Seven days of speech about what everyone already knows

In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) he writes that this is plain by reason, and that it is stated outright in the Sifrei, an early midrash (the Sages' reading of the verses). He quotes the Sifrei on the opening of Devarim (Deuteronomy; Sifrei Devarim 1): when Miriam spoke about her brother Moshe (Moses), no one heard her but the Holy One alone, and she was punished as she was; one who speaks of his fellow's disgrace in public, how much more. He points to two more places in the Sifrei that say the like. One of them (Sifrei Devarim 275) says: Miriam spoke only when Moshe was not present, and for his benefit, for the praise of God and the building of the world, and she was punished as she was; one who speaks of his fellow's disgrace in public, how much more will he be punished.

He brings a second proof from the Gemara (the Talmud, Arachin 16a-16b). It speaks of two things in the Temple that atoned for lashon hara: the incense for what was said in private, and the High Priest's robe, with its bells, for what was said in public. So what is said in public, he reasons, needs atonement too.

Why does he explain at length something so plain? Because, he writes, a number of people err in this and lean on the words of the sage Rabbah bar Rav Huna in the Gemara (Bava Batra 39a): anything said in front of three people has no lashon hara in it. So he found himself obliged to explain the matter in all its details. He goes through how the early commentators read that line, and says that what he wrote in the main text is not one lone opinion: all the early authorities agree with it.

This is from Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech, in a chapter whose heading says that in this sin a person sins and makes his fellow sin. "Accepting" lashon hara means believing it. Further on in the chapter he passes on a piece of advice he heard. A wise man told his friend never to stand near the synagogue or the study hall after the third Shabbat meal, in summer, to tell someone something:

The pairing of this chapter with today's law is ours.

The line in the Gemara is Rabbah bar Rav Huna's: anything said in front of three people has no lashon hara in it (Bava Batra 39a; Arachin 16a). "Your friend has a friend" is the Gemara's phrase: whoever hears a thing has a friend he will tell, and that friend has a friend (Arachin 16a). In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) the Chafetz Chaim goes through how the early commentators read it. This paragraph, he writes, is taken from the Rambam (Maimonides, Hilchot De'ot 7:5), and he explains the Rambam by the reason the Rashbam, an early commentator, gives: it is a thing that is bound to be revealed. He suggests why that should matter. The Torah calls the teller of lashon hara a peddler, one who carries things from place to place, and that name does not fit one who passes on a thing that will come out in any case.

Then he sets out the other side. Other early commentators (he names Rashi, Tosafot and Rabbeinu Yonah) read the Gemara's line differently, and on their readings, he writes, there is no source in the Gemara for this leniency of the Rambam, "and so it needs study whether the law is so." Even so, he does not set it aside altogether, since the Rambam, the Semag (an early code of the commandments) and the Rashbam agree on it. That, he writes, is why he gave this law in the main text as "some say."

A note of his inside the paragraph adds a stricter view. Some say more: even if it happens to come up, he may not set out to tell this thing by itself. It is permitted only when the matter rolls in by the way, in the middle of what he is saying. His notes name the source, a later work of law called Yad HaKetanah, and give its reasoning: "your friend has a friend" works slowly, as things come up between people in conversation; one who means to reveal the thing makes it known quickly, and so does more than that.

The paragraph ends: even if he does not say who told him, and only says that such and such was heard about So-and-so, he has not escaped the prohibition of lashon hara. His notes explain: this is one who meant to pass the report on.

Only the first hearer, who himself heard it told in front of three. One who heard it from him may not rely on being told that it was said in front of three, unless the thing has already become public and known to all (2:4).

It seems to him that if it was told in front of God-fearing people who are careful about lashon hara, the thing is not bound to come out, and telling it afterwards is forbidden by the Torah. The same holds if even one of the three was such a person. And perhaps, he writes, also if one of the three was a relative or a friend of the person spoken about (2:5).

It also seems to him that this is only in the city where it was told, not in another city, even if travelers pass between the two (2:6). His notes weigh it both ways. With a matter that makes a stir, he writes, one can perhaps say that it applies even from city to city. Small matters do not carry from city to city, and perhaps, in a large city, not even within the city.

Not if the teller warned them not to reveal it, even if he said it in front of many (2:7). And only if there were three listeners; the tellers are not counted (2:8, with his notes).

Not with a single word added. Not about something a person did long ago and has left behind, or about how his parents behaved, when he does not follow their ways, even when everyone knows it (2:9). And not to a listener who, by his nature, will at once take the thing as true, and may add to it: telling such a person, he writes, transgresses "Do not put a stumbling block before the blind" (2:10; Vayikra, Leviticus, 19:14).

For rechilut (talebearing: telling a person what someone said or did against him) he brings a parallel "some say": once a thing was said in front of three, there is no rechilut in telling the person, "So-and-so said this about you." Then he rules: one is not to rely on this view in practice. He cites the Maharshal, a later authority, that many of the early authorities (he names the Rambam, the Semag and Tosafot) disagree with it and forbid in every case (Rechilut 2:3).

This is from Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech, in a chapter on lashon hara that comes from despair, and from its being treated as a free-for-all. His advice there is a picture. A person and his whole town are gravely ill, and a great doctor comes to town. Would he be slow to send for him?

All the more so with the soul, he writes: one should not look at others in this. He is speaking there of guarding the tongue in general, not of things said in front of three. Setting the passage beside today's law is ours.

"Your friend has a friend" is a phrase from the Gemara (the Talmud): whoever hears a thing has a friend he will tell, and that friend has a friend (Arachin 16a).

In a note on that paragraph he raises one case and leaves it open. If the teller only ordered them not to reveal it to the person it was said about, perhaps it is permitted to mention it to someone else if it happens to come up. "It needs study," he writes. The note speaks only within the "some say" view of things told in front of three. So everything he says about that view holds here too: he advises keeping far from it, and it needs study whether the law follows it at all (2:10).

In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) he gives the sources of this law: the Semag, an early code of the commandments, and the Hagahot Maimoniyot and the Kesef Mishneh, two commentaries on the Rambam (Maimonides). The Kesef Mishneh explains: because of the warning, and because here one cannot say "your friend has a friend," since each of them will take care not to reveal the secret. He adds a proof from the Gemara (the Talmud, Bava Batra 39a), which compares lashon hara to a protest, a statement an owner makes in front of witnesses that someone is holding his land. As he brings it: if the owner told the witnesses, "Let no word of this go out from you," it is not a protest, because it is no longer bound to get around.

For the third listener he gives three lines of reasoning. On the view of the Yad HaKetanah (a later work of law), the whole permission rests on the teller's having agreed that the thing be known, and here he plainly has not. On the reasoning he himself prefers, that a thing told to three is bound to come out: with only two who have told it, it is not yet bound to reach everyone. And a third reason, which does not depend on the count: the man handed them the thing as a secret, and of this it is said, "One who goes about as a talebearer reveals a secret" (Mishlei, Proverbs, 11:13). Is the third one permitted, he asks, because two transgressed? He compares the Gemara's rule (Yoma 4b) that what a person tells his fellow may not be repeated until he says, "Go and say it." On this reasoning, he writes, even if four were warned and three went and told, the fourth may not, although the thing is by now known to all.

Then, in parentheses, he writes that the matter is still not fully clear to him, and neither is the law in the main text. Perhaps the one who warned them meant it only for as long as all of them kept his word. And what will it help if this one holds back, when it will now come out anyway? All of that, he ends, is on his own reasoning. On the Yad HaKetanah's it is forbidden in every case, as long as we have not seen that the teller agreed. The main text rules as above.

This is from Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech, in the chapters on a saying of Rabbi Yitzchak in the Gemara (Chullin 89a): what is a person's craft in this world? To make himself like one who cannot speak. The Gemara adds: but not for words of Torah. The passage lists what a habit of silence saves a person from. Its wording follows an older book, Orchot Tzadikim (Gate of Silence). The pairing of it with today's law is ours.

