[Avodah] Is it Loshon Hora?

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Feb 09, 2011 at 05:29:17PM -0500, Michael Kopinsky wrote:
: On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 4:42 PM, Liron Kopinsky <liron.kopinsky at gmail.com>wrote:
:> 1) Do we have to say that LH has anything necessarily to do with whether
:> the person's reputation was ruined? If person A speaks LH to person B, but
:> person B doesn't believe the LH, it still is LH even if the person's
:> reputation was not harmed in any way.

: According to the Rambam, LH is damaging speech. This is different from the
: Chofetz Chaim's definition of derogatory speech.

There is a machloqes between the Rambam and Rabbeinu Yonah. The gemara
(BB 39) says that once something is said in front of 3 people, it's no
longer subject to LH. Rambam (Hil Dei'os 7:5) takes this literally --
now it's public knowledge, and any further repetition will not cause
measurable harm. Rabeinu Yonah holds that the gemara means that anything
said in front of 3 was meant laudably or at least constructively. And
therefore repeating those words -- even now that that any collateral
damage is already done -- is prohibited.

R' Meish Taragon of Yeshivas Har Etzion ("Gush") suggests the following
sevara:
    Possibly the Rambam and the Rabbenu Yona debate the essence of
    the prohibition of lashon ha-ra. According to the former, lashon
    ha-ra is forbidden because of the damage which it will cause the
    victim - whether monetary, psychological or even to his reputation.
    Once the damage is inevitable, no prohibition applies. According to
    the Rabbenu Yona, however, lashon ha-ra is inherently forbidden as
    a devious or underhanded act. Even if I don't augment the damage,
    I have acted in a duplicitous and forbidden manner. Thus the
    presence of three people only helps us decide whether an ambiguous
    statement carries malicious or benign (and possibly helpful) intent.
    Any clearly malicious statement, though, is categorically prohibited,
    regardless of whether its issuance will increase damage or merely
    restate information which others will soon discover on their own.

BTW, RMT later writes that Tosafos (Eiruhin 15b) take a third position.
They hold that disparaging reports said in front of the subject are
not LH. They are assur for other reasons -- most frequently onaas
devarim, "malbin penei chaveiro", but not this particular issur of
LH. And similarly something said in front of three, which the speaker
should assume would reach the listener's ears, may be onaas devarim,
but wouldn't be LH.

And along these lines... It's the CC, not the Rambam, who repeats of the
maamar chazal (?) that LH kills three people: the subject, the teller
and the listener.

I would think the same machloqes would also apply when the subject can't
be harmed because they can't be identified. Even before getting into the
question of whether destroying a persona someone has been using for a
while and is thus a "known entity" in the on-line community constitutes
"damage". Rambam would permit, Tosafos would make you see if onaas devarim
or some other issur was involved in harming the reputation of a persona,
and Rabbeinu Yonah and the CC would prohibit.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Every second is a totally new world,
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