Rabbi Yirmiyahu Ullman - Orchot Tzaddikim: Gossip - Part 2

I believe we're on the uh second paragraph on furthermore it was said by our sages regarding is equal to idolatrous worship immorality Bloodshed so all the points out slander should compared to these three very heinous crimes we told in theorin that regarding these three transgressions a person should give up his life and not transgress them and L is equal to them together all three together a person should rather give up his life and not transgress speaking lashara this wellknown H these three Cardinal transgressions a person a non-jew says or even if a Jew somebody says to him commit this act of sexual immorality or die you're required to forfeit your life and not die serve an idol or die choose death kill this person or you die one's required to submit his life but there's an important qualification you forget it's often not said serve the idol you die kill him first boom if you can of course kill him he's threatening to kill you if you don't do this transgression so kill him kill him fast K huh K yeah quick Drama Go shows you for threatening my life it's important principle you have to remember he's a r kill him that is only said if you have no way out you can't neutralize that person there's no way of killing him so you're required to submit your own to to to submit your own life and not transgress but of course you should first take his life he's threatening you to kill you unless you do these things so kill him first and if you're going to die anyway it would probably better to go trying to take his life than to transgress take his first do that's that's that's a very important very important qualification but it's p it it's p ITW it should be pet common sense but people don't have no they think you know oh you don't have to I mean it might be considered to be a Kem to um to subject oneself to death rather than transgress that's certainly true but if you're going to die anyway then why not try and put him out in the put him out in in in in the process he's going to die anyway you're going to die any the person's going to die anyway so at least die trying to take to kill him and further they say that that applies of course even if it's a Jew a Jew says to him do it or die so kill him no questions asked on the spot if you can't if you can't still I think it would be better to forfeit your life in in through the struggle than just to passively submit to death so in any case um the point here is that the author is questioning how is it that something as as lash even though it might be very serious how could it be considered you know equivalent to these three transgressions furthermore the S said it's very stringent of anybody who admits to submits to uh is involved in L that as if he is negating the entire Torah further the sage said a person who serves Idols he is kind of abating the entire Torah so I'm not sure if he means to say here that since idolatry since lanar is like idolatry so just as idolatry abrogates the entire Torah so lanara does but why we have to say that he already told us in the that said that that says that that that's that's what AAR is excuse me that's what lashar is I'm just wondering if he means to say I don't know maybe there's a difference between being a mumar and being a ker m means he's like trading his faith that's mumar lamir he's trading his faith from God to idolatry so that's equivalent to kind of trading the entire Torah as well but there's a difference between trading and negating cair is to negate so I'm I'm just wondering whether by bringing the second teaching he intends to tell us as B idolatry is it's almost like trading the Torah but lanara is spoken about as being K negating the Torah which might be even worse excuse me and if that's what he means then that would be even worse what ker m mmer is less than I mean it's hard I'm only suggesting this I don't know for sure because mum is also used sometimes synonymously with the with with a Ker no my point is just I'm not entirely sure why the author is bring the second teaching again just to show you if if is like and is the Torah so that shows you that that's what nashara does but the previous statement just said that so why would the author be bringing the second one it's not adding it it doesn't seem adding anything I'm suggesting perhaps the distinction would be between mumar and kofer let's go on who wants to explain why it says if you're move he says that somebody who speaks is the T people Co don't do so try in the process of explaining why it's so bad why that's the case is like no I I was just trying to I was just wondering why the author brought both of these teachings when they seem to be saying the same thing just suggested one possible difference is I noticed the language regarding the AAR is only aummer whereas the language regarding lashara is K so maybe suggesting perhaps mummer is less stringent than kof being a mummer is related to like changing is changing God for this Idol but ker is to deny maybe there's a difference let's go on we can explain the matter as follows the uh person who speaks lanara he's different in his transgression why because 10 time 10 times and more every day he embarrass embarrasses other people above and beyond the which the damage that he causes to the people he's speaking about even if it's a light transgression a person transgresses it frequently he it makes it big a small thread and a small small thread a thousand times becomes a heavy rope One Hair which is soft and weak when you make many of these hairs together becomes a strong rope and that which the teaching says that corresponds to these three serious transgressions the explanation is time situation where he transgresses one of these other transgressions like on a one time basis because of his yet it's not we're not comparing this the person who speaks to the person who entirely