He points ahead to chapter 7 of these laws, which begins:

"Accepting" lashon hara (negative talk about someone) means deciding in one's heart that it is true. The paragraph goes on: the listeners should be wary of it and look into the matter, and if it becomes clear to them that it is true, they should reprove the person it was said about, which means correct him. What "wary" allows is narrow: only guarding oneself, or others, with no harm or shame to the person, and not even hating him in one's heart (6:10-11).

He wrote today's paragraph about one who repeats a story. The law for one who hears it is in chapter 6, and it opens:

For one who is sitting among people who have begun to tell such things, and judges that rebuking them will not help, he writes that leaving, or stopping his ears, is a great mitzvah (commandment). If he cannot leave, and judges that stopping his ears is also very hard for him, because they will mock him, he gives three rules (6:5): to decide firmly not to believe what they say; not to be pleased at hearing it; and to show the tellers no movement from which it would seem that he agrees with them, but to sit like a silent stone. If he can show them a stern face, so that they understand he does not agree, that, he writes, is certainly better.

His proof is from the prophet Yechezkel (Ezekiel, chapter 18): "A son shall not bear the sin of the father," and, of one who turns back from his sins, "all his transgressions that he did shall not be remembered against him." One who tells such things about a person in front of people in order to shame him, he writes, even without adding anything to the truth, belongs to the group of tellers of lashon hara, who do not come before the Divine Presence; he cites Rabbeinu Yonah, an early sage, in his book Sha'arei Teshuvah. In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) he calls all this plain, and still shows a source. Sefer Chasidim, an early book of piety (section 44), counts as lashon hara telling a fellow's disgrace "even a true thing, and even a common saying." A commentator there explains: the disgrace is on everyone's lips and has become a byword among them, and even so it is forbidden to tell it.

In Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech, the Chafetz Chaim is describing two kinds of people. The good help a fellow with all their strength and cover his shortcomings as they would their own. The bad do the opposite: they are glad at his fall, and reveal his mistakes and make them out, in front of everyone, to be deliberate. He quotes Midrash Shocher Tov, the Midrash on Tehillim (Psalms), on the verse "Why do you boast of evil, mighty man?" (52:3). It is about Doeg, who spoke lashon hara to King Shaul (Saul) about David and Achimelech the priest. Setting it beside today's law is ours: a person about whom a story is going around is a person at the edge.

In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) the source is a story in the Talmud Yerushalmi (the Jerusalem Talmud, Peah 1:1). As he tells it: a group had a day on which they were to go to forced labor, and one of them, called Bar Chovetz, slipped away and did not go up with them. They said to one another, "What shall we eat today?" One answered, "Chovtza," a kind of lentil that was called by that name then. Through this the overseers were reminded, and said: let Bar Chovetz come to the labor too. Rabbi Yochanan said: this one spoke lashon hara in concealment.

The Chafetz Chaim reasons from it. The man who answered did not say the name outright. He did not even say what was in his mind, that Bar Chovetz had slipped away. He only named the food, and so the name was remembered. All the more so, he writes, in our case, where a person tells the deed itself. He adds that lashon hara, as the Rambam (Maimonides) defines it, includes anything that causes a person harm in body or in money, or distress.

The Yerushalmi itself tells the story in a few words. As printed, it is the linen dealers who have a gathering that the man did not come up to, and the forced labor and the overseers are not spelled out. Those details come from the Penei Moshe, the commentary printed beside the Yerushalmi. The Chafetz Chaim does not name it, but he tells the story almost word for word as the Penei Moshe does.

He goes on to other ways of telling by trickery (3:5): telling the thing as if innocently, as though he did not know that it is lashon hara, or that these are So-and-so's deeds. All of this, he rules, is lashon hara.

