Tazria-Metzorah: Speak Lashon Harah? Take it to the Kohein - The Backstory of Sefer Chofetz Chaim

Recording in progress. Okay. Good evening everyone. Welcome everyone not only to the shar but to the the this week's new venue here in our shi. Before we begin I would like to introduce you to the cell phone lockers as you come in. So the in this sh everyone is welcome but the condition of entry is you have to leave your phone in there. Don't be embarrassed. You could get up now and put it there. That's that's your permission to come in. Otherwise, it's trespassing. Now, seriously, I'm not I don't joke around. I'm not funny. I don't you know, when I started Rabonus, my father said, you know, Donnie, stick to the devra, you know, but I'm serious. Um, and not only that, not only do you need to put your phone in the cell phone locker, if you're listening or if you're coming, please bring this back to your own shaw. Ask them why they allow phones in the shaw. If the phone is in the shul, it's not exactly basic. It's paying homage to the ancient custom of Hebrews who used to gather in prayer, but it's at least it's that it's like a zikaroin to the concept of bases and prayer. Okay, welcome everyone. Some people never even met me before. Can you imagine what an introduction you know? Um tonight's show we're continuing our series on safer vikra which are again dedicated uh by Dr. Zakishma zakasti. Tonight's shar is dedicated by our dear friend of David Weber um in honor of his father's yard site lammed lid alra for his family for we have a number of sponsors tonight tonight's shar is also dedicated by my dear friend Rab Ai Aron Bay Lea Nishmas his grandfather Aar Ben Adai. Tonight is dedicated by Ai Lemas his grandmother Rivka Basim for his whole family. Tonight she is dedicated by Rebel Jacobitz's father Ben Harsh Yehuda. She may whole family and tonight is dedicated by David Bosil Eloish his father Emmanuel Ben Sada. May his have an aliyah. Now, it worked out very well. Um, the Bellarus government made a new rule. See, we're we're headed there next week. We're going to the but if you're an American citizen, you can't just go to Barus. You need a visa. So, a passport is not good enough. You need a visa. So, how would you get a visa? So some countries, for example, when I went to Australia, I didn't know I had to get like some kind of permission from the government to get entry. So what do you do? I had to I had to download an app. Then you have to somehow take a picture and then before you get on the plane, the government there has to approve of you. But it's a whole until you download it and they approve the picture and the picture is the right picture with the glasses, without the glasses. It's very complicated. But at least you don't have to go anywhere. But Barus, they made a new law like you know yesterday. That's how they work that no more apps. If you want a visa, you have to go down to Washington. So anyone going on a trip had to overnight the passport to a guy who went to the Bellarus ambassador met with him yesterday. The whole night he was he deliberated whether we have rashus to enter. We don't have rashus barashem. The response came back that we have rashus to enter. But it came out very convenient that we're going to speak today about one of the most important ever written in the history of the Jewish people. The Pik says in paras this is the law of the leaper the law of the day of his purity. He will be brought to the kaheen. We all know that literally this is referring to someone who has saras. You don't go to a doctor. You don't go to an accountant. You have to go to a coin. The coen is the one who renders you impure. The ken is the one who could be mahar you. You can't if the cen doesn't say then indefinitely the person remains in a state of tum. However, many Israel saw in this a reference to one of the greatest ever written namely was one of the great gifts that gave to the Jewish people written by the mayor Kagan. In fact in the div is a classic safer of muser by Alexander Moshaos he says if someone has meaning if someone is afflicted with the malady of not being able to control their mouth from speaking lash. So saras is like a code word somebody who's not able to control themselves from speaking lash. As the garra says that is a sin that unless you're careful in you could assume that a person stumbles in. You know the garra says a a strong minority of people are stumble in areas of morality. Most people stumble in monetary issues. Many people have money in their pocket that doesn't belong to them. Everyone if they're not careful will stumble in lash. So what do you do if a person is weak in lash? The answer is you got to go to the who's the great who mayor. So theam saw in this pok a reference to the great work of the that this was the modernday way that the could be from the malady of the wrote many on besides he wrote something called he wrote a safer called he wrote a safer calledash in safer ziam says Barashem I reached 80 years old you know the was born in 1838 there many legends how long he lived he lived 95 years lived 95 years he says reached 80 and my entire life I never diverted my attention from contemplating the faculty of speech was fascinated