[Avodah] LH about myself

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 02:44:43AM -0500, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote to Areivim:
: R'n TK:
:> A person is also not allowed to talk loshon hara about himself.

: As best as I can tell, this is incorrect.

Someone near the CC on a train ride home struck up a conversation and
found out that this older gentleman was was from Radun. He was traveling
to see the great CC, and was excited that he found someone who must know
all about him, and perhaps could share some stories. So, the man asked
him all about the tzadiq in his town (not knowing he was talking to the
CC himself). When the CC said something like, "You must be mistaken,
he isn't much of a talmid chakham or a scholar", the man was enraged and
slapped him. Well, they get to Radun, the guy goes to see the famous CC
and was obviously mortified to learn who he slapped! He cried and begged
mechilah. But the CC said there is no reason for it, the slap was worth
it in order to learn the din that you aren't allowed to speak LH even
about yourself.

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 07:10:14PM +0200, Doron Beckerman wrote again, to
Areivim, after the list had discussion of the historicity of that story:

: Speaking LH about yourself is one of those urban myths or embellishments.
: We don't really know if the story is true, but the ostensible lesson that
: one may not speak LH about oneself is surely not correct. According to the
: Sefer Chofetz Chaim (klal 2:13) the heter of b'apei tlasa is as Rashi to
: Arachin 16 explains it, i.e., if one says LH about oneself in front of
: three people, it shows he does not mind that it be known, and it is
: therefore muttar to tell it over. If the hetter is based on the fact that
: the subject allows *others* to tell it over, he may certainly tell it about
: himself.

CC 2:13 appears to be saying that anything someone says about themselves
in front of 3 isn't "ra" in the opinion of the speaker. If I would take
the implication RDB suggests, it would mean that it's impossible to say
LH about oneself. Not that it's mutar, but that anything I would tell
others about myself must not be something I consider negative. I don't
think that such a deduction is true (which is different than whether or
not I am indeed 2nd guessing the CC).

In either case, the point of the story is that the CC reversed his
position from what he wrote. So you can't deduce from the book whether
or not the story is consistent with the CC's position.

I took the story to mean it's "assur", IOW, bad mussar because the
likelihood of causing a fight was too high, not literally assur. As for
actual issur veheter, the issue in the story would be motzi sheim ra, not
LH -- the CC wasn't fully honest. But "meseches" (claiming to know less
than you really do) is one of the reasons why one is permitted leshanos
es ha'emes (mislead without actually lying). BM 23b-24a. So I can't see
how it would be assur without the quotation marks around the word.


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
micha at aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507


On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 07:10:14PM +0200, Doron Beckerman wrote to Areivim:
: Speaking LH about yourself is one of those urban myths or embellishments.
: We don't really know if the story is true, but the ostensible lesson that
: one may not speak LH about oneself is surely not correct. According to the
: Sefer Chofetz Chaim (klal 2:13) the heter of b'apei tlasa is as Rashi to
: Arachin 16 explains it, i.e., if one says LH about oneself in front of
: three people, it shows he does not mind that it be known, and it is
: therefore muttar to tell it over. If the hetter is based on the fact that
: the subject allows *others* to tell it over, he may certainly tell it about
: himself.

CC 2:13 appears to be saying that anything someone says about themselves
in front of 3 isn't "ra" in the opinion of the speaker. If I would take
the implication RDB suggests, it would mean that it's impossible to say
LH about oneself. Not that it's mutar, but that anything I would tell
others about myself must not be something I consider negative. I don't
think that such a deduction is true (which is different than whether or
not I am indeed 2nd guessing the CC).

In either case, the point of the story is that the CC reversed his
position from what he wrote. So you can't deduce from the book whether
or not the story is consistent with the CC's position.

I took the story to mean it's "assur", IOW, bad mussar because the
likelihood of causing a fight was too high, not literally assur. As for
actual issur veheter, the issue in the story would be motzi sheim ra,
not LH -- the CC wasn't fully honest. But meseches (claiming to know less
than you really do) is one of the reasons why one is permitted leshanos
es ha'emes (mislead without actually lying). BM 23b-24a.


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
micha at aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507