פירוש על דברים 24:9

זכור את אשר עשה ה' אלהיך למרים REMEMBER WHAT THE LORD THY GOD DID UNTO MIRIAM — if you wish to guard yourself against being stricken with leprosy, do not speak slander! Remember what was done unto Miriam who spoke slander against her brother and was stricken with a leprous plague! (cf. Sifrei Devarim 275:1).

REMEMBER WHAT THE ETERNAL THY G-D DID UNTO MIRIAM. “If you wish to guard yourself against being stricken with leprosy, do not speak slander.” This is Rashi’s language. And in my opinion this actually is a positive commandment, like Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy;³⁴²Exodus 20:8. Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt;³⁴³Ibid., 13:3. Remember what Amalek did unto thee³⁴⁴Further, 25:17. — which are all commandments. If so, this verse, too, is like those, it being an admonition against speaking slander. He commanded by way of a positive precept that we remember the great punishment which G-d inflicted upon the righteous prophetess who spoke only about her brother upon whom she had bestowed her mercy³⁴⁵See Exodus 2:7-8. and whom she loved as herself. And she spoke nothing wrong to his face, but only, in privacy, between herself and her holy brother [Aaron]. Yet all her good deeds were of no avail to her! You, too, if thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son³⁴⁶Psalms 50:20. you will not be saved!
In the language of the Sifra:³⁴⁷Sifra, at beginning of Seder Bechukothai. On Sifra, Sifre, etc. see Vol. IV, p. 46, Note 55. “When Scripture states, and ye will not do all these commandments,³⁴⁸Leviticus 26:14. this refers to everything written in the Torah. If so, why does it say, And if ye will not hearken unto Me?³⁴⁸Leviticus 26:14. It means to study the Torah laboriously. Similarly, He states Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy.³⁴²Exodus 20:8. I might think that this means ‘in your heart.’ But Observe the Sabbath-day³⁴⁹Above 5:12. refers already to observance of the heart. How then can I fulfill the command Remember³⁴²Exodus 20:8. [if that also refers to the heart? I must conclude that Remember means] ‘verbal utterance.’³⁵⁰See Vol. II, pp. 313-315. Similarly, it is said Remember, forget thou not, [how thou didst make the Eternal thy G-d wroth in the wilderness] etc.³⁵¹Above, 9:7. “I might think that this means ‘in your heart.’ But forget thou not refers to forgetfulness of the heart. How then can I fulfill the command Remember? It means ‘verbal utterance.’” It is thus a positive commandment throughout the generations that we speak of G-d’s mercies upon us etc. (see my Hebrew commentary p. 463). And so it is also said, Remember what the Eternal thy G-d did unto Miriam. I might think that this means ‘in your heart.’ But Take heed in the plague of leprosy, that thou observe diligently, and do³⁵²Verse 8. refers already to forgetfulness of heart. How then can I fulfill the injunction Remember [if that also refers to the heart? I must conclude that it means] ‘verbal utterance.’ And so also he states, Remember what Amalek did unto thee.³⁴⁴Further, 25:17. I might think that it means ‘in your heart.’ But thou shalt not forget³⁵³Further, 25:19. refers already to forgetfulness of the heart. How then can I obey the injunction Remember? ‘By verbal utterance.’” The meaning thereof is as follows: To the Sages the verse Take heed ‘in’ the plague of leprosy means, “Beware ‘from’ the plague of leprosy, observing diligently that it should not come upon you, and do therein according to all that the priests the Levites shall teach you,” and Remember what the Eternal thy G-d did unto Miriam, meaning that you mention it always in the utterance of words. It appears from here [i.e., from this Sifra] our Rabbis considered this a commandment, not as a narrative and advice on how to be saved from plagues [as Rashi had explained it]. And how is it possible that, concerning slander which is as weighty as bloodshed,³⁵⁴Arakhin 15b. there should not be a real negative commandment against it in the Torah, or at least a negative commandment derived from a positive commandment! But this verse contains a great admonition to refrain from it both in public and in private, whether with intent to hurt and to shame or with no intent to harm at all. And this commandment is of the Taryag (613) Commandments which the author of the “Hilchoth Gedoloth”³⁵⁵See Vol. II, p. 350, Note 70. and all those who counted the commandments have forgotten to include.³⁵⁶It is noteworthy that the author of Megillath Esther who in his notes to Rambam’s Sefer Hamitzvoth, comes to the defense of Rambam against the strictures of Ramban, agrees that Ramban’s position is correct (see Ramban’s Additional Positive Commandments, Commandment 7). Rambam, however, did not “forget” the prohibition against slander, for he included it in the prohibition against bearing tales (see “The Commandments,” Vol. II, p. 280).