with the faculty of speech legend has it that when the reached a very old age he called one of his over he said come over. So the the Talmed got very nervous. You know what? What's going to do to me? Says, "Look at my mouth." You know what's going to happen? Said, "Open up my mouth." And then look in my teeth. The guy thought he was going to faint or go to immediately. Then said, "Count my teeth." And was already advanced in years. And this student counted 32 snow white teeth of now in America, you know, who knows? Maybe the guy got teeth whitening, the guy got fluoride treatment, even though two states already have banned fluoride in the water. Okay, but but you know, back in the day at 95 years old, you're lucky if you had any teeth in your mouth, let alone snow white teeth. That's what the legend they say about the now one of the great uh values of safer is the fact that it's an entire safer dedicated just to the laws of lash and har so we've spoken this out many times you know there's a safer it's about anger so the author of says you know this is a very important work this work about anger because even if you never open it up but if you know there's a book out that's about anger. Then you say to yourself, hm, you know, I thought it's just something that it's better to avoid. It's maybe not so nice. It's a minog not to get angry, but there's actually a whole safer on it. It must be very severe. The same thing with lashhara. You know people learn different gamaras and maybe over the years one may have heard if you speak lash it's equal to if you speak it's like your but then you forget then you learn a different then you learn you know but if there's an entire book dedicated to the laws of lash even if you never pick it up you can't just like whitewash it and say no you know um Those people they have a minog they don't eat gabbras and they don't speak lashen har and I eat gabbras and I speak lashenhara. I once had a guy who told me it's his min to talk by dabing. His father spoke by dabing and it's and the guy the guy hap he happened to be a comedian. No seriously he was professionally but he was serious. That was the one serious thing you know and people think like that that it's not a big deal. There are different customs. You know, some shows they have a min to do one thing. By the way, don't be embarrassed. I want to introduce everyone to the cell phone locker when you come in. Please use it. That's the condition of entry. Don't be embarrassed if you didn't do use it yet. I I would have also forgot. But um just reminding everyone if you could kindly deposit your phones in there. Okay. So that's the that's the milo of the where the get this idea from you know for for 3,300 years there was no book in Israel about the laws of who gave him this idea there's a say for shimusha shima shyra are stories written by written by shak yeah um excuse me said over by rashakshak would say over that one time salter gave a drasha he said you You know, one of the reasons why people are very um loose when it comes to lash is because there's no book specifically dedicated to lash. There would only be one safer that outlines all the prohibitions and all the issues and all the it would really strengthen Israel in the laws of took this to heart and legend has it that's why the wrote in fact in the shimra is brought how old do you think the was when he wrote 18 he was according to the safer they 36 years old. That's what's brought the safer but it's not accurate. It's not true. He was not 36 years old. In there are two official biog a few official biographies of the you have the by Rabbi Moash and then you have the which was written by the son Arikco. Now how his son had a different last name than him is beyond the scope of this share but his son wrote a biography and whatever you think the was he wasn't whatever your picture of what a saddic is is exactly 180 degrees the opposite writes that real righteousness not not we don't know what it is is even far from our imagination because we are so warped from the societal picture of what a sadic does and looks like. You know, we think that saddic wakes up early and he goes to the mikvah and he prepares a long time for dvening. the you have to learn about what a sadic was the according to it's interesting you know the was very upset with uh Jews who were going to America going to America that's like you know you're giving it all up if somebody would come to to get a bra to when they're going to America wouldn't look at you and one time his son he says you know you know you're making a mistake over here they're not listening to you. So says, "What what do you think I should do?" So what do I think you should do? I think you should move to America. You need to move to America. The Jews are going to America. You move there and go from house to house and city to city and rebuke them and reprimand them. That's what you need to do. And his son even brought him a you know told everyone after no one go to Mitsim. No one go to Egypt. No one go to Egypt. No one go to Egypt. And everyone went to Egypt. And the next thing you know, Yeria is living in Egypt. What happened? He's the one who told me now to go. That's right. They weren't allowed to go. But