“I am aware of the “Respect him, Suspect him” clause. But does this only apply when the person tells you means it l’toeles?”
That’s a good question, and I want to look into it over Shabbos or Yomtov.
But there’s something else here. Even if you are allowed to “respect him, suspect him” in such a case (and I’m not sure what the halacha is), I would think that would only apply in a case in which there was toeles on your part. Was there “toeles” on your part when you heard the Loshon Hora?
If not, according to halacha, does it help if there is toeles later?
Also, part of the problem here seems to be that even if you are allowed to be “choshesh”, I am not sure if you are ever allowed to be “mekabel”. I am not sure about that though, so that is one of the things I want to look into.
If you were in fact not allowed to be “mekabel” but only to be “choshesh”, it would seem that perhaps the proper approach would be what I wrote above – don’t suspect or accuse him of something wrong – simply point out to him that his words could be understood that way, so he should be careful about what he says. I would think that could be a more effective approach in any case. Although I don’t know the person, so I could be wrong.
Does that make sense to you? And would it have been possible and effective?