repudiates Judaism and is not practicing it all it's talking about somebody who transgresses on a one-time basis so that's one way of explaining the difference right why is in our sources lashara considered to be more serious than these other transgressions because lashara because it seems to be less stringent is something that a person does Time and Time and Time and Time Again where so many times one after the other become compounds and becomes very very serious and that's worse than somebody who God forbid would do one of these other transgressions on a one-time basis it's hard to see how no matter how bad and how often he speaks lanara it could ever be considered like a one-time murder because even if it's a one-time thing murder is extremely serious but that's what he's suggesting if you're talking about you know I you know who are we to attribute to relative severity to the transgressions but somehow it seems that yes if a person does a one-time sexual immorality transgression because he's overcome by desire and can't control himself as horrible as that is it's a one-time thing he can do Chu over it and correct himself and the same thing perhaps regarding idolatry I don't know in these terms how at least in my mind uh you could keep murder consider murder to to you know in this situation but but in general that's that's what he seems to be saying so these teachings which talk about the SAR of lashar it's talking about lashar which is done repeatedly so that it's compounded into something which is great and therefore equivalent to doing any of these more very serious transgressions on a onetime basis and furthermore one who has mastered the art of speaking lashara it's hard for him to do he's a cousin to it and is taught us tongue to speak evil and furthermore the transgression is light in his eyes he says only spoke I didn't do anything to anybody he doesn't put take heart how much harm is really causing to a person he ruins this one's job opportunity and this one's sh and this one's you know family situation and to own kill someone yeah yeah yeah I ruined his job I ruined his life yeah you're right I mean in terms of um the actual punishment it's it can't be a severe no matter how time how much times no matter how how much he speaks lanara in terms of the punishment will never be a severe is doing one of these things but spiritually speaking it's very very it's very bad and Hashem from he can never do a proper CH why he doesn't appreciate the damage that he's done he needs forgiveness from those who spoke of he can't never remember all the people he spoke about V furthermore and there are people he spoke about Who as a result of his having spoken caused harm and damage to these people and there's no way of knowing who they are and even if he does who knows who he spoke about he has no way of knowing all of the different forms of damage that came to this person because of his speech he can't do he can't ever do proper cha killing can do yeah bring back that you can't do can't bring back to life but he can do chuva over the act that was done I see what you're saying in other words if if trua is rectifying the wrong and in lashara he can never Rectify that wrong for the reasons explaining so how can you Rectify God forbid murder he can't bring the person back to life that's the rectification to bring it back to is that really that the T no I mean if if the Tik is through the is the rectification and and you're right I mean he can't bring this person back to life so according to the the idea here I guess you'd have to say the same thing regarding uh regarding murder I mean you can't do the you can't undo the idolatrous ACT you can't do the undo the the adulterous act but maybe the point is it's contained I mean the scenario here is contained it's it's it's Quantified you know there was a murder you can do chuva about that murder but you can't do chuva about lanara because it's going off in all directions that you have no way of knowing where it goes it's not Quantified in any way yeah and um he can't even remember all the people that he spoke about because by nature of lanara he does it uh quietly he does it kind of you know in hiding and therefore it's not something which is publicized and yeah that he might remember and he's here and he's harming somebody with his his tongue very far away and he has no way of knowing and also the one who has transgressed with lar is generally embarrassed to go say hey I spoke toar about you sometimes he'll mentions something about the family brch the family and it'll cause harm to this family for generations to the siblings and the cousins and everybody else he says something look if it's true if it's true uh there might be scenarios where it's permitted of course the this is considered to be a Jewish family but this person knows that uh someone in an earlier generation really wasn't Jewish so that everybody thinks this family is Jewish but the grandmother might not have been and there was never any conversion you know for example the trth yeah so I'm saying so so he said look what can you do this family is not Jewish and they're and they are considered to be Jewish by other by other by other people and they're marrying into this family marrying non-jews and and possibly having non-jewish children if so you have to say right you have to open you yeah so you must be talking about a situation where either what he's saying is not true or it's true but in a way which um doesn't but but it's about something which doesn't have to be said Pap yeah yeah it's like uh yeah I don't know what the scenario would be but it's something which uh let's say is is true but shouldn't really be a reason to prevent other people from marrying them um but his making it all public is embarrassing to the family and would Al also cause people to refrain from being involved with this family even though it might be permitted