[Avodah] Lashon Hara about non-Jews

[Zev Sero]

Kelmar, Michael J. wrote:
> The Torah forbids lending money to a
> Yid on interest, but allows it for a goy.  The Torah is m'chaiv hashavas
> aveidah for a Yid but not for a goy.  Why aren't we worried about the
> effect on middos in those cases?  Charging interest from a goy might
> result in (or come from) feelings of cruelty, selfishness etc.  The same
> for hashavas aveida.  But the Torah says we can keep it.

Charging interest and failing to return lost property are not negative
actions, which come from or could engender bad middos.  They are the
normal way we should expect to interact with strangers.  Why on earth
*should* you let someone use your money for free?  Would you let them
use your car for free, or live in your house for free?  Interest is
the just and fair price for the use of capital, which you could otherwise
use for your own purposes, and one should expect to charge it from
everyone.  And if someone has been careless enough to lose something
and you were lucky enough to find it, why on earth should you expend
time and energy to track them down, and then give it to them?  What have
they ever done for you, that you should do them such favours?  The
same applies to hacnasat orchim - if a strange family called and asked
if they could stay with you, you'd give them the phone number of the
nearest reasonably-priced hotel, not inquire after their allergies and
special needs!  Why should you put yourself out for them?  This isn't
a bad midah, it's a normal balebatishe midah.

The chiddush is not that we may charge interest to goyim, and need not
return their aveidos, but that we may not charge it to yidden, and must
return their aveidos.  And AIUI the reason for that is that these are
things we would automatically do for our own family and close friends;
it's normal to demand interest from a stranger, but strange to demand
it from ones brother-in-law.  And we would certainly return anything
our own relatives lost, without expecting any sort of reward.  No
mitzvah is required for us to behave like this.  But AIUI Hashem wants
us to regard every Jew, however distant genetically or socially, as our
own immediate family, and in order to engender that sort of midah we
are commanded to behave *as if* we felt that way already; doing so
regularly may cause us to actually have the feeling, at which time we
would no longer need the mitzvah, because we'd be acting that way even
without it.

Speaking LH, though, seems like something negative.  You're going out
of your way to hurt someone.  It stands to reason that it's a bad midah
whether you speak it of a yid or a goy.  So it seems a valid question
why the Torah restricts the issur to yidden.

Unless we say that it isn't really a bad midah, because if there is
something negative to be known about someone then people ought to know
it, so they'll know to be careful, even if one doesn't know of any
specific reason why they might need to know it.  It should just be
general knowledge, so that anyone who has a to'eles won't need to
make inquiries.  And that the issur on telling LH except to those who
have a specific and important reason to know is yet another example
of something we would do for a close relative or friend, about whom
we generally care, but not for a stranger, and Hashem wants us to feel
that way about every yid.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas