Significance Of Speech And Egregiousness Of Sinful Speech

Well, one of the topics that preoccupies us during these weeks of Kriyat HaTorah is that of speech, Dibur. It's suggested, it's triggered by the Parshiot Tazria, Metzora and the Negaim, Lashon Hara and this week the Lav of לא תלך רכיל בעמך. So perhaps we'll spend a few minutes not talking narrowly, exclusively about Lashon Hara, but about Dibur in general. Again, the trigger is Lashon Hara and the staggering, staggering Mamarei Chazal about Lashon Hara.

אמרו חכמים שלוש עבירות נפרעין מן האדם בעולם הזה ואין לו חלק לעולם הבא עבודה זרה וגילוי עריות ושפיכות דמים ולשון הרע כנגד כולם. ואמרו חכמים כל המספר בלשון הרע כאילו כפר בעיקר.

So again, that's the impetus to reflecting about Dibur, but what we're going to say relates to Dibur in general and in general, proper speech, improper speech, Lav Davka that Lashon Hara and Lav Davka that we're reaching the goal of fully appreciating those Mamarei Chazal that we just reviewed. The first thing to recognize is that we operate initially with a certain disadvantage, a certain bias that through osmosis many of us absorb from the society in which we live. And that is the notion that Al Pi Torah is entirely wrong and mistaken is that there's more reality to concrete tangible action than there is to Dibur. The implicit message that we're given in sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me is not necessarily that Sheker Hachein and לוותר על כבודך Vechulu Vechulu I'm not sure that's the Mussardiger idea which is being intimated, but probably what's being intimated is there's no reality to it, so it's Mah Bachach. And that's certainly not the Torah's approach. Machshava is a reality, Dibur is a reality, Maaseh is a reality. If anything, on some levels Dibur and Machshava are a greater reality than Maaseh. So first we need to try to extricate ourselves from that error. Let's perhaps begin as follows. The Rambam writes in Sefer Hamitzvot when he's talking about the Mitzvah of Chilul Hashem, so he writes that the second example, the second instance of Chilul Hashem is שיעשה אדם עבירה אין טיבה בה ולא הנאה. When a person does an Aveira which is not motivated by any physical desire. There's no physical enjoyment associated with the aveira.

אבל יכוין בפעולתו המרי ופריקת עול מלכות שמים. הנה זה גם כן מחלל שם שמים ולוקה ולפיכך אמר ולא תשבעו בשמי לשקר וחללת את שם אלוהיך כי זה מכוין להכעיס בזה העניין ואין הנאה גשמית בזה.

So it's a remarkable, remarkable Rambam in the sense that the Rambam seems to only know of two extreme alternatives without any kind of middle ground in between. The Rambam knows of actions which are, again, motivated, which are propelled by a hana'ah gashmis, by a taiva. And then he knows of actions which are lehach'is, rachmana litzlan, spiteful, to anger, lehach'is. And there doesn't seem to be any middle ground. Once he determines that there's no hana'ah gashmis which is driving a person's actions, he says, so he's being mechaven lehach'is. I don't know, we see a whole broad spectrum in between those two, in between those two, there's a whole range of motivations. So what's pshat? In Shmonah Perakim, in Perek Chamishi, the Rambam is talking about וכל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים, the parallel discussion to what he later has in the Yad in פרק ג' הלכות דעות. And the Rambam says as follows:

לפי שאדם אם ניגש ואכל מאכל ערב לחיך ריחו טוב מאכל תאוה.

If a person eats something which is tasty, it has a very enticing aroma, something very succulent that arouses a taiva in a person, but v'hu mazik, that it's known to have a harmful effect on a person. Ve'efshar, the Rambam says maybe you want to dramatize the case, take an extreme case, שיהא גורם למחלה מסוכנת או אף גם אבוד לגמרי. So if a person disregards, again, the potential injurious effects and eats it because it's tasty, because it's enticing, so then the Rambam, who had no need for political correctness, only for emes, writes

הרי הוא והבהמה שוים ואין זה מעשה אדם מצד היותו אדם אלא מעשה אדם מצד היותו בעל חי נמשל כבהמות נדמו.

