Tazria - Gossip and Bars of Soap

[Music] out of all the hundreds of sins mentioned in the Torah there seems to be one that rises to the top there is one that seems to take Center Stage there is one that seems to have a completely disproportionate centrality to it the tus seems to declare it the mother of all sins that sin is Lush andhara gossip the amount of focus and attention given to it relative to other AOS is mind bogglingly immense so much so that it begs an explanation for example out of all the negative Mitzvah written in the entire toyra none have more ink dedicated to them than the Commandment of refraining from lashara almost two full parus n discuss it over 100 Pim elaborate on it one transgresses more negative Commandments simultaneously by speaking lanara than any other singular sin and the holy deamer in the kadash the very first thing the Coen God asks forgiveness for is for the sin of lashara the very first thing we ask Hashem for in our personal supplements at the end of shon is El should help protect our mouths from speaking bad Yi says that lar is as bad as all the other AAS in the T that same Yi says that one who speaks lar it's as if he doesn't believe in God it says that one who speaks is worthy to be thrown to dogs the entire generation of Jews that made it out of Egypt who were some of the greatest Jews who ever lived were all wiped out why because they listened to L about the land of erel the says that the absolute middle PK in the entire Torah the very halfway point implying extreme criticality is L in this week's para which discusses Lara the list can go on so why does Lura take up such an extremely Central and prominent spot on the mantle of sin what is it about gossip that elected it king of all iniquities aren't there other sinful traits that are also bad like theft dishonesty stinginess haughtiness laziness some of these one can argue seem even worse so what is it about lanara that makes it reign supreme perhaps the following idea can shed some light for many thousands of years the human body was thought by conventional wisdom to be a random collection of Parts miraculously working in sync to maintain the life of the body it was then discovered that every human body has what is called DNA which is the letter coding of the human body those letters determine the physiological makeup of man rather than random cells floating in our bodies we are in truth the sum total of a hugely specific letter coding that make up our Inner Essence the missiona says the world was created with 10 utterances even before the very Genesis of the world there were words in existence they are the ultimate Foundation upon which the world rests bous barim s in the beginning Hashem created s Al to S the Hebrew alphabet when Hashem created utam and blew into him Sparks of divinity he elevated him above animals with the power of speech the line of demarcation between man and Beast is his ability to articulate his thoughts through words speech is more than mere communication it is the very brick work that builds our words our world words are what powers every thought and every idea and enables them to transform our world words were created before the world was created for words are the very backbone of our world so if the Power of Words applies to humans in general all the more so is it true when it comes to Jews immense spiritual ideas are expressed with words the aser had dius the Ten Commandments shook the Earth to its core the ultimate Safeguard of our tradition are the words that carry it the telling over the story of leaving Egypt the reading the hagada the Milla the weak toal laning the mother who Whispers prayers by her child's bedside the father who lovingly teaches his son the olive Bayes the thousands upon thousands of words of Torah that are uttered every second in every corner of the globe what DNA is to humanity holy words are to the Jew they are the energy that powers our people so when the words that come out of our mouths degrade and belittle be smch and provoke they not only hurt the person under attack they break down the bricks that are here to build the world the words that are to bind us together ensuring the continuity of Judaism and etra become poisoned when used to Splinter and fragment when ill words come out of our mouths pointing out the flaws of another the very purpose of words backfires we take the very tool Hashem placed into this world to care and to love to nurture and to teach to sing and to communicate to encourage and to inspire and we selfishly use it to push our peers down and to prop ourselves up but more than merely demonstrating a negative character trait when we speak lanara we are revealing our inner Outlook of our fellow Jews we aren't seeing this person as a cherish member of our holy nation we see nothing more than a competitor in The Game of Life our speech reveals our outlook on judism in general when destructive words fly out of our mouths it is demonstrative of the rotten Outlook we have towards one another an Outlook of fragmentation and divide as opposed to togetherness and love such divide reveals our Collective disinterest in serving an aem's team together we declare that our fellow Jews aren't our holy Brothers they are our verbal punching bags useful only when we need to make others small for us to feel big the Hebrew word for Saras the spiritual charged skin disease that punishes wash and Hara speakers is Nega the Hebrew word for pleasure is on the difference between the two words is the placement of the letter I the word I means eyes either it's placed at the end of the word or it's front and center at the beginning the difference between Nega and on is merely where we place our eyesight do we look at our neighbors and see evil and bad corruption and guilt people who are mere competitors in the rat race of life or do we see pure holy loving Jews who albeit imperfect are all integral parts of the nation of Hashem the way we use words determines if we live in the garden of o or the dungeon of Nea there is a fascinating G Inus that seems to give a very strange awfully strange dating advice it says that if one finds a perspective Ive spouse and sees that they have they have gorgeous beautiful eyes one need not check the rest of the body one can be assured it is likewise gorgeous and beautiful now there is an obvious question one does not need to go