KEDOSHIM: Thinking Straight

This dvar Torah is written leIlui Nishmat Micki Neumann z"l, a person whose uprightness, kindness, and dedication to Torah and mitzvot will continue to inspire us long after his sudden and tragic passing.
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Business Contracts 101


By way of introduction, I would like to start with a lesson in business that I learned from my father, which is really a cornerstone lesson in all of life:

...Almost everything critical that you will need to know about a potential partner in any future venture can be discerned through the process of establishing a contract with him.  An individual who strikes up a thick packet of a contract with pages upon pages of intricate, jargon-laden stipulations and conditions should smell to you like trouble... 

(paraphrased)

Why?  Maybe he's just being cautious -- trying to dot his i's and cross his t's...


Even for those of you for whom the above is intuitively true, bear with us as we work through it step by step.


People naturally do not like rules.  To be more specific, children do not like rules -- so too the child in us.  Rules are seen as restrictive and oppressive, and in a very true sense, they are.  They limit the actions that can be taken.  I still remember, with now-buried disdain, the lifeguards that would whistle aggressively at me as my excited poolside walk turned into a brisk semi-jog.  For a child on a summer day, that lifeguard looked tyrannical from down below in his white wooden throne behind his large mirrored sunglasses.  


Of course, the rule prohibiting running was utterly meaningless to me until on one overly zealous sprint to the diving board I scraped my toe pretty badly.  At which point, I had to go to the nurse, and get bandaged up, and my swimming for the day was over.  As we grow up, we realize that there is such a thing as a "good rule," i.e. one which although restrictive in the short term, in the long term, allows us the most freedom.  


This is all well and good until two people have to agree on mutually binding rules, and what one defines as a "good rule" the other defines as a "bad rule."  And herein we can see the beginnings of what makes writing contracts complicated.


Let's compound this complication.  As our childhood aversion to rules intermingles with our developing adult brains, what is produced is an extraordinary genius for getting around rules.  In a twist of irony, the enactment of a new law can actually generate an explosion of ingenuity in crime.  Perhaps the most vibrant example of this is the aftermath of the 1919 passing of the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibiting "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors."  It took only a matter of months before the institution of organized crime in America grew to the mythical proportions it reached in the 1920's, breeding criminal minds of the likes of Al Capone, Bonnie & Clyde and John Dillinger.    


Hear this because it is imperceptibly deep: The world is a big place and the human mind and desire are tremendously powerful things.  In this light, every rule is just a finite road block waiting to be climbed or vaulted over, circumvented, and dug beneath.


So now, as your potential business partner approaches you with his initial draft of the contract in hand, so thick that no single man-made stapler can bind it together, you may want to ask yourself: why did this guy feel the need to include so many rules?  How many possible contract-breaching scenarios did he have to think up in order to write this?  If regardless, a signature is only as good as the one who signed it, wouldn't you rather look for a partner who in principle, is upright, honest and trustworthy?  


It's obvious, but let's just say it: an virtuous partner with fewer rules would be infinitely preferable to a rotten partner with all the statutes, limitations, stipulations, corollaries and sub-corollaries under the sun.          


"Be Kadosh."


We are now primed to open up the opening of this week's parsha:

 וַיְדַבֵּר ה` אֶל מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר: דַּבֵּר אֶל כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי ה` אֱלֹקיכֶם  

"Hashem spoke to Moshe [to say]: Speak to the entire people of the Children of Israel and say to them, 'Be Kedoshim [Holy] because I, Hashem your G!d am Kadosh.' "

Just as a first reaction: this is a bit vague, no?  

I mean, what exactly is Hashem trying to communicate here?  Be holy?  We have already received 613 mitzvot delineating what a "holy life" looks like.  It seems pretty straightforward -- just follow the instruction manual...  

     ...and what is "holy" anyway?  Should we run off to monasteries and mountaintops, become celibate, and learn to subsist on minimal calories?

