This week’s Torah reding of M’tsora (Leviticus 14:1–15:33) deals at length with regulations pertaining to a person diagnosed with a dermatological ailment usually translated as leprosy. To the talmudic sages, this disease was a divine punishment for the sin of wicked speech—more precisely, any sort of disparagement of a fellow person. Reflecting on why rabbinic thought ascribes such gravity to this particular sin, Jonathan Sacks seeks the answer in the Jewish view of speech itself:

Examining the State Department spokesman Ned Price’s remarks on Monday regarding Washington’s approach to the Islamic Republic, Elliott Abrams detects two crucial points on which the administration has been unclear. The first relates to Price’s comment that, “if Iran returns to full compliance with the [2015 nuclear] deal, the United States would be prepared to do the same.”