very far to find people who have beautiful eyes but let's just say have slightly unpleasant features or deformities so what exactly does this gimar mean the cleous says that the gar is not referring to physical appearance the gamar means that if one comes across another person with a healthy beautiful positive outlook of others no other character traits need to be examined for this is the ultimate litus test of piousness the gar unequivocally declares if you come across a person who looks at others and sees good marry that person for when they look around they don't merely see people they see Souls they see nesos they see worthy members of hashem's Team strong and glor glorious soldiers in the army of God such people hold up the world let me tell you an unbelievable story Martin fredman was a simple irreligious Jew who once went to Israel to visit his children living there his son-in-law a Syrian Jew decided to bring him to get a blessing from K ovad ysf the global leader of spartic jury at the time they walked up the steps to the Yosef residence and waited online like everyone else and due to the throngs of people who came to catch a glimpse of rebela it was expected that they would get a few seconds with the Holy sage no more when Martin walked into the room Kad stopped what he was doing and froze he got up and pointed to Martin and said you I smell the scent of ganaden coming off of you Martin wasn't sure what to do himself he just stood there radya asked him what is your your Merit Martin who had no idea what the word meant responded that he doesn't know what the holy Rabbi is talking about Raj was determined and repeated tell me what your Merit is why does the smell of G then emanate from you Martin again looked at the chief Rabbi and reiterated I am a simple man I'm not even religious I don't know what you're talking about I don't know what you're seeing announced that everyone should leave the room he sat down and brought Martin close to him and he again looked at him in the eye and said you have the smell of ganen coming off of you and I would like to know why looking at kadya Marton replied Perhaps it is the following in the year 1945 after the war ended Jews shared a collective sigh of relief as each person found his respective Safe Haven to begin life knew my father on the other hand couldn't sleep night after night he would come downstairs in the middle of the night and cry what's going to be with all the bars of soap he would weep all those Millions upon millions of Jewish bodies that were killed and made into bars of soap for the sadistic Germans to use what will be with them who will bury them all those Jews sitting in German closets and bathrooms all those beautiful sweet Jewish children who not only got killed in horrific fashion but now have to clean the very B IES of the murderers who killed them can you imagine all those holy women who sacrificed themselves for the sake of God in heaven who haven't gotten a they don't even get a proper Jewish burial he would cry he would scream he would shriek with all his might one day he had enough he came downstairs with a suitcase in his hand and turned to my mother and said I'm going to Europe and I am hunting soap and you he said turning to me are coming with me I was 10 at the time so we went to Europe and we traveled from town to town knocking on doors asking if they had any German soap that we can buy we went around in the sleep and in the rain we walked around along Alleyways and through slums we went by car and by train and by horse and by boat not a town did we let by my father was possessed while the rest of our people were all searching for New Life my father and I were searching for death death in the form of small bars of soap we would plead with people to sell us their German soap and then my father and I would take a shovel dig a hole say a small prayer and with tears rolling down our cheeks we would bury those holy bars of soap eventually we came to the last town on our map we limped through cold tired starved exhausted out of money we made it to the last house in our town and my father knocked on the door a tall SK SC looking German opened the door and looked at us pathetic dishevel looking Jews what do you want he asked I would like your German bars of soap my father replied the German looked at us with suspicion I'll sell them to you for 15 marks my father looked at him and said we don't have any money but I'm asking you I'm begging you to do us a favor and give it give it to us anyway absolutely not shot back the man as he was about to close the door I raised my voice and said sir those bars of soap are our friends our family our people wives lived in truth and integrity are in those bars people who did nothing but bring goodness and light to the world are pressed into those bars men and women who kept the world afloat with their kindness and love had their lives cut short and are in those very bars we had been to every city and every town every Hamlet and every village every nook and every cranny every ghetto in every Camp to ensure that those precious bars of soap got buried see this shirt on my back see this shirt on my back I will take it off and hand it to you in exchange for those bars of soap the German albeit surprised agreed and we buried the last bars of soap in Europe exhausted and shirtless I limped back to America and quietly lived the rest of my life each of us have flaws some of us have many flaws but all of us have mountains we've climbed and Heights we've soared Temptations we've overcome and anger we've subsided kindness we've done in prayers we've uttered an unassuming man one un completely utterly unnoteworthy one who we would think is like everyone else riding the subway can be credited with burying a literal continent worth of Jewish bodies if we would have holy Vision we would see the good in people we would smell the sense of ganaden that their holy souls exude we would only think to speak highly of them never using our distinctly human power of speech to belittle and tear down each Jew is a cherished gem on God's Crown how destructively shortsighted to think otherwise words are the very fuel of humanity sure they can destroy but they can build as well if we are careful to use them well we can rebuild God's palace on Earth Brick by Brick and His glory will reign with us yet again may it be soon [Music]