Enter the Ramban with a foundation for our basic Jewish education -- our ears now perked to hear his message:

"...the Torah cautioned [us] against illicit sexual relationships and forbidden foods, and permitted a man to have relations with his wife, as well as the eating of meat [drinking of] wine.  As such, a passion-driven individual will find room to be steeped in sex...a wine drunkard and gluttonous meat-eater, who says whatever disgusting thing he feels like [saying], all of which is not [explicitly] prohibited in the Torah, and there we have it: a Scoundrel with the Torah's Permission.  Therefore, the verse comes, after listing the absolute [black and white] prohibitions, and commands a general principle..."

On any other day, we would have been aghast, "What?  The Torah, in theory, could permit such a thing?  A person can be 'religious' and still do terrible things?"

We should, however, at least at this stage, discern the nuance in the Ramban's words.  The "Torah's Permission" is delicately tongue-in-cheek.  This guy we're speaking about would actually be capable of permitting even worse things if he put his Talmudic legal skills to work (im)properly -- finding loopholes and loop-di-loops to do whatever he darned pleased.

Comes the Torah and says: קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ Be Kadoshim.  The Torah is not a checklist!  Nor is the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law).  Nor the Mishna Brura (modern commentary on the Shulchan Aruch).  Nor any expanded and annotated meta-commentary you may find on the Mishna Brura.  If we see mitzvot only as a isolated rules and obligations, our selfish desires powered by our imaginations will discover all sorts of creative ways around them, no matter how detailed they get, and we will end up so close but so so far.  

Torah is life, and mitzvot are paths towards resembling Hashem and thereby coming close to Him -- כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי ה' אֱלֹהֵיכֶם  Because I, Hashem your G!d am Kadosh.

Thinking Straight

Without going into the precise definition of "Kedusha," we should finish with a word on what the road towards Kedusha entails.  

We may have thought that the path of holiness is reserved for those select few mountain-top-sitting types.  To this the Alm!ghty says to Moshe, דַּבֵּר אֶל כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל "Speak to the entire people of the children of Israel, and say to them,"  קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ "Be Kadoshim."    

Why should this be true?

Let me ask you a question:

If G!d gave you a pen and the following on a piece of paper

What would you think you were supposed to do?

If you woke up one day with amnesia, Heaven forbid, and find yourself in a dark cave illuminated by a lamp attached to a helmet on your head, with a pick-axe in hand, and sparkling diamonds encrusted in the rock in front of you, what do you think your job is?

If after a large meal, your wife is washing dishes as you read the newspaper, and she coughs more emphatically than normal, what do you think she is subtly asking you to do?

Rav Moshe Chayim Luzzato in the Mesilat Yesharim illuminates us to the engine trait in a person that powers his way to Kedusha.  A person who possesses it is called a ישר "Yashar." He sees what he has יש: an almost-completed circle, the tools and skills to mine diamonds, a wife who needs help, and he fills the gap (the letter ר always connotes a movement and expression, as in רץ).  Literally, "Yashar" means "straight," without unnecessary deviations and distortions.  

It is the Yashar who will look at the many mitvot in the Torah and draw out their logical implications as they obligate him in his unique set of circumstances, skills, and interests.

What is explicit in the Torah and Halacha is what every person must do equally, however, going beyond the letter of the law -- finding one's balance within the palate of colors in Torah, is unique to every individual (see Mesilat Yesharim, ch. 18).  Fasting on any given Monday, for one person, may bring him to spiritual heights, but for another, it may ruin his day.  Learning Torah is a great thing, but if you try to force the wrong person to stay glued to his chair 15 hours a day learning Gemara, it will break him, not build him.  

The Yashar will see how he can do his best in such a way that he can say, "this is what Hashem really wants from me."  In contrast, the non-Yashar will just try to "get by," distorting the mitzvot to mean whatever they have to mean in order to fit his personal agenda.

It is this straight-thinking that is at the heart of every Jew who stood gathered to hear these words from Moshe (see the Alshich haKadosh).  

What we call "conscience" "innate ethics" "uprightness" -- these are not meaningless in light of the Torah's rules.  Quite the contrary -- it is the straight thinking we have inside ourselves -- our deep-rooted sense of obligation and mission to try and "do good" in this world that must be applied through the Torah's guidance for us to each find our unique but united path to Hashem, living up to our name ישראל.*      

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*The centrality of Yashrut to Torah living is fleshed out further in last year's piece on Lech Lecha.

