Chofetz Chaim – Introduction (3)

It seems clear that the Torah is so strict about this sin because it awakens the great accuser against the Jewish people, and because of this, many people are killed in many countries.

The Zohar in parshas Pekudei says: "There is a certain spirit that stands against habitual speakers of lashon hara. For when people arouse lashon hara, then, that evil spirit rises above where it is called 'Quarrel,' and rests upon the arousal of lashon hara people spoke and enters the above, and this arousal of lashon hara causes death and destruction in the world.

"Woe to those who arouse this lashon hara and do not guard their mouths and tongues, for they do not know that through this arousal below depends the arousal above, whether for good or for evil. And all who speak rechilus against this world cause this great snake to speak rechilus against the world, and all this is because of the arousal of lashon hara, when its arousal is found below."

This may be the meaning of the Gemara in Arachin: "Whoever speaks lashon hara raises sins until the heavens, as it says, 'They set their mouths in heaven while their tongue walks in the world' (Tehillim 73:9)." This means: even though the tongue "walks" down here in the world, the mouth reaches up to heaven. So we also find in Tanna Devei Eliyahu that the lashon hara a person speaks reaches all the way to the Throne of Glory. From this we can understand how much destruction comes to the Jewish people from those who regularly speak lashon hara.

There is another damage that lashon hara causes: it stops a person's holy words from going up on high.

The holy Zohar in parshas Pekudei says: "From the spirit of this evil depend a number of other arousers of judgment, which are appointed to seize this evil or filthy word a person emitted from his mouth and afterwards he emits holy words from his mouth. Woe to them, woe to their lives. These people cause to these other arousals of judgment above to rule and flaw the holy place. Woe to them in this world, woe to them in the next world, for these impure spirits take the impure word he said with his mouth, and when a person emits a holy word from his mouth afterwards, these impure spirits precede and take that impure word and contaminate that pure word. The person does not merit that holy word, and as it were, the power of sanctity is weakened."

If we look deeper, we will find even more. Over a lifetime, people repeat this sin hundreds and thousands of times, and so they spread the spiritual damage into all the worlds and reduce their light. Even a small sin becomes as thick as a wagon rope when it is repeated many times, as Yeshayahu complained (5:18), "Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of nothingness and sin with cart ropes" - like a silk thread that is doubled hundreds of times. All the more so with this sin, which is very serious on its own and which people commonly do hundreds of times. The damage it causes on high is surely beyond measure.