Parashat Mishpatim

by Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon

Founder and Board Chairman, JobKatif

A large portion of our parasha this week discusses judicial laws. For example, it is prohibited for a judge to hear one side of a case without listening to the other.

Chazal learn something else from this law in Gemarah Pesachim 118. From the pasuk, “You should not give a false report” (Shemot 23:1), Chazal learn that it is prohibited to listen to negative things. They also learn the prohibition of listening to Lashon Harah, or gossip. Since this pasuk is juxtaposed next to the pasuk, “You should throw it to the dogs” (Shemot 22:30), they learn that this is what one should do to someone who speaks or listens to gossip.

Why did Chazal learn the prohibition of gossip from a pasuk about the court? It seems that the Torah wants to teach us something from this juxtaposition. Every person should consider himself to be like a judge. One should not make a decision about anyone without knowing all the details. It is prohibited to simply listen to negative things about others (without the goal of rectifying the injustice), and it is definitely prohibited to believe them.

The Rambam in Halachot Daot 6:3 says something surprising. He says that it is more severe to listen to gossip than it is to speak it.

One would think that the one who generates that negative information is the catalyst for future gossip?!

There are a few answers:

1. There are no actors without an audience. When you listen to gossip, you give it a stage to be known.

2. The person who talks gossip knows that what he is doing is wrong, therefore, because of this awareness, he has the chance to fix himself. The person who listens, does so passively, and therefore thinks that he is ok. This is clearly not the case.

3. The person speaking (if he in fact saw the situation firsthand) knows what happened exactly. The person who is listening is hearing it secondhand, and may exaggerate the tale even more.

Understandably, both the person who speaks gossip and the person who listens to it are doing something severely wrong since both aspects are prohibitions from the Torah.

I heard once from my teacher and Rabbi, Rav Amital z”l, who heard from a tip from his wife, who had received it from Nechama Leibowitz z”l.

There are people who say that they are not strict about keeping certainmitzvot because they don’t understand them (many people say today that they don’t feel connected to it). However, interestingly enough, there are mitzvot that no one understands and every religious person keeps. For example, not eating meat and milk together. No one understands the reason, but there are no religious people who would eat a cheeseburger. On the other hand, everyone understands the problem with gossip, but despite this, most people don’t keep this mitzvah.

Please G-d, let us strengthen ourselves in guarding our tongues. We should be careful to only allow good things to come out of our mouths and to only listen to good things. And we should pray to G-d that He will also only see the good things in us.

Shabbat Shalom!