The Ring That Binds Them

The Maharal in many places describes how man is comprised of nefesh, guf and sechal.  In Ner Mitzvah he introduces a fourth category called tzurahs ha’adam which binds all the other capabilities together.  He describes how the four stages of golus correspond to these four aspects.  The final golus of Edom corresponds to the tzurah.  The tzurah is the most powerful part of a person and therefore this golus is as bad as all the previous one’s combined.  In Nesiv Haloshon chapter 6 the Maharal indicates that the tzurah of a person is necessary for a person’s power of speech.  Speech can only come about through the combination of all the aspects of a person.  It requires a physical mouth and tongue, the nefesh to produce the sounds and the sechal to think of the ideas to be expressed.  Rav Hartman in footnotes to the Maharal in Ner Mitzvah (about the four golious) brings from Rav Hutner that the power of Edom is in the tongue as it says כי ציד בפיו.  That’s why they send out missionaries to try to convert people with their speech, for their strength lies in the tongue.  Putting the two Maharals together, we understand that since it is Edom which fights against the tzuras ha’adam that their power is through speech because that it reflective of a person’s tzurah.

The Shem Me’Shmuel (5671) explains that’s why Chazal say loshon harah is worse than even the three cardinal sins.  The Maharal in Netzach Yisroel (Ch. 4) says that the three cardinal sins correspond to the nefesh, guf and sechal.  However, a misuse of speech is a destruction of the tzurah of the person.  Loshon harah leads to the unraveling of the unification of the dimensions of a person until they stumble into major setbacks.  It is loshon harah that destroys the tzelem Elokim that a person has and that is worse than the three cardinal sins.  (He has a long description how all the processes of the metzorah are to fix up the nefesh, guf and secal and how it corresponds to the different negaim.)

 The Gemorah in Arachen (16) says the teshuvah for loshon harah is to learn Torah.  That’s because that is the only way to positively use one’s speech to fix up his tzurah.  Based upon this Gemorah we can understand why the tumah and taharah of the metzorah depend upon a Kohan.  The Kohan is the one who is entrusted to teach Torah to the nation and therefore he is the one to bring taharah to the metzorah (see Kli Yakar in Metzorah.)

I would suggest that these four ideas correspond to the four yesodos of aish, ruach, maim, and afar.  The Maharal in Nesiv Avodah chapter 1 links the first three to Torah, avodah and gemilus chasadim.  See Derech Chaim Pirkai Avos 1:2 that links those ideas to the first three yesodos.  Dirt- afar corresponds to the tzurah of a person that brings everything together for it makes up even the other 3 yesodos (as the Maharal says in Netzach Yisroel chapter 57.)

We could say that the first Beis Hamikdash being destroyed for the big three averos corresponds to the nefesh, guf and secal.  The second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of sinais chinam which is the opposite of tzurah.  The tzurah comes to bind everything together; sinais chinam is the greatest seperation (not like Maharal in Netzach Yisroel chapter 4 that the second Beis Hamikdash aligns with nefesh.)