with his tongue, we find ourselves powerless to do so. For it permeates all of Torah, Prophets, Writings, and the apothegms of our sages of blessed memory. And, in general, one knows that he undermines thereby [the processes of] the upper worlds, [strengthening thereby the Sitra Achara (the "Adversary") and giving it power to incriminate the entire world.] And, below, he spoils the entire creation and himself, [for he thereby draws down the spirit of uncleanliness on all the fibers of his soul, as we find in the holy Zohar, Metzora.] And he harms others, as our sages of blessed memory have said (Arachin 15b): "The third tongue [i.e., the tongue of the talebearer, which is the third between a man and his neighbor, to reveal secrets to him] kills three: the speaker [of lashon hara], the accepter, and the object." And, in general, they said (Ibid.): "All who speak lashon hara magnify sin until the heavens, as it is written (Psalms 73:9): 'They set their mouths in the heavens when their tongues walk the earth.'" The plain explanation is that they thereby arouse the great Prosecutor against Israel, and bring death, sword, and slaughter to the world, as we find in the holy Zohar (see Chapter III).

And we can say that apparently "All who speak lashon hara" applies to one who is habituated to it and does not take it upon himself to guard himself against it. And there is always someone who finds someone to speak about every day. And even if we do not reckon many words, but only four or five a day, that is, about thirty words a week, and, in the course of a year, about fifteen hundred words, even if we consider lashon hara only one negative commandment, [he violates] fifteen hundred negative commandments a year! For certainly, just as in words of holiness, every word in itself is [fulfillment of] a positive commandment, so, in forbidden speech, every word is an issur in itself. And if he conducts himself in this manner his whole life, he accumulates about eighty thousand or more. And it is known that from every transgression a "prosecutor" is created, as we find in Avoth 4:11: "Anyone who commits one transgression acquires for himself one prosecutor" [How much turmoil must grip one's heart when he reflects that he has massed against himself a great army of such prosecutors!] All this, by a reckoning of four or five words a day, which are common to many men. How much more will there be found, among the notorious speakers of lashon hara, more than two hundred [such] words a day. This is the intent of "All who speak lashon hara magnify sin until the heavens."

(Ibid. 10): "And Aaron turned to Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous." For through the sin of lashon hara, plague-spots come, and his [the speaker's] punishment is to be a metzorah muchlat [a confirmed metzorah], as we find in the Gemara (Arachin 15b): "If one speaks lashon hara, he is afflicted with plague-spots, viz.: (Psalms 101:5): 'He who slanders his neighbor in secret, him atzmith,' and (Vayikra 25;30): 'latzmituth' which the Targum renders 'lachalutin'; [that is, that he be a metzora muchlat] concerning which we learned: 'The only difference between a quarantined leper [metzora musgar] and a confirmed [muchlat (similar to 'lachalutin')] leper is disheveling of the hair and rending of the clothes" [(these obtaining with the second, but not with the first)]. And the prayer of Moses availed her, but not entirely — only to change her from a confirmed leper to a quarantined leper.

And it is important to give the full meaning in this matter, for a gossip repeats his folly; ten times or more every day he humiliates and shames people, aside from the damage that he does to the one that he speaks against. And even a small transgression, when done many times, becomes great, just as although a single hair is soft and very weak, if you gather many hairs together, you can make of them a strong rope. And when they said that gossip is on a scale with those three mortal sins, they referred to one who commits any of these sins once, because of great temptation, but not to one who is such a complete apostate that he has excluded himself from the people of Israel, in order to commit these sins repeatedly. Moreover, a gossip finds it difficult to repent, because he is used to this habit and has taught his tongue to speak evil. Furthermore, this sin appears very light in his eyes, for he says, "I did not do anything — it was just talk." He does not consider the great damage he does, and therefore he does not repent. And even if he should repent, his repentance is not complete, for he does not realize the enormity of the sin which he has committed. Moreover, he must first obtain forgiveness from those against whom he has spoken, and he cannot remember whom they all are. And it may happen that he spoke against a man, and did him evil, and caused him harm and forgot what it was that he said about that man, for gossip is always covered up; it is a blow struck in secret. The gossiper is here and smites with his tongue a person who is far away from him (Arakin 15b, Gen. Rabbah 98:19). And this type of sinner is ashamed to let his victim know that he has done him evil. Sometimes he speaks about a defect in the family of the object of his gossip, thus injuring the generations that come after him, and there is no forgiveness for this, for our Sages said, "For one who speaks about a flaw in a family, there is no forgiveness eternally" (T.P. Baba Kamma 8:10).

And our Sages, of blessed memory, said, "Gossip slays three people — the one who speaks gossip, the one who listens to it and the one about whom the gossip is said" (Arakin 15b, and see T.P. Peah 1:1). And he who listens to the gossip is guiltier than he who speaks it. It is forbidden to dwell in the neighborhood of gossips, all the more so is it forbidden to sit with them and listen to their words.