PESACH: Waking Up

Coasting...


Taking things for granted is perhaps one of the most fundamental psychological phenomenon in the human experience.  


It is often pointed out that the human being can get used to just about anything -- Eskimos seem to not mind the cold; Venezuelans are apparently un-phased by obscene crime rates and widespread Chavismo; and smokers can eat comfortably inside of a cloud (in the now-extinct "smoking section").  


Eventually, what once started as a jolting noise soon becomes background music, and not long after, muted silence.  "Life must go on," we say unconsciously, and we push forward.  


Acclimatization is, of course, both a blessing and a curse.  Without this mechanism, we would never be able to transcend our "hang-ups" and pet peeves, live with other people, and pull ourselves out of life's traumas.  However, there is a dark side to all this that is quietly sinister.  Negative patterns can sew themselves into our personalities and day-to-day lives, and even if we noticed them once or twice at first, they are very quickly masked by the human mind under the table cloth of habit.


Every person that looks skywards and strives to grow wants to know how to keep growing -- how to not fall back into the monotones of habituated stagnation.  The individual who  managed to make strong, life-changing decisions in his youth, wants to know how to continue to live on that cutting edge.  It seems like every time we go through a growth spurt, and push ourselves to a new spiritual level, we soon after find ourselves coasting in complacency.


This is exactly what Pesach is all about.  Waking up.


Hakarat haTov - Recognizing the Good


If you've ever peaked into a yeshiva, you've probably been mildly surprised to find hundreds of young men rocking back and forth -- some standing, some sitting -- singing to themselves in Aramaic, waving their thumbs and/or fists in the air, and firing back-and-forth questions to answer questions.


To anyone who has studied in a university, this is certainly not the "library etiquette" we're accustomed to.  It's actually the exact opposite: in most libraries, the books occupy center stage in the middle of any given floor of the building, and around the books are people quietly studying alone, shushed for sneezing too loud.  In a beit midrash, the bulk of its floor-space is dedicated to students who study in pairs, out loud, with the books lining the walls along the perimeter.  (It could be suggested that the name of each is telling of the outlook from which they emerge: "library" comes from "libros," which means "books;" בית מדרש, on the other hand, literally means "house of seeking," in which the emphasis is on "the seeker.")


Why all the commotion?


               ...we're trying to wake up!  


I'm sure you've noticed this pattern already, but all Torah learning, even our weekly blog posts, take the form of taking in information until one arrives at some paradox -- some absurdity based on the "facts" as one understands them.  First, we try to bring out that absurdity into high-contrast so that it screams "explain me!," and then, we set out to demonstrate that there is a deeper paradigm that we were missing when we asked our questions.  


We were asleep until we asked the question.  It's usually the type of thing where you smack your forehead for not having seen it before.  In a nutshell, this is what's going on in a beit midrash.  Through the singing, and rocking, and questioning, and thumb-waving, we are seeking an awakening to see the Torah and our world in a deeper, more complete way.  It is this aspect of Torah study that makes it the undisputed heart of mitzvah "observance."  We can "observe" or "keep" or "practice" or "perform" mitzvahs our whole lives, but without Torah pumping new life and understanding in an and out them, we remain just that: "observers" and "performers."


Torah is thus our training ground for fighting complacency.  The worst thing would be to be like the spoiled child born into wealth who cannot appreciate any of it.  And because, as we mentioned, the human mind is capable of getting used to just about anything, this is a battle we try to fight around the clock, 365 days of the year (almost*).  Feeling gratitude takes hard work!  Appreciation requires constant awakening.    


As soon as we wake up to the this "chiddush" (the Torah terminology for a "breakthrough idea"), we will start to see it everywhere...

When we literally wake up in the morning, the first words that come out of our mouths is "...מודה אני" "I am grateful..."

Mussar, the Jewish discipline of self-development, is entirely founded upon this principle because all of life is dependent on our awareness of those fundamental truths and personal obligations that are "so obvious to us" that they escape us constantly (Mesilat Yesharim beginning of Intro. & ch. 1).  

