[Avodah] Publicizing a Chillul Hashem

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Dec 02, 2020 at 02:40:05PM -0500, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> If someone commits a public Chillul Hashem, of course we must protest it to
> the onlookers, to impress upon them how awful and unacceptable such
> behavior is....
> 
> My question concerns the people who DON'T know about the event. Is it a
> chiyuv / mitzva / good idea to inform them about this, so that we can tell
> them how awful it was and that they should not do such things?

I think the case in question more people did than you considered, since
RYL was repeating a news report. But that's tangential...

I want to complicate the question...

Let's say people don't know about the event. But they know about a pattern
that the event seems to fit. E.g. not that Rabbi Y lied to the government
to illegally get money to keep his yeshiva open, but that these things
happen too often. Or not about a given funeral or wedding that was too
crowded and maskless for the middle of a pendemic, but they do know that
there are many such events.

Don't you still need to impress on everyone how awful and "to impress
upon them how awful and unacceptable such behavior is"? And that we
must be on the alert and be vocal in our communities because there are
more cases than they knew of?

> My feeling is that one should NOT tell other people about it, because that
> very act will be a Chillul Hashem itself (or at least akin to Chillul
> Hashem) because this new information will tend to desensitize people about
> such things....

And I was thinking that if in your first case, we cry out to increase
sensitivity, someone hearing about the event with a concurrent "how
horrible!" would be kept sensitive to "such things", the worrying pattern
of which the event in question is but one example.

Also, is the chilul hasheim the telling of the story, or the fact that
there is a true story to tell?

Is motzi sheim ra falsely alleging that something outrageous was done
qualify as a chilul hasheim?

> Are there any sources that anyone can suggest which discuss this question?

Request seconded.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 The greatest discovery of all time is that
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   a person can change their future
Author: Widen Your Tent      by merely changing their attitude.
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