Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

April 8, 2022

Some Modern, and Biblical, Reflections on Gossip and Leprosy

Beware the Teflon gossip.

Most of this Sabbath’s Torah reading (Leviticus 14 and 15), like the one that preceded it, is devoted to the complex laws governing the dermatological affliction usually rendered as “leprosy.” While there are no Jews who observe these rules today, traditional interpretation—based on Numbers 12—understands the ailment as a punishment for gossip. Rabbi David Wolpe offers three “truths” that stem from the strict talmudic injunction against speaking ill of one’s fellow:

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