Seven days of speech and the excuses we give for it

Between these words and "in his presence," the paragraph speaks of the opposite case: one who takes care to tell it in secret, and minds that it should not become known to the person. Such a person, writes the Chafetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan of Radin, known by the name of this book), also brings on himself the Torah's curse: "Cursed is one who strikes his fellow in secret" (Devarim, Deuteronomy, 27:24). Rashi, the classic commentator, writes there that the verse speaks of lashon hara. The shaming he mentions at the end is forbidden by the Torah's words "do not bear sin because of him" (Vayikra, Leviticus, 19:17). He explains that prohibition at length in the opening of his book.

In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) he writes that this leniency is very common in the mouths of the people, who lean on a saying of the sage Rabbi Yosi in the Gemara (the Talmud): "In all my days I never said a thing and turned back" (Shabbat 118b). The Gemara brings that saying in a short exchange (Arachin 15b). Rabbah, a sage of the Gemara, says: anything said in front of the person it is about has no lashon hara in it. He is answered (by the sage Abaye, as the Chafetz Chaim cites it): all the more so, it is insolence and lashon hara! Rabbah replies that he holds like Rabbi Yosi.

The Chafetz Chaim goes through how the early authorities (the rabbis of the Middle Ages) read this. The Rambam (Maimonides) rules that lashon hara is the same "in his fellow's presence or not in his presence" (Hilchot De'ot 7:5). Tosafot, medieval commentators printed beside the Gemara, explain, as he brings them, that the Gemara speaks only of words that can be heard two ways (below). He brings a case from the Gemara (Pesachim 113b). Tuviah sinned, and Zigud came alone and testified against him before the sage Rav Pappa. Rav Pappa had Zigud flogged. Zigud said: Tuviah sinned, and Zigud is flogged? Yes, said Rav Pappa: it is written, "One witness shall not rise against a person" (Devarim 19:15), and you testified against him alone. You have only given him a bad name. The Chafetz Chaim reads the Gemara's wording to mean that Zigud said it with Tuviah standing there. From this he learns that this too is lashon hara: Zigud knew it was true and said it to Tuviah's face, and since he told it alone, it was forbidden.

Before he ends, he sets one case apart. One early authority, the Sefer Yere'im (a medieval book of the commandments), does rule like Rabbi Yosi. The Chafetz Chaim explains that the Yere'im means a case that is not lashon hara to begin with: one who saw a person rob or shame someone, and tells others in order to help the one who was wronged. There, as he explains the Yere'im, being ready to say it to the man's face is a sign that he speaks out of zeal for the truth and not for the pleasure of it. In this, he notes, the Yere'im is more lenient than another early authority, who requires more. The case has its own conditions (Lashon Hara, chapter 10), and he warns: let the reader not hurry to be lenient in this. It is not today's subject. And he ends: it is forbidden to tell lashon hara both in the person's presence and not in his presence, "and who can lift his head to be lenient in this against all these early authorities?"

This is the next paragraph (3:2). The dust of lashon hara (avak lashon hara) is the Sages' name for a remark that is not outright disparagement but can carry it or lead to it. A remark of that kind, he writes, depends on what the speaker wants and on how he says it at that moment. By his voice and his gestures he can say it so lightly that no disparagement of his fellow is noticeable in it, or he can say it so that the listener understands the disparaging sense. This, he writes, is very hard to measure. So the Sages said: if, in the manner in which he is now saying it, a person would not be ashamed to say it even in front of his fellow, that shows he does not mean to disparage him, and so it is permitted.

And he closes the paragraph the other way. If it is noticeable from his manner that he means to disparage, so that a person would by nature be ashamed to say it that way in front of his fellow, then even though the whole thing is only the dust of lashon hara, and it is true, and he knows that he would say it even to the person's face, even so it is forbidden.

This is from Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech, in a chapter on the commandment "Love your fellow as yourself." The pairing of it with today's law is ours. Today's law is about telling other people, with him there or not. This passage is about the other kind of "to his face": telling the person himself, in private, for his good. How to do that has its own laws.

The verse is Yeshayahu 6:5: "Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips." In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) the Chafetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan of Radin, known by the name of this book) explains the first words as Rashi, the classic commentator, does: I am as good as dead, for I was not worthy to see the Divine Presence. So the prophet was lamenting over himself, and he began with his own disgrace.