בדרך בצאתכם ממצרים, even though segregating her at that time meant that the whole nation would have to remain in an inhospitable desert for an extra seven days, the people did not complain about this. Other, less distinguished people, will certainly not be treated better than was Miriam if they should become afflicted in a similar manner.

זכור את אשר עשה ה' אלוקיך למרים, “keep remembering what the Lord your G’d had done to Miriam, etc.” Rashi understands this as a veiled warning that if we do not want to be struck with the affliction of tzoraat, we must remember how Miriam was punished for badmouthing her brother Moses. Nachmanides writes that in his opinion this verse is a positive commandment ranking parallel to the fourth Commandment in the Ten Commandments זכור את יום השבת לקדשו, “keep remembering the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” There are other such verses, such as to remember the day we left Egypt as a free nation, (Exodus 13,3) or, at the end of this portion, ”remember what Amalek did to you, etc.” (Deut. 25,17) This is the Torah’s way of underlining the grave sin of badmouthing people by adding a positive commandment to the negative commandment. The positive commandment is to constantly remember how even the illustrious Miriam, Moses’ lifesaver in a certain manner, was punished for saying a few words criticizing him unjustly. She had not done so publicly, and yet all her numerous merits did not protect her against being punished, and that punishment being very public, the whole nation having to wait a whole week before they could move on. It is not enough to remember what happened to Miriam only in one’s heart, but we are required to read the relevant verses with our lips to impress the importance of the problem of badmouthing people. In the last verse the Torah warned us to be extremely careful in matters of the affliction called tzoraat, i.e. in that verse we were warned to remember what that affliction is for in our hearts and minds. Now the Torah reinforces this commandment by ordering us to voice the fact that we have committed this lesson to memory. Seeing that in the eyes of our sages the sin of לשון הרע, badmouthing people is equated with the spilling of innocent blood, (compare Erchin 15) it is not surprising therefore that the Torah reinforces it. It is quite inconceivable that such a grievous sin should not have been spelled out in the Torah. We therefore regard what is written in verse 8 and verse 9 as a severe warning not to become guilty of such a sin either in public or even in private. The sin is not lessened if the intent of the criticism was not to harm the good reputation of the party discussed. [Miriam’s criticism was in defense of her sister-in-law Tzipporah whom Moses had divorced for no good cause, as she had thought. Ed.] לשון הרע is part of the roster of the 613 commandments, no less so than not to violate the Sabbath.

If you intend to take precautions, etc. Otherwise what does this have to do with this [previous subject]? It seems to me that Rashi is answering an apparent redundancy of verse (v. 8) that deals with the leprosy affliction. Why does it say “to be extremely careful”? Regarding this he answers, “If you intend to take precautions to avoid suffering, etc.”

V. 9. זכור וגו׳. Die Mahnung, sich immer den Vorgang (Bamidbar Kap. 12) gegenwärtig zu halten, wo Mirjam, die Prophetin, wegen eines mit ihrem Bruder Aharon unter vier Augen über ihren beiderseitigen Bruder Mosche gewechselten Wortes, das von dem Charakter der Bösrede und der Überhebung nicht frei war, von dem Gottesfinger öffentlich mit einem נגע gekennzeichnet und infolge dessen sieben Tage aus der Volksgemeinsamkeit ausgeschlossen wurde, — diese Mahnung spricht für alle Zeiten laut aus die rein sittliche Bedeutung der Nega'iminstitution als mahnendes Besserungsmittel von sozialen Untugenden und Verirrungen, erinnert zugleich an die Schwere der Verantwortlichkeit für ein jedes an לשון הרע grenzende Wort, das selbst einer Mirjam nicht nachgesehen wurde, die, nach der Auffassung, es nicht einmal in böser Absicht gesprochen hatte, und endlich an die Wichtigkeit der Ausführung der Nega'imvorschriften, um deren willen das ganze Volk auf seiner Wanderung zur verheißenen Heimat — בדרך בצאתכם ממצרים — sich sieben Tage unterbrechen musste.