they didn't listen. Once they didn't listen, so the Rebi had to go because if the student goes into gullus, the Rebi has to follow. So the did not follow the at first the looked at him like he's off the wall. But shortly after a new safer came out called Israel of the of what Jews in America should do. You know wrote a safer Israel of all the leniencies that soldiers in the Russian army are allowed to take advantage. He wouldn't tell yeshiva about this but it was all the how to keep shabas at least the began working on at age 28 years old. Okay. So that means we're talking now um 1866 he's 28 years old. He began by writing the if anyone ever saw the talks about 17 that you could be violating if you speaks about you know if somebody heaven forbid would eat they they would be like they would feel guilty for six months and but it's only it's only a minog and if somebody ate kazer they they would I who know what what they would do they would jump off a bridge or something says one word of lash is worse than so why don't people equate have the proper evaluation of how severe something is so began at age 28 years old by writing the and then in the year 1871 and 1872 he composed phase. He's working on it. He's only 30 years old. His son, Rabar Pupkco, there's amazing things that he wrote. One of the things that he wrote is that his mother practically never davened because told her she's exempt because she's taking care of the children. Can you imagine the wife of the pract now's wife on Shabas would go around from house to house and collect all the leftover food that people weren't eating and give it out to the anim. The poverty in Raden is you know unimaginable attributed all of his success in learning to the fact he said my wife never needed a new house never needed new clothing never needed she didn't need anything and attributes his success in to his wife. Now, if you want to ride a safer, first thing you need is a cell phone locker. Cuz if you have if you have your phone on you, you can't accomplish anything in life. It's it's not even the it's just it saps you from any productivity whatsoever. The though was not able to live at home when he wrote his far because even though by the way the amazing thing is say what was the stellar you know what did he do for a living? It was he he wasn't a RV. He wasn't a rashiva. He he had no official capacity. He sat and rode. His wife maintained the store. When enough money came in for the day, the store was shut. Did not maintain any position in any capacity whatsoever. Had to move out of his house to write sav four pars away from the house. He came to a city of Vasel Shak. Now, but how's he going to eat? He's he ate in the shul. He slept in the shul. But the who's how is he going to get food? Uber Eats. No, there was no Uber Eats. So, what he did was he had a a relative who brought him food said, "I'm not going to take food for free." Uh he his relative had a yeshiva. The said, "Send me the bakim who already finished shas who are learning gamus and the marsh." And the gave them a shir for three hours a day to earn his sandwich to sit in the sh and for months and months the uninterrupted wrote safer. Now you'll say why couldn't he do it in the home? He didn't have a job. He didn't have an official capacity. Even though he didn't have a physical capacity, every problem in the city despite the fact that there was a RV came to the when the published say you opened it up. Who wrote it? No one knew. Didn't say his name. He didn't put his name on it. No one had any idea. Not only that, the used to sell his he went from house to house and city to city selling his. We have today Mishna Buras now the would examine every single safer page by page and when it when he made sure that every page was the way it's supposed to be he wrote it in his handwriting mug would knock on a door you want to buy the Mishna you want to buy say for and who wrote it who are you I'm the publisher he didn't want to lie so he said he's the publisher but he didn't want to say he wrote it For 50 years, no one had any idea that the wrote it. Not until he had to get involved in community affairs did he put his name on it. And whenever he signed his name, anything that was relevant to the he would write [Music] mayor so that his word would carry weight. So they asked him, "Why don't you put your name on the book?" He said because I did not write this book in my merit. It's in the merit of the Jewish people. Khalis has been weak in Inyanihara and it's in the merit of the Jewish people that this safer came out and I don't want to take any credit for it. Now son said you know Abba never told me why he wrote this book but he says I suspect it was because of something that happened in Raden. What happened then, Raden? There was a problem with the rabbi. What was the problem? The problem was there were people in the shul. So if there people in the shul, there's a problem with the rabbi. So they wanted to send the rabbi out. What did they say? They said the rabbi's children are too modern. They're being influenced by the hcala, which wasn't true. So it got now they involved the Rabonim in VNA. They involved the Rabonim in the area. Theim tried to make peace and they were bad mouthing