Even so, the Chafetz Chaim writes, he was punished for it, as the next verse says: "Then one of the seraphim (angels) flew to me, and in his hand a glowing coal." The Hebrew for the coal is ritzpah. The Midrash (the Sages' readings of the verses) on Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs, reads it as two words, retzotz peh: crush the mouth of the one who spoke dilatoria about My children (on Sefaria, Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:6). Rashi brings the reading on the verse in these words: the Holy One said to the angel, crush the mouth that spoke dilatoria about My children. The Chafetz Chaim quotes it that way. The verse after it says that with the coal his sin was atoned.

The same Midrash has the other line: "Yeshayahu, about yourself you may say, 'I am a man of unclean lips.' But 'I dwell among a people of unclean lips'?" The Chafetz Chaim cites that answer from the Yalkut, a medieval collection of midrash, which has it in other words.

This is from Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech. The Rokeach is Rabbi Elazar of Worms, a sage of medieval Germany, known by the name of his book, and Aggadat Mishlei is a midrash on the book of Mishlei (Proverbs). The chapter's heading says that one who punishes his fellow will not be cleared if he too is not clean of that sin. He learns it from a rule he brings from the Semak (Sefer Mitzvot Katan, a medieval book of the commandments), in the name of an earlier sage. Even one who killed a pursuer (a person chasing someone in order to kill him, whom the law commands to stop even at the cost of his life) must afterward beware of even a trace of the pursuer's sin. If he later stumbles in a sin like it, the one he killed is counted to him as "innocent blood." The proof is King Yehu (Jehu), who was punished for the blood of the house of the wicked King Achav (Ahab), though a prophet had commanded him in God's name to shed it, because he later stumbled in a sin of Achav's house. The Chafetz Chaim explains: the golden calves, which Yehu kept, and by mistake (Melachim II, 2 Kings, 10:29; Hoshea, Hosea, 1:4). From this the Chafetz Chaim learns the same between one person and another. If someone punishes his fellow by striking him, by shaming him or by telling lashon hara about him, then even if the law was with him, he should know: if he has already transgressed in that very matter, or will in the end, the pain of that person is counted as "innocent blood," and he will surely be punished for it as for hurting a person who is whole in God's Torah and His commandments.

The pairing of this chapter with today's law is ours. In the law, the speaker says his own fault aloud, as if that made room for his fellow's. In this chapter the Chafetz Chaim asks what the speaker's own fault does to his account. His case there is one who sets out to punish his fellow.

In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) the Chafetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan of Radin, known by the name of this book) gives the source for "pressed him." King Shaul pressed his servants: "all of you have conspired against me, and no one reveals it to my ear" (Shmuel I, 1 Samuel, 22:7-8). Only then did Doeg the Edomite, who stood over Shaul's servants, answer and tell what he had seen (22:9-10). Shaul was a king, the Chafetz Chaim writes, and they were in great fear of him, and even so Doeg is counted everywhere as a talebearer for this (one who carries to a person what another did or said against him, which is rechilut, the second prohibition the book covers). From this, he writes, we learn the same for lashon hara.

For a father and a teacher he brings the Shulchan Aruch (the 16th-century code of Jewish law, Yoreh De'ah 240:15): if his father told him to transgress the words of the Torah, a positive commandment or a prohibition, or even a commandment of the Sages, he is not to listen to him. The same, he writes, certainly holds for his teacher. And since this is so even for a commandment of the Sages, he writes, he ruled it "even for the dust of lashon hara."

And he explains his wording, "to tell them about such and such a matter." He did not picture a father asking outright for lashon hara, he writes, because that is not common.

The next paragraphs go further. Even if a person sees that training himself never to speak in disparagement of a Jew will cost him a great loss in his living, for example because he works under people who will take him for a fool and dismiss him, so that he will have nothing to support his household, it is forbidden, he rules, like all other prohibitions, for which a person must give up all he has rather than transgress (1:6). All the more, he writes, if it touches only his honor: he sits among a group he cannot slip away from, they are speaking what the law forbids, and if he sits silent and adds nothing they will think him mad. Certainly, he writes, it is forbidden (1:7).

