During the time when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, a sacrifice was offered if a person spoke derogatorily of another and, as a result, contracted a spiritual malady, a skin disease called tzaraat, often mistranslated or mischaracterized as leprosy. A person with tzaraat was known as a metzora. According to the sages, God afflicted those guilty of lashon hara with tzaraat. After all, derogatory speech about others is prohibited under Jewish law. The sacrifice to begin healing from tzaraat and to atone for lashon hara is enumerated at the beginning of this Parsha… Leviticus chapter 14, verse 4. “Two live, clean birds, a cedar stick, a strip of crimson wool, and hyssop.”

Rashi explained the significance of each. Drawing from the Midrash and the Gemara, he explained that birds are sacrificed because they constantly twitter and chirp, creating sounds like the chatter of lashon hara. A cedar stick is used because cedar trees stand tall, symbolizing haughtiness and ego, which often fuel our judgmental and hurtful speech. The crimson wool looks like a tongue, the physical tool with which we speak, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. Lastly, the unassuming hyssop plant represents the need for humility and the elimination of haughtiness.

I believe this explanation permits us to see the sacrifice, not simply as a practice of the distant past, but as advice for the present. We can not take back the destructive things we have said, but there is a path to a different form of healing and repair. It is not external, but profoundly internal. An apology, though necessary, is not sufficient.

When we are guilty of lashon hara, we must separate from the chirping and the chatter — those outside influences that drown out goodness and amplify dissonance. One bird is killed and one is sent with our words into the wilderness. We must identify and destroy the proverbial cedar tree -- the haughtiness and ego that lives within each of us. Then we must cultivate our humility and strive to treat others with the humbleness and flexibility of the hyssop.

Michael Goldstein