the rabbi leak. If you want to know how and say is so attuned to the politics of what takes place in the shul coffee room and in the back seats like the gives examples. If you ever learn, he says, for example, the rabbi gives a drasha and you know in the back said, where did he get that dra from? Well, who told him that? He he printed it out. He googled it. You know, where did he get that from? You know how does know all the juicy lash that people say in the there's no question because of the misaya in the city of Raden felt firsthand the dangers of lashim son said he tried to get out of his father exactly what happened he wouldn't say but one time slipped and said I want to tell you about a personal practice I had back in the day one of the raonim came to me to ask me about what's going on in Raden and this is a good practice and you know what am I going to say you know it's always when you don't want to talk about something what do you do you know the guy say oh you don't want to talk about it okay I respect that I'm sure you have good reasons that you don't want to talk about so you know so just you know just quickly and then somehow you know the whole thing this the you spill the beans what's how you spill the beans you're holding the I'm not sure we like to darian in the etmology of expressions here in the shaw. I guess the guy has a jug of beans and he's holding it upright and he's starting to tilt but as soon as it tilts a little bit too much all the beans spill out. I don't know if that's the etmology of spill the beans but that's definitely human nature. So the told this rabbi I just want to tell you something. I have a practice, I don't talk about it. And that's it's an effective it's an effective response. In other words, if you have information and people are trying to get it from you, instead of fumpering around, you know, coming up with some kind of, you know, uh, diplomatic way of responding, saying nothing with by saying a lot of words. Some people are good at that, you know. Some people are good at chicken salad. I'm not saying any names. They could say a lot of words without saying anything. You know there's a famous joke the malam once said um after hearing a reformed rabbi speak the malam said he finally understands you know in safer kohelas you have the 28 times you have a time to love and a time to hate. So the the says all these various times there are two extremes and there's a happy medium love and hate. There's indifference but I never understood a time to speak and a time to be silent. What's the happy medium? Either you're talking or you're not talking. But after hearing this esteemed rabbi, he realized there's a happy medium. You could talk without saying anything. That's the the happy medium. Anyway, the said that ultimately this rabbi had to leave the city and it wasn't good for his health and it took years off his life. But anyone who was involved in that dispute died young. that said however would also say the best thing that ever happened to the rabbi is that he had to leave the city because the truth is hcala was very strong in that city he ended up moving to a different city there were a lot of them there he wasn't a he was he was a litak but his sons married the daughters of the and the made them and they ended up becoming pkim and they got jobs ina cities as po and now they're from the all because they he they had some you know raousers in uh that particular schul now without getting into too much information had to overcome many challenges in his life including when he was younger a young man not a teenager older than that for an entire year he suffered from very deep atvas very like a clinical uh sadness and it was so severe he wasn't able to learn he couldn't even davenin he couldn't even din properly and he thought he would never come out of it and went to different doctors and after one year he pulled himself out of it and he never suffered again you imagine this is uh what writes about his father. Years later, the suffered a terrible ailment for three months, a terrible stomach ailment and he went to different doctors. He had to go to VNA and a relative of the of the told Rabi Salanter about illness um malady for the and the whole life would say that he is sure that because of the prayers of Raisant he had when Salanter saw he says I can't believe it this young took one And he made a whole on one told now you know for many hundreds of years the min is you can't produce a without a hama and there are reasons for that you can't just write a book you need to have a on the safer so the went to salant for a husk and salant asked to leave the safer with him and was amazed by the safer but he said mayor I have an issue with one thing that you wrote writes in number 10 in that if you spoke about someone let's say you say you know the guy is yeah he doesn't really d with kavana So let's say you told this to Barl. Barl couldn't care less that ply money doesn't d with it didn't make any roy on barl it didn't lower this guy's esteem in in the listener's eyes. So now all you did was it's not really because you didn't by speaking about this guy you didn't cause him any harm. Nobody you didn't lower his esteem in anyone's eyes. So all you