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How can Torah (תורה) prohibit speaking truth about others? The shiur explores lashon hara's fundamental distortion: focusing on someone's shortcomings while ignoring their virtues creates a false picture, though every fact is true. This psychological need to elevate ourselves by diminishing others—rather than through genuine growth—explains why lashon hara is considered worse than murder, idolatry, and adultery combined.
This shiur addresses the paradox at the heart of the laws of lashon hara: how can Torah (תורה) prohibit telling the truth? Unlike secular law where truth is a defense against slander, Jewish law considers speaking negative truths about others among the worst of all sins, equated in the Talmud (תלמוד) with murder, idolatry, and adultery combined. Yet if truth is Torah's highest value, how can disseminating truth be forbidden? Rabbi Zweig explains that lashon hara is fundamentally not the truth—it is a distortion of truth. While the facts stated may be accurate, focusing on someone's shortcomings while ignoring their strengths creates a false picture of reality. Every person has both virtues and flaws. When we have a positive relationship with someone, we naturally overlook their shortcomings; they become irrelevant to us. The same shortcoming that devastates us when directed at ourselves we easily ignore in friends. We all know people who speak lashon hara, yet we maintain relationships with them—until they speak about us.
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Parshas Toldos
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