something like that they there is no forgiveness for this said a blessed memory somebody who speaks about the saying that they're not or that there's there some some some um M zeros or something a he will never it won't be forgiven forever why because this rumor that he spread about this family is going to go on for Generation after generation so he'll never have M furthermore a person who's used to to to to letting his tongue loose might unleash it against God it says they directed towards heaven their mouths and their and their tongues go on the Earth yeah so the the point is there's a Jos here somebody who lets his tongue loose and about things here in this world will ultimately let his let his direct his mouth towards God as well he says there is no transgression which has the type of punishment of somebody who makes claims against God on High s blessed memory said in 10 trials were given to our ancestors and all of them did not have a bad outcome lashar like the one regarding lanara says yes y all have spoken about me against God in my eyes so huh I'll have the last word moment it says God heard your voice of complaint against him and he became anger against you and he swore that you shall be be punished not be brought into the land of Israel even though the Torah has a protective quality the person who learns Torah he's protected by his Torah learning that will not apply for somebody who speaks Lara he can have all the Torah in the world but if he starts speaking it negates all of this Torah learning the Edomite after having spoken yes person's a person does a a that actually extinguishes his mitv but a cannot extinguish the Torah person that Torah learning that a person does but sh says the Mitzvah is like the candle the candle can be extinguished you do a good deed that good deed can be extinguished by a bad deed but Torah or Torah is light you can't extinguish light a candle you can put out but still I think the point is that UHA he says does undo a person's Torah that's the only thing that can undo a person's Tor Mitzvah is one thing do a good deed that unfortunately could be canceled by a bad deed but the Torah learning that a person has won't be extinguished by the bad Deeds only lanara there's a famous story of rir in the not re I'm sorry ruya ruya who came to be known as a the other one Mor tells story unfortunately how the great reab AA made a spiritual journey into the spiritual realm with his talum reaba came out of that very intense spiritual experience unscathed one died he was just spiritually eluted the other one became deranged went out of his mind he stayed alive but he went out of his mind it was such an intense experience and the other one he became a kofer a heretic he went he be what he saw in that spiritual realm was so intense that he couldn't reconcile reality with that and he he became a heretic this is this is rishu so at some point you know he uh decided to uh have some fun and he wanted to hire the services of a woman of ill repute so when he um approached her to hire her Services yeah she said uh wait a minute aren't you Alisha vuya you're a rabbi and uh the gor says that day was shabis he pulled a turnip out of the ground was growing there meaning he wasab intentionally and he said I'm somebody else now to show that he's wow you know that's intense but um in any case uh he had a talid that was RAB May and reab may continued a relationship with his rebi even though he became an aporus and people said how can you continue to learn from Alisha who became a and he said he's like a pomegranate I I peel out the peel and throw it away and I take out the the the fruit on the inside he has a lot of Torah says how one time they were walking along the way it was chabas and and uh a was riding on a mule chabas is forbidden to do that at least was riding on the mule and reir was walking behind him and they were talking and learning can you imagine that he was being Mah shabis andir was listening to his Torah as he was being Mah shabis and they got to the edge of the town the you can't go any further than that so uh a said to Mary he says turn around go back you can't go any further than this I'm going forward of course but you you keep the Torah you got to go back it's past the we're approaching the so re May took the opportunity to turn the situation around right not meaning you should also return back and not pass the but more specifically and got the message he understood he says I already heard behind the Heavenly curtain that anybody can do Chua aside from so it's too late for me I'm a goners he went back and he went forward and that was itar says that when air died is it true you heard that's what you heard yeah you see even even even even though he was a even though even though he was a ker and a Bala he still heard that voice he heard you see he merited hearing that voice he said I already heard I heard was wrong could turn that around I'll get there so theor says when he died when he died a bit of a problem as far as his aars are concerned get him get him a he did good deeds yeah but now he has all these bad Deeds get him on the other hand the Torah his Torah we can't send him to get him yeah he's got all of that Torah problem right so what do we do so he was in limbo he was in limbo it didn't go didn't go to gam it didn't go to Gan Edan it was in limbo but I'm just bringing this whole story to show how you see the the Tor the light of the Torah prevented him from going to get him which he really should have done in order to start correcting himself but the Torah actually prevented him from going through that that tium prevented him from going into gam so he was in limbo he didn't do anything says that uh R said that when I die I'm going to elevate him I'm going to elevate him tikun and years later re died and all of a sudden smoke started coming out of the grave of a it's a sign that fortunately