Come and see, how careful a man ought to be to guard himself against gossip. If a man says to his companion, "Where can I obtain fire?" And his companion answers, "Why in the house of so and so; he always has plenty of meat and fish." Even this is gossip! (Arakin 15b).

The tenth principle of repentance is to reverse one's deeds. How does one do that? If he has been guilty of looking at indecent things, then let him conduct himself with lowered eyes. If he has been guilty of gossip, let him occupy himself with Torah (Arakin 15b). And with any limb with which he has sinned let him try to fulfill commandments (see Yalkut Judges, 42). And thus did our Sages say, "The righteous men in the very thing with which they had sinned appease God" (see Yalkut Hosca, 529). And more did our Sages say, "If you have committed bundles of transgressions, do in opposition to them bundles of good deeds. Feet which ran hastily to sin must now quickly run to do a good deed. A mouth which once spoke disobedience and rebellion now let his palate speak the truth and let him open his mouth with wisdom. Hands that spilled innocent blood, let him open his hand to the poor. Eyes that were haughty, let him be contrite and walk with lowered eyes. A heart that plotted wrongdoing, let him store up in his heart the words of the Torah" (Lev. Rabbah 21:5).

The third aspect concerning which man's conduct on earth will be examined is alluded to by the dual spelling of 25,30 in connection with the discussion of the applicability of the law on redemption of houses sold permanently. The Talmud Erchin 15 discusses the advantage enjoyed by a creature who has been given the power of speech. Basing themselves on Psalms 120,3 "What can you profit, what can you gain, O deceitful tongue," our sages portray G–d as saying to the tongue: "All the other limbs of man are upright; but you are in a prone position. All the other limbs of man are an appendix to his body, but you are within his body. Not only that but I have surrounded you with two חומות, walls, one of bone (the teeth) and one of flesh." The secret dimension of the letter מ is that it appears both as an open letter and as a closed letter (the final ם which in its form is like a closed wall). When a person is circumspect about the use of his tongue, the mouth acts like a dosed wall. When he is careless, his mouth is like a wall which has broken down. This is alluded to in the final, closed ם in the middle of the word in Isaiah 9,6: למרבה הפשרה ולשלום אין קץ, "In token of abundant authority and of peace without limit." In the verse just quoted, our Rabbis perceive that it is human nature to look for faults in others, i.e. "a broken wall" while considering themselves like a "closed wall," i.e. free from faults. This is the deeper meaning of what our sages (Baba Batra 2a) describe as היזק ראיה, damage caused to a person by invading his privacy by looking into his domain [a kind of peeping. Ed]. It is the moral background to the Mishnah in the above mentioned section of the Talmud in which the contribution a neighbor has to make to a wall dividing common property is discussed. The purpose of the wall is to prevent such damage. In other words, the so-called damage is due to the tendency of people to discover something discreditable about their neighbors. We see that even halachically the wall is perceived as something that prevents damage of an abstract nature such as היזק ראיה.

Money/silver - it is written "The tongue of the just is like choice silver" (Prov. 10:20) and it is also written "under the shadow of wisdom, under the shadow of silver" (Eccl. 7:12). Look and see the analogy of silver to speech and of silver to wisdom. There is a hint there, that they said "life and death are in the hands of the tongue, one who wants who live can do so because of the tongue, one who wants to die can do so because of the tongue" (Arakhin 15b). And they also said that the Torah is similar to a simple drug one who wants life [can get it through Torah] one who wants death [can get it through Torah] (Kidushin 30b). So too this we can say about the question of money: one who wants who live can do so because of the money, one who wants to die can do so because of the money - this is because most of the transgressions are caused due to a person being eager after money: robbing, stealing, exploitation, cheating, swearing falsely, swearing a lie, lies, unrighteousness in character traits [NT: could be 'in judgment' as עול במשפט makes more sense in the context of Torah list], moving boundaries, disputes, jealousy, hatred, rivalry, forbidden foods, desecration of Shabbat and holy days, and most of the transgressions that a person does is over gaining money, and the sin of desecrating God's Name is on top of them all. And so too, someone who loves their money cancels most of the mitzvot and the prayers and the blessings, and study of Torah corresponds to them all. And when such a person does them, they are unfit due to the doing them as fast as possible, and with miserliness, and the fact that one's heart is not into it, since that person's heart is only preoccupied with their own gain all the time, and they avert their eyes from [the needy by not giving] tzedakah, and when this person wants to do it, they really don't, and likewise many evils are done this way "riches kept for their owner to the owner's pwn hurt" (Eccl. 5:12) and at its hands one inherits Gehenna and goes down to the pit of destruction.