This is from Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech, in a chapter on keeping far from helping a quarrel along, "even if by this he is helping his father and his mother." He brings there, from the Yalkut (a medieval collection of midrash), what saved the sons of Korach from their father's punishment (Korach led a revolt against Moshe, Moses, in the wilderness). When they sat with their father and saw Moshe, they pressed their faces to the ground. They said: if we stand for Moshe our teacher, we shame our father, and we were already commanded to honor father and mother. If we do not stand, it is written, "Rise before the aged." Better that we stand for Moshe our teacher, though we shame our father. At that hour, the Midrash says, their hearts stirred toward teshuvah (repentance). From this, he writes, one can know that a person who is not drawn after his father's counsel in his quarrel will not be caught in his net.

The pairing of this chapter with today's law is ours. His chapter is about a quarrel, and today's law is about telling. Both rest on the same ruling of the Shulchan Aruch.

In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) the Chafetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan of Radin, known by the name of this book) gives the source of the first half. The Gemara teaches that each of the priests' garments atoned for one sin, and sets two teachings side by side (Arachin 16a). One says that plagues (tzaraat, the affliction described in the Torah) come for lashon hara. The other says that the High Priest's robe atoned for it. The Gemara answers: one speaks of a case where "his deeds had effect," and one where they did not. If his deeds had effect, plagues come upon him. If they did not, the robe atones. So the robe, the Chafetz Chaim writes, was needed for this.

He explains what "had effect" means. Rashi, the classic commentator, explains there: they quarreled because of him. That, the Chafetz Chaim writes, is said of talebearing (carrying to a person what another said or did against him). With lashon hara, he writes, it means that the person was lowered in the listeners' eyes, or that the listeners accepted what was said and began to speak about him too. His example is Miriam: when she spoke about Moshe (Moses), her brother Aharon (Aaron) began to speak as she did (Bamidbar, Numbers, 12:1-2).

For the second half of the paragraph he first writes that this Gemara is not a complete proof. Perhaps there, at the time of the telling, the words could still have had their effect, and only in the end they did not. So he proves it from the wording of the Rambam (Hilchot De'ot 7:2): "there is a sin much greater than this… one who speaks in disparagement of his fellow, even though he says the truth." The Rambam, and the Semag after him (an early code of the commandments), hint at no condition. He also quotes Rabbeinu Yonah of Gerona (Sha'arei Teshuvah, the Gates of Repentance, 3:216): two evils attach to the teller of lashon hara. One is the harm and the shame he causes his fellow. The other is that he chooses to find his fellows guilty and wicked, and is glad at their downfall. In our case, the Chafetz Chaim writes, at least one of the two is there.

In a note of his own on the words "not a complete proof" (a note inside the note), he takes the doubt back: in truth, he writes, it is no objection at all. One who sets out to rob his fellow and does not succeed has no sin of robbery on his hands. With lashon hara, even when "his deeds had no effect," the robe was still needed to atone. So it must be that the very speaking of disparagement about one's fellow is a sin by itself, apart from the harm that is sometimes brought about by it. And this, he writes, is in his opinion the source of the Rambam's words.

This is from Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech, in the chapters that explain why the Torah is so severe about this sin. He brings there from the Zohar (the classic of the Torah's hidden teachings) that what is stirred below stirs what is above. When there is dilatoria (denunciation) below, he writes, the speaker wakes accusation above against himself for his own sins, and he wakes the power of accusation against all Israel. The accuser (the Satan, his word) comes and accuses Israel for their sins and demands judgment on them, and the Holy One is, so to speak, compelled to punish them for it. He ends:

The pairing of this chapter with today's law is ours. The law says that lashon hara which harmed no one below still needs atonement. This chapter is where he teaches what lashon hara does above, where it cannot be seen.

The paragraph before this one (4:1) gives the rule of the Chafetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan of Radin, known by the name of this book). It is forbidden to tell of one's fellow a thing by which he is disgraced: what his family did, what he himself once did, and also that one saw him, recently and in private, do something that is not right by the law, in matters between a person and God. (Matters between one person and another, he writes there, have many distinctions, and he leaves them for chapter 10.) Today's paragraph says how far that reaches:

His second example is saying that something a person told is false. In brackets he adds an exception: unless there is a benefit in letting his fellow know that the story is false, and he means only that benefit, of the kind he explains in chapter 10. Then he goes on:

