Matzav Inbox: How Do We Deal With Gossipers and Baalei Lashon Hara?

So true but apparently, lot’s of people aren’t on this level and it’s sad. I remember when one of the kol koras about tech/socil medis came out, and one of the mentions were loshon hara, and My friend mentioned to me that although it’s true, there are far worse problems with sm and tech that todays days people forget that loshon hara is ussor.

Saying lashon hara in the name of keeping lashon hara is a moral contradiction. Guys wakeup already this is getting so freaking dumb

@Always Ask Questions,

I hear you, who is R daniel Feldman (I am genuinely interested btw)?

YYA, poster’s merits are not the issue here. What this kanoi did is beyond the pale. I don’t know how it passed moderation. Maybe chatGPT is used for moderation now and it is not trained enough.

Mods, feel free to contact me directly, I’ll be happy to help you train a better model.

pure, a couple of “disagreements” with Chofetz Chaim quoted in the book:

1) some question whether an issue of middos can be codified halachikally, and that is why these halochos were not fixed earlier (the author mentions this position, but does not subscribe to it

2) Chofetz Chaim says that LH is an act of rebellion as the person is not getting any other hanaah from speaking, only pleasure from damaging another person. Hazon Ish comments that this clearly shows that Ch Ch clearly has no experience in LH, as speakers often have additional benefits from tearing down the victim. Author reconciles saying that Ch Ch surely understands that there are other benefits, but views pleasure of damaging being the primarily motivation

Seeking clarity. We have mitzvos that are בין אדם למקום. If we observe someone violating any of these mitzvos, the most of an obligation we can have is הוכח תוכיח. Considering the circumstances, we might rebuke, and stop the person from sinning. To punish is never the task or privilege of another Jew. A Beis Din can be an exception. To impose consequences is not contained in Torah. We might have a place in teaching the person right from wrong. But consequences belong to Hashem only, and a designated Beis Din.

Then we have mitzvos that are בין אדם לחבירו. Here, the Torah gives latitude. But it is also limited. Punishment is not okay, as in לא תקום ולא תטור את בני עמך. In particular circumstances, hatred might be indicated, and, here too, there are halachos that give us criteria.

The severity of the aveiros of lashon horah, and the other permutations of evil speech, do not extend the limitations on what another Yid can do in reaction. Not every listener or individual exposed is authorized to intervene. These halachos are also addressed by the Chofetz Chaim. Yes, dealing with gossipers is a dilemma. Presenting the wisdom of gedolim about the severity, and the sheer number of issurim in a single utterance of lashon horah makes for a good shiur on the subject. But it fails to give guidance on what to do. Is public shaming the answer? We need halachic direction here, not emotions. Shaming is also a serious issur of מלבין פני חבירו. We must be as careful with this issur as one would be with any other halacha matter.

Pure Yiddishkeit: There is no FINAL psak on anything. The Rambam also wrote on the Halachos of Lashon Harah; how did the Chofetz Chaim dare to write anything else? You can’t shut down any discussion you don’t like just by claiming a particular Sefer is the “FINAL PSAK”. Even the MB is not the final PSAK.

TLIK, thanks for summarizing some of the relevant halochos. Note that tochacha is not limited to mitzvos l’Hashem (I think you say that this is the only one in this case) and apply to l’havero also. Also note famous argument between R Tarfon (there is nobody in our generation who can accept tochacha) and R Akiva’s sharp response (there is nobody who can give).

Halochos of tochacha depend on whether the person is going to accept them. There is a Chofetz Chaim story who came to a soviet commissar and said – I do not expect that you’ll listen to the tochacha, but when you’ll be judged, you might respond – Chofetz Chaim was in my town, were he to rebuke me, I’d have listened. I came to take this defence away from you. [I presume Ch Ch still believed he can achieve the result via this rhetorical device].

Another part of halochos tochacha is to first convince the person that you are genuinely trying to help him. Hurling abuse is rarely helpful.

Also, try to be subtle and indirect so that the person does not get offended. I once listened to an inspiring dvar Torah from the Rav, where he talked about direct parental responsibilities of teaching Torah to children, not just relying on schools. He gott there from the parsha and weaved in a couple of midrashim. As I was thinking about similar issues, I complimented Rav on the dvar Torah. To which he replied: “oh, I was not talking to you”. That is, there was someone in the kahal who needed chizuk and he prepared the dvar Torah and had whole kahal listen to it, all just to get the message to that person without confronting him directly.