During the month of Elul, leading up to Rosh Hashana, Ashkenazim sound the shofar to wake us up to renewed growth, and Sefardim literally wake up in the middle of the night to say Selichot (that start off with, "בן אדם מה לך נרדם קום קרא בתחנונים" "Son of Adam!  What [good] is it for you to be sleeping?  Wake up and read [words] of requests [for opportunities for growth]!!!).

It is no surprise that the mitzvah of our New Year is to sound the shofar, the pure cry of the soul to awaken to a new year. 

...keep your eyes open for it...you'll see it everywhere.

The Soul's Awakening


We may have noticed this before, but we now have the perspective to see this in technicolor: The Pesach Hagaddah opens with questions and ends with song...  The whole night is designed to be a crash course to wake up to waking up -- learning how to appreciate the riches that we have been given.  Without delving too much into detail, let's take a fly-through together to see the landscape of the Handbook to Waking Up, the Hagaddah:

1) Asking Questions - We mentioned above that the process of asking a question is the process of becoming aware to that which one was previously asleep to.  However, the Hagaddah teaches us that it runs even deeper: what we've been calling "waking up" throughout this article is actually the "discovery of self" (Alei Shor II p. 394).   

Normally, we look at education as the process of assimilating and recalling information.  Even the Socratic method through which a student is guided by the teacher towards the right answer through a series of questions, does not arrive at the central point as the Torah sees it.  The Hagaddah teaches us that even more fundamental is igniting the person's ability to ask questions himself.  This is the engine of a lifetime of self-education, as well as the engine of appreciation -- learning to continually wake oneself up to deeper and deeper aspects of the world around him.   

While a statement of fact can fall flat even as I recite it, a question necessarily tugs at my core -- why?  what?  how?  I want to know...and if I don't, I at least want to know why don't I care.

We may have thought that the Ma Nishtana, that the children usually ask at the seder is merely to keep them involved.  However, the Talmud states, and the halacha codifies that even if a seder table consists of two scholars who know the answers to these questions they must ask eachother.  Moreover, if a person is alone, he must ask himself! (Pesachim 116a; Shu"A 473:7)  Questioning is intrinsic to the seder.  All of these weird things we do: washing without a bracha, dipping the celery, removing the seder plate from the table before we've eaten from it, spinning it on top of everyone's heads** -- all of it is to awaken the questions that awaken the "I" inside of us (ibid 114b).   

It is well-known that the mission of the seder is to see oneself as if he left Egypt -- to get in touch with that reality.  Because its true!  As surely as a the son and grandson of a Holocaust survivor has the unspoken obligation to appreciate that had his mother or grandmother not survived, he would not have the gift of life today.  This requires a profound inner awakening.  The way we stir the innermost parts of ourselves is at first through questions and at the end of the seder through song, which according to the Talmud, are two sides of the same coin (Sanhedrin 93b).  This awakening is prerequisite to the redemption of the night -- without an inner redemption, what good is redemption from Egypt? (Alei Shor ibid)   

2) Keep it Simple - Throughout the year, our lives can tend to become inflated with a lot of...stuff.  That clutter, and our feeling of "need" towards it, can ironically block us from appreciating anything.  It is for this reason that the seder centers around the "un-inflated" matzah, called לחם עוני "poor man's bread."  Like the backpacker who has run out of food in the forest -- oh, how he would savor a handful of unsalted peanuts like a five-star gourmet meal...    

3) Anti-Entitlement - Entitlement is the enemy of Appreciation.  On the seder, we sing "Dayeinu" "I would have been sufficient for us!"  In it, we say seemingly ridiculous things: "If you would have split the sea, but not brought us through it on dry land, Dayeinu!"  It would have been enough for us?!?  That's absurd!  The Egyptians would have slaughtered us then and there!  What would have been the point of taking us out in the first place!?!   

               ...But this is precisely it!  It is this sense of unentitlement -- of appreciating the splitting of the sea merely for itself, which sees everything as a gift to be appreciated.  Because really really we're not owed anything.  This outlook awakens a person to enjoy everything he has. 

4) Bring it into High-Contrast - It's funny -- we eat "poor man's bread," literally just flour with water, while reclining like kings, eating on our finest china ...it seems like we crossed our wires here!

