Parashat Behar-Bekhukotai: On Harmful Speech

This week’s double parsha, Behar-Bekhukotai, includes, in its discussion of the Jubillee year, an often overlooked law – the prohibition against ona’at devarim, “hurting another through words.”

Some classic examples of ona’at devarim are: reminding a convert of his former life, telling someone who is experiencing misfortune that it is a result of her own misdeeds, going in to a store and acting like one will buy something when one has no money, and asking someone about a matter that one knows that person has no knowledge of in order to show off the person’s ignorance. Included in this last category is asking a guest to give a dvar Torah when one is not sure the guest is capable of it.

The key to ona’at devarim is an intent to harm. It is certainly permissible to enter a store intending to buy shoes, try some on, and leave without buying, even though this harms the store-owner just as much as going into a store with no intent of buying. Or one can ask advice of someone, thinking that he knows a lot about a certain topic, but then it turns out that he doesn’t. Again, there is no intent to harm. The problem is in the heart; one should not purposely intend to make someone look bad, trick them, embarrass them or harm them in any way.

Since these types of harmful actions are, as Rashi says, masur lalev, “given over to heart,” there is no way to enforce them. That’s why, as Rashi points out, the Torah says immediately after this prohibition, veyareta me’elokekha, “Fear your God” – God is the only one who knows what your intent was, what you were thinking inside your heart.

At root in ona’at devarim is a tendency we all have – a desire to make ourselves look good at the expense of another. Look at how much better I am than you because I know this and you don’t. Don’t think you’re so great because look at where you came from. Or: the reason you’re suffering and I’m not is because you did things this way and I was smart enough not to. The specifics can vary widely, and sometimes it can be done quite subtly, but we recognize the feeling behind it and see it often in ourselves and our children. Why are you telling her about your great vacation trip – is it to make her feel bad that she stayed home, to imply that you are so much better than her?

The counter-balance to this way of thinking is provided by the phrase right after Veyareta Me’Elokekha, “Fear your (singular) God” – Ani Hashem Elokeikhem, “I am the Lord your (plural) God.” The key here is the switch from singular to plural in relation to whose God we are worshipping. God is not just my personal God, but the God of all of us. Like a parent who wants all her children to do well, He wants us all to succeed. And, like a parent, He wants us all to be on the same team, to be rooting for one another’s success. Thinking of it in this way, picturing it from God’s standpoint, it becomes clear that we are all in it together, that harm to another is harm to ourselves and that the success of one is the success of us all.