did technically is an you violated lash. It's between you and God. So you do chuva between you and Hashem. But what if you damage someone? You cause someone damage. You lowered their esteem in someone's eyes. The listener said, "Oh, this guy's not trustworthy. I'm not going to do business with him." And you you hurt the guy's business. So now, not only is it between you and God, it's between you and him. says you can't get unless you go to him and tell him what you said about him and ask him for so says really because you want to get kapara from Hashem you have a right to hurt the feelings of this guy and you tell him what you said about him you have no right to tell him so but but then you're not going to get kapara yeah that's your problem you're not going to get kapara but you have no right to hurt his feelings and to let him know what you said about him. So there's a very big discussion in the piskim under what responded that he took his words from ra says that if you hurt someone's feelings and they don't know about it you have to let them know and ask them for so there's a big discussion in the pkim under what circumstances do you have to apprise the person you spoke about in order to get in other words let's say the person knows someone spoke about him but they don't know who spoke about him. Do you have to go and tell the guy Rabid I know you don't know who spoke about you but you know I'm a big sadic so I'm here to tell you it was me I'm the guy who badmouththed you think you're going to make the guy feel good if you let him know that it was you argued you can't tell him how do you get kapara maybe you don't get kapara or maybe it's a question there's a big discussion in the pkim under what circumstances you need to apprise the listener um about what you said about him. Now, here's one of the reasons why Rabi Salanter really appreciated. One of the great teachings of Rabi Salanter is if if a person is weak in a certain area, let's say like this, let's say a person is prone to anger, let's say a person is weak in monetary matters. Let's say a person is weak in guarding their eyes and it's always a struggle you know whenever you're encountered with a situation when your anger is aroused or when you could look at something it's always should I should I not should I should I not it's always it's always a fight so like how do you ever how do you ever give yourself the advantage you know every time it's like a world series game where you have two equally stacked teams it's not it's not right like when when am I going to grow up and make this fight a little bit easier. So salant had a great salant taught that if you learn the subject that you're weak in you learn it deeply you study it with all the various details and you toil in it you'll weaken the in that area that's the so someone who is prone to have a loose tongue by learning and all the and all the gamas from which We derive the by by learning the subject it will weaken your saw in the so to speak the fruition of his ideology that when you learn a subject beon you know think about it everybody has things in their life that that's their weak point in other words whatever it may be some people maybe they should learn more some people maybe they should come earlier to happening. Some people maybe they should be more careful the way they speak. So like okay I'm struggling I'm struggling I'm struggling how do I ever like get the edge how do I get the edge taught you get the edge by learning the subject in depth. So in the introduction to he brings down number 12. If you learn if your toil greatly in the words of God will remove the from you. Therefore I said in my heart says maybe by learning this safer which is gathered from all the words of the and by studying it theor will not be so strong in this area and it will make a dent in the observance of the Jewish people. Theim received a glowing hama from none other than Salat. So you would expect if you open up to find a husk from salant. The only thing is there is no hama from say the santa inim. You could only conjecture why. In the biography on he suggests that it was so affusive. The praise was so affusive of the maybe the out of modesty did not put it in. I'm not sure. It's hard to imagine that especially he wrote the book anonymously. So he wrote anonymously. Who cares that it's an affusive praise to the author? You know once once we're conjecturing here's mine not everybody agreed with salant about learning muser it was not it was not universally accepted to learn muser inb and his yeshiva I don't think they learned muser maybe was afraid with the hama from salant people would think oh if you're from the camp of mus this is a good safer from you. But if you're from the camp of anti-Muser, then stick to the garian. So maybe to give it more of a universal appeal even though Rabbi Salanter was the god. But again, we don't know why the did not print from Salanter. So it's now 1872 and it's time for the safer to come out and the received from Mosha of Yanova who extolled the great virtues of the and they wrote don't think the author didn't write his name because if he would have wrote his name then it would diminish from his so he didn't write his name for his own