Very often, our inability to appreciate what we have comes from a lack of contrast.  Even if the Alm!ghty has brought us a long way in our life, it's difficult to see it against the dulled sepia tones of the present.  If I weren't Jewish, I don't think I would ever sit down and appreciate that I'm not a slave.  It just would never occur to me -- as surely as I've never appreciated that G!d didn't make me a tree.  The Hagaddah therefore opens with our "humble" beginnings as idol worshipers and slaves, setting the backdrop for the foreground of freedom and lives of meaning to stand out.

Similarly, as we eat the matzah in the manner of royalty, we can literally feel the distance between them, and appreciate how far we've come. 

5) Break it Down - If you were to tell me, "the universe is big," I would not feel any differently about it.  However, if you tell me, "to fly around the planet would take about 2 days; from here to the sun in a 747 about a year's time; Earth is only the third planet from the sun of the eight in our solar system; there are 200 billion similar suns in the Milky Way, and, close to the same number of galaxies in the observable universe," the word "big" takes on a whole new meaning!

We need to break things down into smaller parts in order to appreciate them.  One thing is to say, "aren't we lucky to be Jewish!"  It is a whole different thing, כמה מעלות למקום עלינו "How many levels [of kindness] has the Omnipresent bestowed upon us!" and then proceed to break down the exodus from Egypt into fourteen distinct levels of love that the Alm!ghty has shown us (see "Dayeinu").  The Hagaddah is teaching us the art of appreciation!  

This is a taste of what's going on at the seder.  Hopefully, we can use this Pesach as an opportunity to wake up to the worlds of goodness that Hashem has given us in our lives and use it as fuel to continually wake up and grow for the entire year.




(The approach to seeing the Hagaddah as a Guide to Appreciation is taken from a well-known lecture given by Rav Noach Orlowek.)
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*There is room for metaphoric sleep within the Torah Weltanschauung as well...e-mail me if you're curious.


**You'll have to get invited to a Moroccan seder to experience this!

TAZRIA / METZORA: Tit-for-Tat

There are no heretical questions -- only heretical answers


There are certain questions that whisper almost daily from the depths of our unconscious -- almost indiscernible amidst the clamor of our conscious lives, suggesting strange and even illicit behavior -- questions we would never voice out loud to anyone in polite company, yet tug with unnerving force at the fabric of our ethical principles.  This week, we would like to articulate one such question.


"Why would we do such a thing?" you ask.  


"I thought we were holding back from sharing these comments from 'polite company'...and certainly the distinguished readership of this blog would fall under that category..."


You're right.  We were holding back from these types of questions... The problem is that between the mind and the heart is an enormous chasm -- between what we think and even say "we believe," and what is true in our heart of hearts.  It is in this chasm that we fall short of our own ethical expectations, doing things we later regret with hindsight and a clearer mind, and it is precisely in this arena that we must ask those profound, seemingly heretical questions for truth to penetrate deeper into our hearts, and ultimately, our actions.


Here's our iconoclastic question of the hour:

What is so bad about lashon hara?

Just to make sure everyone is on the same page here: "lashon hara" is colloquially defined as "gossip," but is more precisely and halachically defined as: 

"[the prohibition] to speak negatively about one's fellow, even if it is completely true" (Chafetz Chayim 1:1).

It is just important to be clear from the outset that if any amount of lies are mixed together with any kernal of truth, immediately the prohibition enters into a different, even more severe category called "Motzi Shem Ra" (ibid).  


It is much easier to understand why Motzi Shem Ra is considered to be problematic.  It is what we call in English "slander," "smearing," "libel," etc.  Here, it is clear that the person who is piling lies on top of lies about another that will cause his reputation harm, is considered the source of the other's damage.  It is not surprising to us for defamation law to be standard in law books around the free world -- certainly in the U.S.  The 1964 court-issued opinion in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan articulates that public officials could only win a suit for libel if they could demonstrate "actual malice" on the part of reporters or publishers.  The definition of "actual malice" is articulated there as "knowledge that the information was false" or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not."  