has he was admitted to hell to get him so Reid who was RAB yanan raban the T of RAB the spiritual grandson of a the spiritual grandson of a because a was the rebi of R and R was the rean soan was like the spiritual grandfather who so soan said is that any way for talid to treat his REI to send him to gam when I die I'm going to send him to to ganeden the says after some time many years smoke stopped coming out of the grave of reir he was able to M the out of to to to ganeden I mean you know taking this saying this kind of in a light fashion but it is very serious matter matter here there's a whole discussion as to how it is that RAB yanan was able to affect the tikun of RAB when excuse me of AK when RAB his own tmid was not able to do so I won't go into that right now A whole discussion about that why was reab yanan able to do what his rebi reab May was not able to do for his rebi that's a different discussion in any case I'm just bringing the story as as an indication of what the type of thing that we're talking about here yeah but Lara that can harm a person's Torah our s just said a blessed memory oh you raised the point I said I was going to get back to later yeah one one of the things was that uh how can you blame how can you blame a you heard a Heavenly voice which said he's got no hope for chuva yeah on the other hand we know right our sources tell us nothing can stand in the way of chuva so one of the explanations is that yeah one of the explanations is that this BOS call was a true BOS call it wasn't a false BOS call but the BOS call was saying something which was UN true namely that a had no hope that was not true that was a test that was placed before him he on his very high level turned his back against Torah so here God was like turning his back on him to see whether he would do chuva even if he doesn't have a kapar and if he had done chuva even though he felt that it wouldn't help then actually it would have helped it actually would have helped that was his trial on his level to have put turned his back on Torah in order to be accepted he'd have to force his way back in shua even if he even even after being told it wouldn't help and if he had done it even thinking that doing so wouldn't even help that would have been a way of rectifying what he did wrong so even a could have done chuva he was just told that he wouldn't help in order to give him the opportunity of rectifying himself and he chose not to do that I mean God is the perfect judge so God must have known that a really could have overcome that trial and he didn't but sometimes I think you know we're in a position where particularly with children if they do something wrong if it's particular if it's something you take particularly serious you might present kind of a wall between between them because you want as part of the punishment and you want them to practically take the steps to correct that by overcoming the wall you have to be careful and not put too strong of a wall before them because it you know you can't you can't expect a child to think as an adult and they they don't see the way out and you can't expect them to think well even though my father is not showing me any slack right he really does want me to to to say I'm sorry sorry anyway yeah sometimes you might give the children the impression what you've done is so serious that saying I'm sorry is not going to help you have to be careful when when you really do want the child to feel remorse you're actually kind of preventing them from doing so too thick L yeah too thick lined yeah so you have to be careful in these scenarios to be very firm but also make it clear to the child that they have a way back they have a way in yeah they have a way in they might have to work to get there and that's part of what you want them to do is to work to get there but you've got to sometimes you have to make it clear to them that they do have that that option and they have the as far as you're concerned they have the power and the ability to do that so they shouldn't lose up lose hope and then leave the whole thing I mean one incident is not going to cause your child usually to go off the D but if you do this again and again particularly as they get older at some point they're going to break you have to be very careful about that okay let's just finish off this last paragraph blessed memory they're loved through their voice says let me hear your voice it says in Song of Songs because your voice is beautified like in prayer and so forth and so on but they're also hated through their voice says they put their voices against me and therefore I hate them so when they speak in prayer God loves their voice and when they speak out against God it's despised by God life and death is in the hand of the tongue and those who love it will eat the fruit meaning one who loves speech who likes to talk all the time he should eat the fruit of that tongue meaning let him not speak nonsensical words let him speak of Torah and words of Peace meaning if you love speech and some people are more talkative than others particular Ally those who are talkative should harvest the fruit of the tongue the desirable sweet aspects of speech Torah and good words encourage other people through your power of speech to do good to show them the good path and distance them from the bad and use speech to acquire truth there's no end to the mitzvas a person can do with his tongue if he uses a properly that's the meaning of the phrase which says death and life is in the hands of the tongue if you use your tongue for negative things like lashara that turns a person towards death destruction Darkness but it can also bring life that's Torah and Mitzvah and uh peace that's all life so all that is in the power of the tongue okay let's stop here the next section is going to go into six different categories of lanara right kasm and it's going to outline those six