In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) he takes up "does not want to learn." It is forbidden to tell, he writes, even of a person who is used to not learning. Rabbeinu Yonah of Gerona (a 13th-century sage, author of Sha'arei Teshuvah, a book on repentance) permits telling only of a sin whose severity all Israel knows, which, he writes, shows that the person has no fear of God. That is the case of 4:7 below, with its conditions. Not so here: people who do not learn, he writes, treat it as something permitted, "thinking that since he is busy making a living he is exempt from learning Torah." So this has certainly not left the category of lashon hara, which is forbidden even when it is true. In matters like these, he writes, one is obligated to rebuke the person privately, and to show him that this permission comes only from the yetzer hara (the evil inclination), since by law even a very poor person must set times for Torah. "But not to go and disgrace him for this to other people." And one may not permit it on the ground that it is usually well known that the person does not learn. He points back to chapter 2 of his laws, on a thing already said in front of three people (which, under conditions, may be repeated because it is taken to be known): the parts of that permission, he writes, are not commonly all found.

He brings what he calls a clear proof from the Gemara (the Talmud, Bava Batra 164b). A document of the folded and tied kind came before Rabbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, who compiled the Mishnah, the first collection of the Sages' teachings). Rabbi said: there is no date on this. His son, Rabbi Shimon, said: perhaps it is hidden between the folds. It was opened, and the date was found. Then Rabbi looked at his son with displeasure. Rashbam (a medieval commentator) explains: Rabbi thought his son had written it, and Rabbi would have had documents written plain, not tied, because people make mistakes with the tied kind; or because the date was hidden so far inside that Rabbi himself had missed it. His son said: I did not write it. Rabbi Yehudah Chayta wrote it. Rabbi said to him: keep away from this lashon hara. Rashbam: you should not have put the blame on him. You should have said only, I did not write it. From there, the Chafetz Chaim writes, learn all the more so for a prohibition of the Sages.

The chapter goes on to other cases (4:3 to 4:7). None of them is today's law. Of an ordinary person, who usually keeps away from sin and stumbles only sometimes, where it can be supposed that he did not mean it, or did not know it was forbidden, or thought it was only an extra measure of piety, one is to suppose so, he writes, "even if they saw him several times." It is forbidden to reveal it and forbidden to hate him for it: he is to be judged favorably (4:3). Even one who knew and meant it, if he is otherwise an ordinary person who mostly keeps away from sin, and was seen to stumble only once, in private, may not be exposed, because he may have repented (4:4). Only of a person whose way one has examined, who has no fear of God and always keeps to a bad path, such as one who has thrown off the yoke of Heaven, or who deliberately, several times, breaks a prohibition that everyone knows is a prohibition, does he write that the law is different, and even then he ties it to conditions he lists in his notes (4:7, with note 32). In Shmirat HaLashon he counts "about a person like this the Torah did not command" among the things the yetzer hara misleads a person to say (Gate of Discerning 16:9). In our words: nothing on this page permits speaking about a coworker, a friend or a relative because he keeps less than you do. No one decides that about another person by himself. It is a question for a rav (rabbi), and until he has answered, today's law stands.

This is from Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech, in a chapter whose heading speaks of the great care a person needs not to argue the guilt of Israel (to speak of the people's faults before God), and of the reward of one who argues their merit. Eliyahu's words are in Melachim I (1 Kings) 19:10, and the command to anoint Elisha "as prophet in your place" is a few verses later (19:16). The Chafetz Chaim cites the Sages' reading from the Yalkut, a medieval collection of midrash (the Sages' readings of the verses). The pairing of this chapter with today's law is ours. The law is about telling one person's small fault. The chapter is about how the faults of Israel are spoken of.

The paragraph before it (Rechilut 1:2) says who a talebearer is: one who carries things from one person to another and says, "So-and-so said this about you; So-and-so did this to you." It is rechilut, he writes there, even when the thing told is no disparagement of the person he tells about.

