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The entire yeshiva offers its condolences to Tania Shichtman, mother of our student, Mordechai Shichtman, on the loss of her mother. HaMakom yenachem etchem b'toch sha'ar avelei Tzion v'Yerushalayim. The spring zman began this week, as our students returned from bein hazmanim refreshed and ready to conclude the year with two months of strong learning and religious growth. This Shabbat is an in-Shabbat, hosted by Rav Moshe Lichtman and his family. Along with his participation in the inspiring davening, delicious meals, and oneg Shabbat, Rav Lichtman will be giving several shiurim, including, "Simcha shel Mitzvah", "Is there a Mitzvah to Live in Eretz Yisrael?", "Can this Really be the Beginning of the Redemption?", and "How I became a Crazy Zionist." On Sunday, the yeshiva will be having its annual pre-Yom HaZikaron tiyul to prominent battle sites in Jerusalem, as well as Har Herzl. On Sunday night, we will participate in the local Yom HaZikaron memorial service. On Tuesday - Yom HaAtzmaut - we are proud to host Joe Hyams, the CEO of HonestReporting.com, who will speak to our students about combatting media bias against Israel. His talk will be followed by a shiur by Rav Wolicki on the nature of Religious Zionism, which in turn will be followed by the film, "The Long Way Home" about the years between World War II and the War of Independence. Finally, we will be hosting our sixth annual Yom HaAtzmaut barbecue for all our students, staff, and their families on Tuesday afternoon. If you are in Beit Shemesh, please join us for the celebrations!

The Four Levels of Lashon Hara
By Rabbi Scott Kahn

The parashiot of Tazria and Metzora deal extensively with the myriad details of tzara'at , the external marks that can be found on skin, clothing, and house walls. Chazal explain that these unwanted discolorations are a punishment for the sin of lashon hara, and are meant to warn the gossipmonger to stop his inappropriate behavior before the various marks become more serious in nature.

The Rambam, at the conclusion of Hilchot Tum'at Tzara'at (17:10), explains the progression as follows:

"This change in clothing and houses which the Torah calls tzara'ais is not a natural occurrence, but instead a sign and wonder in Israel in order to warn them against speaking lashon hara. For when one speaks lashon hara, the walls of his house change. If he ceases, the house becomes pure; but if he continues in his wickedness until the house must be dismantled, the leather vessels in his house, upon which he sits and sleeps, change. If he ceases, they become pure; but if he continues in his wickedness until they must be burned, the clothing he wears changes. If he ceases, they become pure; but if he continues in his wickedness until they must be burned, his skin changes and acquires tzara'at, and he must remain separate and visibly alone until he no longer involves himself in the speech of the wicked - that is, mockery and lashon hara."

The Rambam thus presents four steps in the progression of tzara'at: the speaker's house, his furniture, his clothing, and himself. What is the deeper meaning behind these four manifestations of tzara'at?

An individual's identity is defined, knowingly or unknowingly, through four specific levels of being. The first is his own identity - that is, the person's soul, his true and authentic self, known only to G-d and, perhaps, to himself. The second level is the face a person presents to the outside world, the identity which he projects through his actions and with which he wants to be associated. The third level is an individual's immediate community, the friends and family with whom he is most intimately connected. The final level is the larger society of which he is a part, and which provides the most general framework in which he assumes an identity. For example, a Jewish man who lives in Israel is, at the first level, a unique soul who is fundamentally unknowable to anyone but G-d and himself. At the second level, the people who know him best see him as a human being with specific qualities, talents, emotions, faults, and who acts in all the ways that make him an individual. At the third level, people see him as part of his immediate social circle, as a member of a family and a specific group of friends. At the fourth level, he is seen as Jew living in Israel - the least individualistic part of his identity, but the general framework in which every other level operates.

The Rambam explains further in the same text quoted above,

"This is the way the wicked that mock assemble: At first, they speak much nonsense-through which they come to speak ill of the righteous-through which they will become accustomed to speaking about the prophets, and disparaging their words--through which they will come to speak negatively about G-d, and denying the fundamentals of faith."

The Rambam states that lashon hara not only is prohibited, but also leads directly to verbal wrongdoing of the highest order. Initial gossip results in gossip about the righteous, which, in turn, results in the disparaging of the prophets and, ultimately, G-d Himself.

These four levels of the increasing severity of lashon hara directly parallel the four layers of a person's identity. The first level of lashon hara refers to speaking about members of the general populace - that is, the society of which he is a part. The second level, slandering the righteous, hits closer to home, for "the righteous one is the foundation of the world (Mishlei 10:25)" - that is, the entire world rests upon their merit. Chazal repeatedly inform us that our own survival largely rests upon the merit of the greatest tzaddikim; they are, even if we do not recognize it as such, our own direct guardians and the most important people in our lives. The third level of lashon hara, speaking ill of the prophets, means that a person is tearing down the most central aspects of his own external identity. The words of the prophets, as recorded in the Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim, tell us how we must act, and what we must do with our lives. When we mock these foundational personalities and their cherished ideas, we are tearing down the necessity for action in accordance with G-d's will - that is, we are undermining our own actions, and the aspects of our personalities that we show the outside world. The final level of lashon hara, denying G-d, means, in effect, to deny our own souls and our own deepest identity; for every Jewish soul is, so to speak, a spark of divinity, an entity that comes from within Hashem Himself. When a person denies G-d, he has severely injured the core of his very being.

The four manifestations of tzara'at symbolize these four layers of being and levels of severity. A person's house represents his society, and that which provides the immediate backdrop for all that he does. His furniture - or in the Rambam's words, those things "upon which he sits and sleeps" - symbolize his more immediate circle of friends with which he comes in direct contact, and the righteous upon whom he most directly relies. An individual's clothing demonstrates the personality that he wants to project to the outside world, and the external actions that show people what kind of person he is. Finally, a person's body represents his most intimate identity, associated with his soul and with G-d.

The individual who speaks lashon hara is, in actuality, harming himself as much as he harms others, for he injures every aspect of his own personality by sequentially undermining every layer of his identity. Accordingly, the various manifestations of tzara'at are not simply punishments, but are direct warnings that inform someone who is tangled in the sticky web of lashon hara that by every word he speaks, he is destroying the things closest to him.

With G-d's help, we will all internalize "the sign and wonder" represented by tzara'at so that we can avoid the plague of evil speech before it destroys us.