This sits well with our "common sense" and "moral compass" as being wrong... But, lashon hara?!?  Merely reporting what we witnessed with our own eyes?  It's true isn't it?  The entire journalism industry is founded upon "getting to the bottom of the truth" and disseminating it!  Don't tell me that the Torah is against Truth!!!


It seems that indeed the Torah is against telling the truth in certain cases -- radically against it.  The Talmud Yerushalmi says quite unequivocally with respect to the famous three transgressions for which one must give up his life rather than transgress: murder, adultery & idolatry -- lashon hara is more severe than all of them (Peah 1:3, Rambam Hil' Deot 7:3).


This said, we can even ask our question a bit sharper:


Let's say you saw your neighbor Freddie furiously screaming at his wife as you deftly passed the aisle they were in at the supermarket.  Freddie did so out of his own free will.  If he's a jerk, it's because he chose to be!  Now, the fact that you go and tell your wife about the incident you witnessed, that's his problem!  He deserves it.  That's what you get for being a jerk.  Certainly, for being a jerk in public!  One of the consequences is that people will find out.  In fact, your spreading the word is actually an act of neighborhood heroism, punishing the wicked by letting others know about their evil acts.  You should feel good about speaking lashon hara!  You're a veritable agent of heaven, meting out punishment where it is fit...


Comical?  Slightly.  
More importantly for all of us is to ask ourselves the key question: 

Deep down, in the dark recesses of our hearts, does any of this ring a bell?  Does this line of reasoning remind us, even remotely, of the justification that flashes moments before the gossip spills out of our mouths?

If so, we owe it to ourselves and to those around us to clarify in a profound way why this "logic" is false.

Din & Rachamim


It is these questions that emanate from the deepest parts of our our heart that naturally require the deepest answers to correct.  We will have to give a few words of introduction in order to explain:


Life is hard.  Our decisions bear consequences.  In a nutshell, this is the distilled message of maturity.  As a young person grows up, he starts to wake up to the realization that all those days that he skipped math class have landed him his current job pumping gas at the local Exxon station in town.  In parallel, his classmate, who worked tirelessly to understand the material throughout high school, staying after class to speak to the teacher, late nights poring over the books, begins to taste the fruits of her efforts as she climbs the corporate ladder, with promotions in return for her diligence and valuable, acquired skills.  The world functions under a set of rules.  Rules which, in principle, are ruthless with regards to those who disobey them.


This is the nature of nature.  "Survival of the fittest," in the words of biologists and genocidal tyrants alike.


In Torah terminology, this aspect of reality is called מדת הדין "middat haDin," literally, "the trait of Law."  Things work according to strict rules -- unbending justice...  


If you've noticed, in the first fly-through of creation, in the first chapter of the Torah, G!d is only referred to by His Name "Elohim," which is the same word we use for "judges" (see Shemot 21:6).  Only after Shabbat, do we see Hashem's essential, proper name, "Y-H-V-H," which then appears throughout the Torah (Bereishit 2:4).  Rashi explains this observation as follows: 

שבתחלה עלה במחשבה לבראתו במדת הדין, ראה שאין העולם מתקיים, הקדים מדת רחמים ושתפה למדת הדין

"At first, it 'arose in [G!d's] thought' to create [the world] with midat haDin-Justice, He saw that the world would not be able to exist, [therefore] He first put midat haRachamim-Mercy and partnered it to midat haDin." (Bereishit 1:1)

In layman's terms: 

In principle, Hashem wants to make life hard (the aspect of "Elohim") because only when we earn things through hard work -- when there are consequences to our actions, for better and for worse -- is there value to our achievement.*  However, Hashem (the aspect of "Y-H-V-H") ultimately wants our success in the face of life's challenges -- our growth.  And therefore, His רחמים-Mercy ensures that His דין-Justice does not crush us when we mess up.   

The difficulty of life, "middat haDin," is merely a tool, like a piece of exercise equipment, for us to develop and bring out our potential.  However, it is Hashem's Mercy that is alluded to by His proper name "Y-H-V-H."  "Y-H-V-H" is the way we refer to G!d, in the way you may refer to me as "Jack."  Sometimes you may refer to me as "he" or "my friend" or "the guy who wrote this article" -- all of these refer to me, but the most precise, essential name is "Jack" (Kuzari beginning of ch 4).  "Elohim" is a way to refer to G!d as Judge -- the Coach pushing us and judging our performance through the obstacle course of life, but "Y-H-V-H" refers to He Himself, the innermost aspect of that Coach that cares about us, and wants our long-term well-being and success.