personal share in no he did it totally you know they were worried they would suspect that the that the author didn't write his name because he was trying to garner more then the came to the great RV of and I know you would ask me what does he look like I knew you would ask me that so I put his picture on the sheet by the wrote about on the third line on the top on page four that on the day that you want to purify yourself from the malady of you got to go to the who's the he was he was a he was a yes that's why the is on par because it says zo Not because we're going to go to next week. It's from the para. What year? says in that even though there's no saras sometimes Hashem exchanges it for a loss of money that it could affect the person's finances in any event the came to the great RV of Nardik who didn't know who the was he sees a young man he sees the safer He's astounded by the content of the safer. He's amazed by the shamayim and the modesty of this person standing in front of him. But he wasn't ready to give husk. He asked to wait in the city for a couple days. Meanwhile, people start meeting in sh and somebody they go over. Yeah. Where do you come from? Raden. Yeah. It's a it's a nice city there, right? The raan there have they know anything? They know what's going on there. There the they get along with the balabatim. Whose fault is it? You know, and the RV of Nardik sent spies to test out the for seven days to see whether he himself practices what he preaches. And one particular RV named Rabnas Kimi who eventually became a RV in Nisbudki struck up the convers conversation with for six hours trying to get him this way that way to talk about you know in the legend has it that would prefer to talk about cows than to talk about other people. would try to the would not go anywhere near any any uh questionable topic and after seven days he comes back to the rv he says rv I failed miserably I couldn't even get him to say one one uh iota one particle of lashhara so the gave a glowing report which includ concluded that he's no he says well he speaks well in other words his teaching is proper and he fully observes it so we'll end with this you know in the to say for he says that again he wrote the before he wrote any other part of the he says he asked the reader to read and reread and reread again The because it will be more beneficial than any other part of the safer. Why? Listen to this. Because the is collected from the and the words of the are holy and pureim. They burn like the fire of a torch. Why? Why are the words of the so impactful? So you could be sure that the guarded themselves from until the epitome. Therefore, the words they write are very effective. Says a very important that if you want to influence someone, your words will only be as influential as the extent that you yourself observe what you say. And therefore the which comes from the will be the most powerful of all and I think that's um something important we could say about because we know how careful himself was in the area of rash. Therefore has had a revolutionary impact on the Jewish people. If there's any one book written in the last 500 years that has influenced the Jewish people, you can make the case safer has had a bigger impact than any safer written in the last 500 years. The only thing that may be second or maybe even first is Mishnaba. So, by the way, Mishabua, he did put his name on. And the reason he put his name on it is because he said, "If anybody has questions, uh, bring it to me. Take it to me. I want to discuss it. Maybe I'll make a correction." Now, by the way, I'll tell you one last thing about Misha. The son of writes, you know, sometimes you learn a bur in B, let's say by something that has to be dipped in a liquid and then you learn they say, hey, it's a steer. It's a steer and then you'll say there'll be what to answer up why it's not a contradiction. So said the reason it's not a contradiction is learned different of with different and different parts of it were even written by different relatives. Some of it there were contributions from one son-in-law, some from a different son-in-law. So naturally not everything in it would be consistent. So the real answer is it's not a contradiction. It's two different people. Just like you can have that inus. Sometimes the answer to is you know every every had a different balus who is the main editor of that maka but in and when they told you you know there's a contradiction should we change in the next edition said no had it it was printed this way we're going to leave it anyway that's what the the tells us if someone is weak in the area of in the area of lashhara what do you In the day of your purity, you got to be brought to the is the great by learning that safer. Even just owning that safer. Even if you if even if you don't learn the safer, go to the store and buy the book and put it on your table. Put it on next to you on the Shabas table. So when you're about to uh say something, you you'll see you'll look at the book. a whole book about it and it will save you and will give you long life. Thank you very much. Stay tuned for next week's schedule. The shar will not be Wednesday night. Uh stay tuned for the schedule though. Okay.