Moussar sur Le Deutéronome 27:24

And, in truth, how much should the speaker of lashon hara be ashamed of himself because of this. For if he were called up to the Torah and found the verses there to concern the issur of speaking lashon hara (such as Vayikra 19:16: "Do not go talebearing among your people," or Devarim 27:24: "Cursed is he who smites his friend in secret," or Ibid. 24:9: "Remember what the L-rd your G-d did to Miriam," or Shemoth 23:1: "Do not bear a false report," and the like) and the point of a yod were missing in some place, he would refuse to make the blessing on the Torah, saying that the Torah of the L-rd must be perfect, as the Holy One Blessed be He gave it to us, and not defective. He believes, then, in truth, in the Blessed L-rd and in His holy Torah, in all of its letters, but when that subject comes to hand, immediately the verses of the Torah are abandoned by him, and he does not think it a sin at all! Remember, my brother, what we find in Tanna d’bei Eliyahu Rabbah, Chapter 28: "If one recognizes words of Torah and 'passes them by,' he is an absolute evildoer."

And this is the thing about the group of slanderers:
Our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Arakhin 15b), “Anyone who speaks evil speech is as though he denied a fundamental principle [of faith] - as it is stated (Psalms 12:5), ‘Who have said, “we will make our tongue mighty; our lips are with us; who is lord over us?”’” Therefore, they considered him as if he denied a fundamental principle. For he causes and brings about great damage and much evil to his fellows by making them foul in the eyes of people or by other ways of [causing them] loss. And it is not likely that a man would prepare a mechanism of destruction and damage that is more bitter than death without it benefitting himself monetarily, unless it is to have his [evil] impulse honor himself and remove the yoke of the Heavens from upon him - to remove ethical constraints - as it is stated in the Psalm, “when the Ziphites came and told Saul, etc., O God, arrogant men have risen against me; a band of ruthless men seek my life; they are not mindful of You.” (This is a scribal error, as there is some difference between the verse brought down by the author, may his memory be blessed, [and his source]. As [in the source], it is written, “For strangers have risen against me, etc.” And the verse that he wrote here is found in Psalms 86:14; but it needs to be corrected and replaced with the verse as it is written there in Psalms 54:5.) And our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, explained (Midrash Tehillim 54) that they intended that Saul would bless them, as he said to them (I Samuel 23:21), “May you be blessed of the Lord for the compassion you have shown me!” But they did not place God in front of them - as it is written in His Torah (Deuteronomy 27:24), “Cursed be he who strikes down his neighbor in secret.” And it is written (Ecclesiastes 10:11), “no advantage is gained by the master of the tongue!” And it is stated about Doeg (Psalms 52:4-5), “Your tongue devises mischief… You prefer evil to good; the lie, to speaking truthfully. Selah.” And they explained in Midrash Tehillim 52, “What do you benefit and what do you gain when you say evil speech? Is it not that you did not need money, for you had [already] become wealthy - as it is stated about him (I Samuel 21:8), ‘Saul’s chief herdsman.’ It was only because you preferred the evil to the good, and ‘the lie, to speaking truthfully’ - as you have removed His yoke.” And it is stated (Proverbs 6:30), “A thief is not held in contempt for stealing [to fill his hunger]; and it is written after it (Proverbs 6:32), “He who commits adultery is devoid of sense, etc.” This is meaning to say that he is worse than a thief, for [the former] needs to “fill his hunger.” Our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Midrash Tehillim 120) that one involved in evil speech is worse than both of them. For he does a great sin without benefit, as it is stated (Psalms 120:3), “What can you profit, what can you gain, O deceitful tongue?”

And thus, exactly, is the man of lashon hara. Aside from always probing the houses of the city in order to have what to relate thereafter in the marketplace, he is versatile in changing. For when he is adversely publicized as one who goes peddling [his tales] from one to the other and becomes like a thorn in the eyes of the people of the city, and everyone guards himself against him, he walks on the sides of the public thoroughfare, enwrapped in silence, as if nothing concerns him, in order to spy out everything going on in the city — secret and otherwise. And, correspondingly, when he tells his lashon hara and rechiluth [talebearing], he does so deceptively, as if speaking in pure innocence, not telling the whole story, but intimating — whereby his interlocutor "figures out the rest." And his ears drag, and his tail hangs between his legs. There also applies to him what was said about the aforementioned dog. That is, even though there burn in his midst all the senses of feeling, and, especially, that of hearing, to hear of everything that is done in the city and to run and peddle it from one to the other — in spite of this, in public, he appears to the eye of the beholder as one who suppresses all of his feelings, is equable to all, and wants to hear nothing of what is done among people — all, so that the people of the city not guard themselves against him and everything be revealed to him. "And others say: He also barks without being heard." For in his lashon hara, he wounds in secret (as do those writers of wrongs [called "paskevilim"], about whom it is written (Devarim 27:24):"Cursed be he who smites his neighbor in secret.") — all so that his neighbor will be unable to guard himself against him and he will be able to attack him, like the aforementioned dog. Therefore, there reposes upon him the same spirit of uncleanliness that reposes upon a mad dog, and the Sifrei refers to him as "one bitten by a dog." For upon him, too, there reposes the spirit of uncleanliness. [The end of the comparison is self-explanatory. See the end of Chapter 16.]