He says there's nothing human about that. Fork and knife and napkin around the neck or on one's lap notwithstanding, the Rambam says there's nothing human about that because I'm just responding to a primal, physical urge, instinct, need. אבל תהיה פעולתו אנושית, it's only a human action; eating is is only elevated to the human plane אם אכל המועיל בלבד. If a person is guided by what he needs nutritionally to function, and in accordance with that, אם יניח הערב ויאכל הבלתי ערב לפי דרישת התועלת, and if there's no other way to to do it other than to listen to what your mother's been telling you and eat your vegetables even though you don't like what they what they taste, so then, then the person is is elevating the achila into a peula enoshis. וזו פעולה בהתאם למחשבה, so then the eating is a conscious, deliberate, thoughtful act, ובזה ייבדל האדם במעשהו מזולתו, and and that's how we distinguish ourselves even within the physical realm from the animal kingdom. Then proceeds to give other other examples from the from the physical realm. But let's, well let's, well let's reflect for a moment on this. When a person does something, and again let's say not just not the Rambam's example, let's say it's a chatais, he actually rachmana litzlan eats ma'achalos asuros, and he does so in response, again to that primal physical urge, instinct, need, desire that he feels, so what it means is that he didn't elevate the nefesh habehamos. Meaning that in our natural state a person has a spiritual side, an intellectual spiritual side, but also has an animalistic side. If we comply with Torah u'mitzvos, so then even the needs of the animalistic side are filled and fulfilled in a distinctly, distinctively human way. But at the end of the day, without obviously it's the intention is not in any way to to underestimate the seriousness of it, let's say a person is chotei rachmana litzlan in response to a again a physical urge. So at the end of the day, what it means is that he's not elevating his animalistic side. There's an animalistic side that we have and when a person rachmana litzlan performs an aveira, is guilty of an aveira due to a hana'ah gashmis, so what it means is that he hasn't elevated that animalistic side. Speech, speech which represents thought is a uniquely spiritual endowment and capacity. The seichel the Rambam says is the tzelem Elokim. So the truth is when you think about it, when a person is guilty rachmana litzlan of an aveira which isn't, isn't a response, again to a physical urge. to an animalistic urge. So on a certain level that aveira is much more egregious because instead of again not elevating the animalistic side, the person has taken and abused the spiritual intellectual capacity and bracha with which Hakadosh Baruch Hu endowed him. And yitachen that what the Rambam is telling us is why does the Rambam jump over again that whole spectrum which obviously he is aware of, that he knows exists? And when the Rambam says if there's no hana’ah gashmius, so the alternative is that it’s lehachis, that it’s, that it represents a merida to take a, again, the defining spiritual intellectual tzelem Elokim gift which Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us and that that is the instrument of cheit is something very chamur. It's one bechina of cheit again not to rein in or elevate the animalistic side, but it’s an entirely different bechina of cheit to debase the human spiritual intellectual side of a person. The famous Targum, ויהי האדם לנפש חיה לרוח ממללא. So the quintessential expression of the ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים is the koach hadibbur. And again, the koach hadibbur of dibbur which again isn’t just a primal cry but dibbur which reflects thought, machshava, seichel. So when that Rachmana Litzlan is abused, it’s a different darga than not reining in the nefesh habehemis. In last week’s, I think it was the hakdama to Parshas Tazria, I think, the Rabbeinu Bachya has something remarkable. He says it's just the pshuto shel mikra in Mishlei. He’s commenting first on the pasuk of simcha l’ish. remarkably that above and beyond that level or that degree of Siyata Dishmaya that's present and inherent in everything a person does, pokeach ivrim, meichin mitzadei gaver, but above and beyond that level or that degree of Siyata Dishmaya that's present and inherent in everything a person does, there's a special level and a special degree of Siyata Dishmaya in speech. And that's what the pasuk, that's what Shlomo HaMelech is telling us in מאדם מערכי לב ומה' מענה לשון. The ability to articulate, the ability to transition from thought to the spoken word requires a special degree and level of Siyata Dishmaya. And that's what he says, mimaila, that's the שמחה לאיש במענה פיו. If a person, again, whatever the context is, a person had occasion to make a presentation, divrei Torah, or lehavdil something else, and was successful in articulating what he wanted, was successful in conveying clearly and effectively his thoughts, the reason that generates a tremendous simcha is that he recognizes that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was with him, because מאדם מערכי לב ומה' מענה לשון. Ad kan devarav. Now, lichora, the perspective which that suggests is that Rachmana Litzlan, when a person speaks in a way that he shouldn't, so as it were, he's co-opting that special degree and level of Siyata Dishmaya to speak in a way that Hakadosh Baruch Hu disapproves of. The greater the Siyata Dishmaya that's necessary for a person to implement or execute what he's doing, so then the greater the responsibility it is that that be done in accordance with ratzon shamayim.