In this week’s Torah portion, Tazriah-Metzorah, we read about the biblical ailment of tzaraat, a skin disease which, the commentaries say, comes from speaking lashon hara, slander about others.

But why is this sin singled out to produce a physical manifestation for all to see? Why is lashon hara so bad that the Talmud tells us one who speaks it is like one who denies the entire Torah and has no share in the World to Come?

The Midrash Rabba tells the following story:

“A certain peddler who would go around to towns that were close to Tzipori would shout out and say, ‘Who wants to buy the elixir of life?’ Rabbi Yannai said, ‘Come down to here, and sell it to me.’  The peddler took out a book of Psalms and showed him the verse, ‘Who is the man who desires life? Guard your tongue from evil (Psalms 34:14-15).’ Rabbi Yannai said, ‘Shlomo also shouted out and said (Proverbs 21:23), ‘He who guards his mouth and his tongue, guards his soul from troubles.” Rabbi Yannai said, ‘All of my days I was reading this verse and I did not know how to interpret it until this peddler came and made it understood. Therefore, Moshe warns Israel and says to them, ‘This shall be the law for a leper (metsora)’ -that is- ‘the law of the one that spreads out upon others a bad name (motsee shem ra).””

What is this midrash teaching us? What did the peddler teach Rabbi Yanni that he did not know already? The verse which we say often in our liturgy “Who is the one who wants life” is quite obviously talking about slander since it ends, “one who guards their tongue from evil”. And Rabbi Yanni himself cites for the peddler another verse which says the same thing. What did Rabbi Yanni really learn about lashon hara from this peddler?

I think the answer is not in what Rabbi Yanni says, but in what he does. He lowers himself to learn Torah from a peddler and does not underestimate its power and its insight. I think the message of Rabbi Yannis learning from the peddler is in their interaction itself. It is humility which guards from speaking slander and brings life, and it is haughtiness which prompts lashon hara. We see this in Tanach in the following story in divrei hayamim.

The book of Chronicles (2:26) tells the story of a King of Israel named Uzziah who was a good, God fearing king. God was with him and he waged wars against Israel’s enemies. But the Navi then recounts:

“And God helped him against the Philistines… And the Ammonites rendered tribute to Uzziah; and his name spread abroad as far as the entrance to Egypt; for he strengthened himself exceedingly.  And Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem…at the Corner Gate, and at the Valley Gate, and at the turning of the wall, and fortified them…But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction; for he transgressed against the Lord his God, and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense. And Azariah the Priest went in after him, and with him eighty priests of the Lord, who were brave men. And they withstood Uzziah the King and said to him, ‘It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed; and it shall bring you no honor from the Lord God!’ And Uzziah was angry, and he had a censer in his hand to burn incense; and when he became angry with the priests, the leprosy broke out in his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the Lord, by the incense altar. And Azariah the Chief Priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead! And they thrust him out quickly from there; and he himself also hastened to go out, because the Lord had struck him.”

When we speak bad about others, it is because we feel less-than and want to feel bigger.  Instead of working to improve ourselves, which according to the Maimonides is the point of all the mitzvot, we wrongly do it by lowering another. One who speaks slander of others denies the entire Torah, because if we utilize lashon hara, our own failings will not become manifest to us to be worked on and improved through our study of Torah and observance of mitzvot. We will remain who we are, attributing our failings to others or comforting ourselves in our perception that at least we are better than they are. But, ultimately, we must be humble enough to face ourselves and not hide behind a false self image. This, of course, is what the public skin lesion prompts us toward.