In his own notes (the Be'er Mayim Chaim) the Chafetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan of Radin, known by the name of this book) brings proofs that the prohibition does not depend on intent. One is from the laws of lashon hara (negative talk about someone), which, he writes, appears to hold for rechilut too: the Sifrei, an early midrash (the Sages' reading of the verses), says that Miriam did not mean to speak of her brother Moshe (Moses) in disparagement, and she was punished. And he brings what he calls a complete proof from the Gemara (the Talmud, Sanhedrin 30a). How is a court's ruling written when the judges were divided? Two sages of the Gemara differ. Rabbi Yochanan says: "innocent," with no word on which judge said what. Reish Lakish says the judges are named: So-and-so and So-and-so find him innocent, and So-and-so and So-and-so find him liable. (A third sage gives a wording in between.) The Gemara explains that Rabbi Yochanan's reason is the verse "Do not go as a talebearer among your people" (Vayikra, Leviticus, 19:16), and that Reish Lakish's is that otherwise it looks like a falsehood. The judges who write a ruling, the Chafetz Chaim notes, have no thought of carrying tales, and even so Rabbi Yochanan counts it as rechilut, and the law, he writes, follows him against Reish Lakish.

A mishnah (a teaching of the early Sages) there, which he cites in his note on the paragraph before, speaks of a judge after the ruling has been given (Sanhedrin 3:7). When he leaves the court he may not say: I found you innocent and my colleagues found you liable, but what can I do, they outnumbered me. Of this, the mishnah says, it is written: "Do not go as a talebearer among your people." The judges who write a ruling, he notes, are not like the judge in the mishnah, who says "but what can I do." They have no thought of telling on anyone, and Rabbi Yochanan still counts naming them as rechilut.

This is from Shmirat HaLashon, his second book on speech, in a chapter on patience. The words are a quotation he brings from Sefer Charedim, a 16th-century book of the commandments. Patience, he writes there, is hard for a person only at the time he stands facing his fellow and hears his own disgrace. The pairing of this chapter with today's law is ours. In the law, Reuven is being rebuked, and he reaches for Yehudah's name. This is a picture he brings from Sefer Charedim, of a person who is insulted in public and does not reach for anything. It is not a ruling on when a person may answer.

This is from Shmirat HaLashon, the second book on speech by the Chafetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan of Radin, known by the name of this book). Three chapters earlier (Gate of Discerning 13:2) he gives the list. A person for whom this sin has become a habit, he writes, should do as with an illness of the body, where the doctor looks for the source. He names seven causes: anger, mockery, arrogance, despair, treating it as a free-for-all, complaining, and saying it is permitted. This is the last of the seven.

He sends the reader to the laws in his book Chafetz Chaim, to chapters 4 and 5. This advice, he goes on, is nearly the most effective of all, and not only for lashon hara: it holds for any commandment in which a person has stumbled many times. Even one who has been in the habit so long that he no longer feels the lashon hara he speaks should not give up, he writes. By going over the law many times, he will come in the end to feel each word that leaves his mouth.

He explains the rule by picturing a person after his life, in the court above, in two ways. In the first, the person held back from speaking badly of someone, and it turns out that the law was not with him:

In the second, he spoke badly of someone, or started a quarrel with someone:

In a note he adds a reading of a verse: "One who guards his mouth and his tongue guards his soul from troubles" (Mishlei, Proverbs, 21:23). He reads it of a person who always guards himself, even where he is in doubt whether by speaking he would be doing a mitzvah. Such a person, he writes, is at the least certainly saved from the trouble of Gehinnom (the punishment after death). One who does the opposite, the note goes on, may find that instead of entering the Garden of Eden (the reward after death) for this, as he hopes, he comes to Gehinnom through it, if it becomes clear that the law was not with him.

The second and third paragraphs of the card are in our words. The chapter they name is chapter 9 of his laws of rechilut (talebearing). It opens (9:1): one who sees that his fellow is about to enter into something with a person, and reckons that harm will surely come to him through it, must tell him, to save him from that harm; and five conditions are needed, which he lists in the next paragraph (9:2). The example in his note is a person about to hire a servant who is known to be a thief. He writes there that it appears to him that one is obligated by the law to tell, and his proof is the Sages' reading of the verse "Do not stand by the blood of your fellow" (Vayikra, Leviticus, 19:16; Sanhedrin 73a in the Gemara, the Talmud): from where do we know that one who sees his fellow drowning in a river, or robbers coming upon him, is obligated to save him? And in 9:3: one who heard a person say that he will strike someone, or shame him, or harm him in money, and judges that he means it, must reveal it to the one threatened, so that he can guard himself. Here too, he writes, none of the conditions above may be missing. These conditions are for the cases in his chapter, and are learned with a rav (rabbi).