“Who is the man who desires life, who loves days of seeing good? Guard your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit” (Tehillim 34:13-14)
“A healing tongue is a tree of life, but distortion in it breaks the spirit”(Mishlei 15:4)
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai relates (Yalkut Reuveini 26): They asked the snake, “How is it that you bite someone in one limb, yet your poison travels throughout all the limbs of the body?” To which it replied, “Before you ask me, why don’t you speak to the slanderer? He sits in Rome and strikes in Syria, or sits in Syria, and strikes in Rome.”
Rav Sheshet said on the authority of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah: Whoever relates slander and whoever repeats slander, and whoever gives false testimony against his neighbor, deserves to be cast to the dogs, as the pasuk says, “You shall cast it to the dogs.” This is followed by, “You shall not take up a false report” (Pesachim 118a).
Rabbi Yirmiyah ben Abba said: Four classes will not receive the Presence of the Shechinah: the scoffers, the flatterers, the liars, and the slanderers. The class of scoffers, as it says, “He stretched out His hand against scorners.” The class of flatterers, as it says, “For a flatterer shall not come before Him.” The class of liars, as it says, “He who speaks falsehood shall not be established before My eyes.” The class of slanderers, as it says, “You are not a G-d Who desires wickedness; evil shall not sojourn with You,” i.e., “You are righteous, Hashem, evil cannot exist with You” (Sotah 42a).
Regarding the sin of slanderous speech, regardless of whether one slanders a distinguished person or a simple one, he must pay one hundred sela. We see that speech is more significant than deed, for the decree against our ancestors in the Wilderness was sealed due to the sin of evil speech, as the pasuk says, “They have tested Me ten times and have not heeded My voice” (Arachin 3:5).
The Shelah (Sha’ar HaOtiot, Oht Shin) expounds, mincing no words in his description of the ba’al lashon hara: There is no limit to the punishment of the sin of evil speech. Our Sages clearly state that there are four groups which will not merit receiving the Shechinah. They are: the scoffers (*ל~צנים), the flatterers(*ח~נפנים) , the falsifiers (*ש~קרנים), and those who consistently speak lashon hara(*מ~ספרי לשון הרע) . The initials of these words spell חשמל. If I were to write at length about the gravity of this sin and the magnitude of its punishment, as mentioned in the Talmud, the Midrash, and the Zohar, it would be a very long discourse. All I have come to say here is that these four categories are the forerunners of defilement. They suck a person into Gehinnom, where an ever-burning fire consumes him. The most serious form of lashon hara is rechilut. It is categorically forbidden to accept the words of a gossipmonger.