A ruthless, uncaring coach will watch the weight bar fall on your chest, and say, "I told you so," "now you're going to learn your lesson."  This is middat haDin detached from the place of care and concern -- it's actually what we call "evil" -- pure tit-for-tat, merciless "justice."  Hashem, the Coach that cares about you, will of course want you to learn your lesson, but will not let that weight bar crush you because "it's your fault."  Afterwards, He may speak to you sternly about the dangers of trying to lift more than you're capable, or even send you to run laps to drill the message into you -- this is a coach that cares about his student.


Our Judgment


Rachamim-Mercy does not toss Din out the window -- life continues to be hard and have consequences, but they are not immediate or completely crushing, and an opportunity is given to change our perspective and grow (Mesilat Yesharim end of ch 4).  The word רחמים "Mercy" comes from the same root as רחם "womb," and has the same letters as מחר "tomorrow" (Zohar).  Given that the individual right now understands his mistakes and wants to improve, Hashem will defer and mitigate his judgment, leaving room for the person to improve himself -- He keeps him in the warm comfort of the רחם "womb" knowing that מחר "tomorrow" he will be a more developed person.  This comes from the Big Picture Perspective on our lives that Hashem sees us from.  "Y-H-V-H," which is spelled י-ה-ו-ה, is understood by our Sages as an allusion to the fact that in the past היה, so much as the present הווה, and the future יהיה, Hashem knows where we've come from and who we're capable of becoming.  His Love is expressed by His taking into account the Big Picture of our lives. 


We, however, do not have such a perspective, nor such Infinite Love for one another.  


We are now capable of answering our original question:  


When Jimmy caught that glimpse of Freddie yelling at his wife as he rolled passed his aisle at the supermarket, all he saw was a single snapshot of Freddie.  With that minuscule freeze-frame of Freddie's life, Jimmie already witnessed, judged and executed punishment, thus imprisoning Freddie in that place and time.  As the dominoes fall and the word spreads in expanding social circles, Freddie is quarantined with more and more social barriers into that moment of weakness in which he allowed his bad mood to get the best of him and yell at his unsuspecting wife.  Even if Freddie and his wife have long-since made up, people will always look at him a little differently because of Jimmy's comment to his wife.  This is middat haDin-Strict Justice acting completely without Rachamim-Love.  Without a flicker of concern for Freddie himself, Jimmy held his own private court case.  He didn't think that maybe he could help him, speak to him, get someone else to try to speak to him and improve his marriage -- he straight away took the law into his own hands, here and now, without considering the Big Picture of Freddie's life and success.


If our goal in life is to become more like G!d, to love other people and try to see the Big Picture of who they are and who they're capable of becoming, lashon hara is the expression of the precise opposite.


Of course there are laws and consequences in life.  In a בית דין, a Torah law court, with two witnesses, the proper court procedure, with all the fail-safes, we are able to enact Hashem's law here on earth.  The Talmud always refers to the Torah as רחמנא, "the Merciful."  It's well-known how difficult it is to be convicted of capital crimes in a Torah court.  This is because we carefully follow Hashem's instructions for executing Judgement with Mercy.  Lashon hara, even when it's true, and certainly when it's embellished with lies and assumptions, is a distortion of all of this.  It goes against the very fiber of what makes the universe work -- the space Hashem gives us to grow and and become the people we are capable of becoming.**    


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*Without going into the metaphysical details of this, we all intuitively remember the disappointment of discovering that Mark McGuire took performance enhancing drugs, and Samy Sosa used a corked bat, and Barry Bonds even "unwittingly" used steroids...the way we looked at their achievements, even if despite this they deserved great respect, were profoundly sapped of meaning.   


**This explanation is based upon the answer to the same question given by the Chafetz Chayim in his introductions to Chafetz Chayim and Shmirat haLashon.