AAQ – With all due respect (for you, not Dr. Stern/Mr. Qwerty), this person was posting over the top הוצאת שם רע against identifiable living people, as well as deceased Talmidei Chachomim, on a daily basis, for at least two years on this site, as well as more on other sites. Apparently neither you nor the moderators considered this “beyond the pale”. Only when someone “doxxed” him and exposed the site owners to potential עולם הזה consequences for their actions (or inactions) did this abomination stop. If anyone has a problem with it, let THEM summon “gornit” to Beis Din, which makes just as much sense as summoning the original “qwerty613” to Beis Din before his true identity was exposed… If the Satmar tech squad can doxx the rest of the offenders, so much the better.

There is a basic difference between “outing” an aveirah no one knows about, and which the perpetrator never desired anyone to know about, and an aveirah that the perpetrator wanted EVERYONE to know about, just not to know HIS identity… This actually was very נוגע in all generations, long before social media, WRT exposing authors of “pashkevilim” and similar garbage.

I think the fact that all of us are asking, means we have some sense of guilt that as aren’t sure we did the right thing….and we are trying to figure out a reason why we are justified. I’m not saying either or but all these posts are telling…..of what we are grappling with

“qwerty-dot-613” – AAQ absolutely does not have any “obsession” with Lubavitch, and he has never displayed any malice towards anyone. Probably more so than any other regular participant here. His concerns are real, and I have no doubt that he is sincere. The point where I differ with him is that I don’t think anyone has a right to BOTH remain anonymous AND slander real people with their real names.

nevuah> Do you get who lives or dies? I think there are certain things that is gods responsibilty

I accept that there are things that community needs to get involved. We are not living in a utopian world. There are criminals and terrorists and enemies. Both secular law and Torah recognize need for courts and police (shoftim veshotrim …). So, I accept that someone might think that certain posts require a serious action. So, such person should appeal to moderators, site owners, beis din. His excuse that this is an “emergency” is not serious – because he did not bother to run to the beis din after that. Which is an additional siman that he is not a ben Torah – not only he does a questionable activity but defends it with untrue argument [one of the “definitions” of Talmid Chacham – if you see him doing an aveirah at night, you don’t need to tell him in the morning because he surely reviewed his actions at the end of the day and did teshuva].

so, now as we proved who he is, he surely has no right to act upon offense to Talmidei Chachomim as he has no relations to them. QED.

Well, it seems Gornit FAILED. The banned qwerty613 has returned as “MSwaytogo” and he continues to pollute the coffeeroom with the stench of his
הוצאת שם רע against Gedolie Yisroel. And sadly, we must silently tolerate it now that Gornit is gone (no AAQ, I am not Gornit – I wish I was, but we simply don’t have the stones he had, so yes, I miss him).

now, you are attaching more choshuve names to your childish behavior (using a name resembling another one is another example), but you raise an interesting question here. You are right I am not in the loop in the in-town communities and they do generally respect SH’A Harav, but when I see or talk to them, I can’t recall someone going into quoting this sefer, and even more exclusively. I wonder whether anyone does that?

Regarding Loshon Hora, to even listen to gossip is a crime, to participate in it is basically the same. The actual answer is simply leave the situation completely so as not to be made impure, contaminated, or corrupted by it. I will admit that sometimes I leave the situation and sometimes I stay to defend those who are participants who lack the desire to leave, in an effort to try to teach a Chabad lesson. Those who remain here need fortification to both avert their ‘ayin’/eyes and those who need to stand firmly against big Bullies who like to throw their weight around and try to knock them over. Mishlei speaks about the fool and the wicked and to not fall into their seductive traps. Tehillim Aleph speaks about not to sit in the company of ‘scorners’ and to only seek H”M and H-s Torah. But, being that I represent Chabad Lubavitch I sometimes stay here in the thick of it so that ‘a little light can dispel the darkness’, said by the founder of Chabad Lubavitch and author of TANYA, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. Signed, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka of Chabad Lubavitch.

Think about it—our families, young boys and girls, men and women, all standing in line together, squeezed into roller coaster seats without a second thought. We seem to dismiss the reality that mixed seating in these settings is no different than mixed seating at a public event. We’ve all witnessed the situations where friends or siblings scramble to sit together, while the very values we instill in them daily seem to be set aside for the sake of “fun.”