How an elevated society preserves its integrity and spiritual health
The drama in this week’s parshah is startling: All 600,00 souls who left Mitzrayim are condemned to die in the wilderness. Only their children will be permitted to enter the Promised Land. Their crime? They accepted the lashon hara of the Spies about Eretz Yisrael.
At the end of the previous parshah, B’haalosecha, the Torah relates that Miriam, sister of Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon HaKohen, is afflicted with tzaraas, which turns her skin snow-white. This is her punishment for speaking lashon hara about her brother Moshe. It’s a cautionary tale in itself, but in addition, the Torah commands all subsequent generations to remember this occurrence every day of our lives, just as we are commanded to remember Yetzias Mitzrayim, Shabbos, and Maamad Har Sinai.
Chazal say that these two parshiyos come one after the other because they both deal with the sin of lashon hara. In fact, the warning first appears in the parshiyos of Tazria and Metzora, where the punishment of tzaraas and its halachos are detailed. Although today these concepts are almost too rarefied for us to grasp, we can still try to understand the message.
Let’s imagine for a moment that we’re traveling to a utopian land, something like the spiritual lost city of Atlantis, where we encounter a civilization with a central concept called tzaraas that functions as a warning signal of great influence.
Create a free account to keep reading.
