The Cure to Toxic Speech
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Tazria (Leviticus 12-13 )
"And God said, 'Let there be light'" (Genesis 1:3).
With these words, reality itself was born. Speech isn't merely communication—it's the primary creative force in the universe.
When God created man, the Torah tells us “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (nefesh chaya).1 Onkelos—the first-century Roman convert and translator of Torah into Aramaic—renders 'living soul' as 'speaking soul.' Like God who spoke worlds into existence, we alone among creation share this divine power through the soul He breathed into us.`
This extraordinary gift comes with profound responsibility. When we use our words to inspire and uplift, we partner with God in creating a better world. But when we use words to tear others down, we corrupt our most godly attribute, twisting creative power into a force for destruction.2
Understanding this divine dimension of speech illuminates why the Torah devotes so much attention to an affliction that no longer exists.
The Quarantine of Antiquity
This week’s Torah portion introduces tzaraat—the supernatural affliction of skin, clothing, and homes. Unlike ordinary diseases, tzaraat required spiritual diagnosis by a priest rather than medical treatment. The infected person became a "metzora," forced to leave the community and live in isolation, crying out "Unclean! Unclean!" to warn others away.
But since this ancient quarantine vanished with the Temple's destruction, and since the Torah was written for all generations, we must ask: why would God dedicate so much of its precious real estate to something that would become obsolete? The answer lies in understanding tzaraat not as a historical curiosity, but as a timeless lesson in guarding our tongue.
The Projection Mechanism
The Talmud (Arachin 15B-16B)3 reveals that tzaraas primarily struck those who spoke lashon hara—evil speech about others. This connection appears explicitly when Miriam speaks against Moses and immediately contracts the affliction.4
But why would harmful speech manifest as a skin disease? And why would isolation be its remedy?
Here we discover one of Judaism's extraordinary insights into human psychology, millennia before Carl Jung formalized the concept of 'shadow projection.’5
The Talmud teaches, “Whoever disqualifies others, does so with his own blemish.”6 The Baal Shem Tov explains further, “When a person sees evil in his fellow, it is like a mirror, and what he sees in his fellow exists in himself.” From this teaching emerges a deeper understanding of lashon hara's psychological roots: When we harbor negative self-perceptions, we instinctively seek relief from this discomfort. Rather than confronting these painful feelings about ourselves, we project them outward through negative speech about others. Modern psychology has extensively confirmed this mechanism.7
In a landmark study by Fein & Spencer (1997), researchers found that participants who received negative feedback about their own intelligence were significantly more likely to negatively evaluate job candidates from minority groups. Branscombe & Wann (1994) similarly demonstrated that sports fans who heard bad news about their favorite team were much more likely to insult rival teams. O'Brien & Knee (2007) discovered that people with fragile self-esteem—outwardly confident but internally insecure—were most likely to engage in bullying behaviors.
We criticize in others precisely what we cannot accept in ourselves. The gossiper doesn't merely harm others—he uses others as a screen onto which he projects his own unacknowledged shame, anger, or insecurity. This defense mechanism provides temporary relief but deepens our disconnection—from others and from ourselves.
The Chafetz Chaim expands on this insight with a powerful observation: when we project our inadequacies onto others through lashon hara, we create a dangerous illusion of self-improvement. "The other is bad, so I am better. Her children are rude, therefore mine are polite. His business is mismanaged, therefore mine is run well." Instead of honestly striving to lift ourselves up, we attain a false sense of height by looking down upon those we've cast to the ground. This creates a devastating cycle—the more we speak lashon hara, the less motivated we become to engage in genuine self-improvement. Why do the difficult work of changing ourselves when we can simply criticize others instead?8
The Mirror of Isolation
How could we possibly break this vicious cycle? How could we force the speaker of lashon hara to turn inward instead of outward? The Torah's solution is brilliantly precise: Isolation.
Here lies the profound wisdom of the tzaraat remedy: complete removal from the community eliminates the very possibility of projection. Alone outside the camp, with no one to criticize or compare himself to, the metzora faces the ultimate mirror—himself. Without the distraction of social comparison or the easy escape of focusing on others' flaws, he had no choice but to acknowledge his own deficiencies. Only after this honest self-confrontation could true transformation begin.
Tzaraat, being a spiritual malady, would only disappear when the metzora had achieved two levels of healing: repentance for the damage his words inflicted on others, and repair of the inner brokenness that drove him to project in the first place. His external healing would mirror his internal transformation.
Imagine if we had such definitive corrective mechanisms to improve brotherhood in our society!
We're not as far as you might think. The COVID-19 pandemic gave many of us a rare taste of extended separation from community. While reactions varied, some discovered that being alone revealed how much of their self-worth depended on comparison with others. Though many found digital substitutes for projection through social media and online arguments, the experience still offered glimpses of what can happen when our normal social dynamics are disrupted. For those who embraced the opportunity, this forced pause provided a shadow of what the metzora's isolation was designed to accomplish: creating space for authentic self-confrontation without the usual distractions.
Pulling Out Evil Speech at the Roots
Aside from pandemics, how do we apply this ancient wisdom to our lives today? Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe teaches in his magnum opus, Alei Shur9, that learning the laws of proper speech alone cannot solve the problem at its root. Based on what we've seen above, the reason should be obvious. Since our words inevitably reflect what lies in our hearts, so long as we judge others negatively instead of facing our own deficiencies, our tongues will betray our true feelings. We must cultivate love and compassion for others, but this journey begins within. As the famous commandment "Love your neighbor as yourself"10 implies, our capacity to love others extends only as far as our ability to love ourselves.
Here's a transformative practice I've found remarkably effective in cultivating self love and transferring that onto others:
- Begin by imagining you have access to God’s storehouse of unlimited goodness—joy, peace, acceptance, love.
- Fill yourself completely with this goodness, directing it especially toward the parts of yourself you find hardest to accept.
- Then, from this place of self-acceptance, direct this goodness toward someone you love. Visualize them receiving it.
- Then, extend it to a stranger
- Finally, extend it to someone you've been judging or criticizing.
Practice this daily, and watch how your thoughts and therefore your speech naturally transforms. When we no longer need to project our insecurities onto others, our words become vehicles for connection rather than criticism.
May we learn to turn inward before speaking outward, to face ourselves before judging others, and to use our words as they were divinely intended: to create worlds of connection, understanding, and love.
Shabbat Shalom!
Avraham
- Genesis 2:7
- The Jerusalem Talmud (Peah 1:1) teaches: “Just as learning Torah equals all other mitzvos combined, so does speaking lashon hara (evil slander) equal all sins combined”
- Also see the Midrash Yalkut Shemoni on Parshas Metzora, Sifrei on Devarim 24:9, Koheles Rabbah 5:3
- Numbers 12:1, 9-10
- The theory that people are often upset at others for:
- Doing the things that they feel shame for doing
- Doing the things they feel shame for wanting to do
- Kiddushin 70a
- Fein, S., & Spencer, S. J. (1997). Prejudice as self-image maintenance: Affirming the self through derogating others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(1), 31-44; Branscombe, N. R., & Wann, D. L. (1994). Collective self-esteem consequences of outgroup derogation when a valued social identity is on trial. European Journal of Social Psychology, 24(6), 641-657; O'Brien, K. M., & Knee, C. R. (2007). The fragile self: Narcissistic contingency and self-worth. Self and Identity, 6(2-3), 143-160.
- Chofetz Chaim A Lesson a Day, Introduction XXXVIII
- Alei Shur II, Chessed - Chapter 11
- Vayikra 19:18
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