This is from Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech, in a chapter on the power of lashon hara. He is describing the baal lashon hara, a person for whom it has become a habit. A midrash (a teaching of the Sages) that he brings there compares lashon hara to a mad dog, the one danger a person can only hide from. In a note, the Chafetz Chaim takes the Gemara's signs of such a dog (the Talmud, Yoma 83b) and finds each of them in that person. One of the signs is that it walks at the sides of the road, quietly, so that no one will be on guard. The words above are from that note. A few lines later he applies to those who write against people in secret the verse, "Cursed is one who strikes his fellow in secret" (Devarim, Deuteronomy, 27:24). In his laws he brings the same verse for lashon hara told in secret (3:1). The pairing of this passage with today's law is ours.

"The same law" is the law of the paragraph before it, about hearing a thing from two people or more. "Being wary" has limits, and he gives them in the chapter before (6:10-11). It is only a bare concern, in order to guard against harm to oneself or to others. It is not to count even as a doubt, he writes, because a person keeps his standing as upright, and so he is still owed every kindness the Torah commands toward any other Jew. Nothing may be done to him because of it: no act against him, no harm and no shame, large or small. Even to hate him in one's heart over it, he writes, is forbidden by the Torah.

He gives two cases. In the first, the telling itself was forbidden to them. Then even if what they say is true, he writes, they have broken the prohibition of talebearing, which applies to the truth as well. That makes them wicked, and how can they be believed about a Jew who is, for now, presumed fully upright? One who is suspect in lashon hara, he adds, is suspect of lying, changing and adding: what of it that they are two, or even many more? And even where the telling was not forbidden to them, it is still forbidden to decide, on their word, that the thing is true. What two people say counts as testimony only in a court. All of this is about deciding that the thing is true, he ends; being wary is permitted even if one heard it from only one person. What being wary allows is narrow: only guarding against harm to oneself or others. It is not even a doubt about the person, nothing may be done to him, and he may not be hated for it (6:10-11).

The chapter opens with a thing said in public (7:1): even if the teller tells it in front of a number of people, one may not decide because of this that it is true. The listeners should be wary of it and look into the matter, and if it becomes clear to them that it is true, they should reprove him for it, which means correct him.

In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) the source for a report is a story in the Gemara (the Talmud, Niddah 61a). A report went out about certain men of the Galilee that they had killed someone. They came to Rabbi Tarfon and asked him to hide them. He said: what shall I do? If I do not hide you, they will see you. And if I hide you, the Sages said of lashon hara that although one may not accept it, one should be wary of it. Go and hide yourselves. So, the Chafetz Chaim writes, the law of not accepting applies to a report too.

Rashi, the classic commentator, explains: perhaps you did kill, and I may not save you. The Rosh, an early authority, finds that hard, and prefers the explanation of the She'iltot, an early work: Rabbi Tarfon was guarding himself. If the report were true, hiding them would make him liable with his life to the king, who had warned against taking in killers. The Chafetz Chaim follows this, and writes that without that risk Rabbi Tarfon could not have given the report any weight at all (his notes on 6:10).

All of this, he writes in the next paragraph, is about an ordinary Jew. He has a separate rule for a person already established as wicked, about whom it has become known, several times, that he broke, with contempt, prohibitions known to all Israel (7:5). In his note on today's paragraph he takes care to say that a single report about a person, even one heard from many people, does not make him that. And in his note on 7:5: if it is known that only one person started a report, and it spread through the town from him, it is certainly forbidden to rely on it. A real case is a question for a rav (rabbi).

He points back to chapter 2 (2:3): the view, brought there as "some say," that when a thing was told in front of three people, one of those three may afterwards mention it if it happens to come up. His notes here say that this permission does not apply to one who means to reveal the thing further. And he closes that discussion with his advice to keep far from that leniency altogether, which has, he writes, almost no place in reality. He adds that it needs study whether the law follows that view at all (2:10).

In Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech, he gives advice for the listener. One who wants the trait of guarding his tongue should do the opposite of what "people of the tongue" do: they go wherever people gather, in case they hear something to mock or to carry on to others, and they are always asking after news of what happened in town between one person and another. Do it by stages, he writes: first, do not stand about in a group and do not ask after news; then, little by little, train yourself not to want to hear it.

