Chofetz Chaim – Introduction (3)
It seems obvious that the reason the Torah is so strict regarding this sin is because it arouses the great accuser against the Jewish people, and through this, many people are killed in many countries.
The Zohar in parshas Pikudei says as follows: "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 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."
We could say that this is the meaning of the Gemara in Erchin: "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" (Psalms 73:9). This means: Even though the tongue walks in the world, one sets one's mouth in heaven. So we find in Tanna Debei Eliyahu, that the lashon hara a person speaks reaches until the throne of glory and from this we can understand the great destruction caused to the Jewish people by those who habitually speak lashon hara.
Another flaw caused by lashon hara is that it prevents ones holy words from arising to the above. The holy Zohar in parshas Pikudei says as follows: "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 into this matter we will find even more, that people extend the spiritual damage into all the worlds and decreases their light by multiplying this negative precept hundreds and thousands of times in the course of their lives. Because even a small sin becomes thick as a wagon rope when it is multiplied many times as Yeshaya complained (5:18), "Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of nothingness and sin with cart ropes." The is like a silk thread multiplied hundreds of times. How much more does this apply to this sin, which is itself very severe and people commonly transgress it hundreds of times. Certainly, the damage wreaked above is inestimable.
