רבינו בחיי — זאת תהיה תורת המצורע

Q — Lashon hara has its punishment (tzaraas) — but on what scale is it really meant to be measured?

A — Rabbeinu Bachya assembles a textual proof — adopted from the midrash — that lashon hara is *harsher* than the three cardinal aveiros that one must die before transgressing. Each of the three is described in Tanach with the word גדול but only as a singular: Cain calls his (shfichus damim) "גדול עוני מנשוא"; Yosef calls his potential sin (gilui arayos) "הרעה הגדולה"; Moshe calls the egel (avoda zara) "חטאה גדולה". Lashon hara alone is called גדולות — plural. Dovid (Tehillim 12:4) condemns "לשון מדברת גדולות" — many gedolos at once, since lashon hara contains within it the equivalent of all three cardinal sins (the speaker damages the soul of the slandered, ignites strife unto bloodshed, splits marriages, defames the divine image). The grammar — singular vs. plural — silently announces that lashon hara is the מות in "מות וחיים ביד לשון", and tzaraas, the disease that isolates man from man, is the exact midda-keneged-midda punishment for the speech that splits man from man.