The pairing of this passage with today's law is ours.

The story is in Melachim (Kings) I, chapter 18. Ovadyah was in charge of King Achav's house, and he feared Hashem greatly. When Izevel was cutting off the prophets of Hashem, he took a hundred prophets, hid them fifty to a cave, and sustained them with bread and water (18:3-4). Later he tells the prophet Eliyahu (Elijah) so himself (18:13). On Mount Carmel, in front of all the people, Eliyahu says: "I alone am left a prophet of Hashem" (18:22). Wars that Achav won against Aram are in chapter 20. Shaul (Saul) and his sons fell in battle on Mount Gilboa (Shmuel, Samuel, I 31).

The Chafetz Chaim cites Midrash Shocher Tov, the Midrash on Tehillim (Psalms), and the Talmud Yerushalmi (the Jerusalem Talmud), Peah 1:1. A midrash is a collection of the Sages' teachings on the verses. In the Yerushalmi it is said by Rabbi Abba bar Kahana: the generation of David were all righteous, and because there were informers among them they went out to war and fell; the generation of Achav served idols, and because there was no informing among them they went down to war and won. It ends: "And all the people knew, and did not make it known to the king." The Midrash on Tehillim (7:8) speaks of children in the days of Shaul and Shmuel (Samuel) who explained the Torah in forty-nine ways, and says of the generation of Achav that they went out and won, and not one of them was killed.

One detail of his telling comes from another book he cites there, the Semak (Sefer Mitzvot Katan, a medieval book of the commandments, 124): that the people gave Ovadyah the food. That is not in the Yerushalmi or the Midrash. It is the Semak's reasoning: many in Israel must have known, for otherwise where would he have found enough food for them? He must have asked it of many people. The sources also differ about the other generation. The Yerushalmi speaks of "the generation of David." The Midrash on Tehillim has "the days of Shaul and Shmuel," and the Semak "the generation of Shaul." Devarim Rabbah (5:10), which he cites in the next paragraph, also has "the generation of Shaul" and names Doeg and the people of Zif. The Chafetz Chaim writes "the end of the days of Shaul."

The Yerushalmi and the Midrash both add what David then asked of Hashem: to take His presence away from among them. The Chafetz Chaim brings that in the next paragraph (4:5), from Midrash Rabbah, in the name of Rabbi Mona: anyone who says lashon hara drives the Divine Presence from below to above.

King Shaul was pursuing David, who had done him no wrong. Doeg the Edomite, one of Shaul's officers, told Shaul in front of his servants that he had seen David come to Nov, to Achimelech the priest, who gave him food and a sword (Shmuel I 22:9-10). Shaul had the priests of Nov killed (22:18-19). The people of Zif came to Shaul, more than once, to tell him where David was hiding (23:19; 26:1). Two paragraphs earlier the Chafetz Chaim brings, from the same Midrash:

The Midrash learns it, he writes, from Doeg: Shaul, who accepted it; Achimelech, about whom it was said; and Doeg, who said it. The Gemara (the Talmud, Arachin 15b) has the same count of three.

Bringing this story to a Shabbat table is ours, and so is the paragraph in the card about a person who is being hurt or is in danger. The Chafetz Chaim's own laws include a duty to tell in order to save a person, with conditions that he sets out there. When a person sees that his fellow is about to go into something with someone, and judges that harm will surely come to him from it, he rules: "he must tell him, in order to save him from that harm," and he gives five conditions for it (Rechilut, his laws of talebearing, 9:1-2). In his note there he writes that it seems to him a duty by law, and brings the verse, "Do not stand by your fellow's blood" (Vayikra, Leviticus, 19:16). One who heard a person say that he will hit So-and-so, and judges that he will surely do it, must make it known to that person, he rules, with the same conditions (9:3). And of the men who warned Gedalyah (Gedaliah) that someone meant to kill him (Yirmiyahu, Jeremiah, 40:13-16), he writes in his notes that they did a great mitzvah (commandment), the one of that same verse (his notes on Lashon Hara 7:3).