The Dangers of the Shame Storm - Public Humiliation in Halakha Part I

 

 

In the last several shiurim, we have explored the principles that justify or mandate weaponizing information to solve a social or religious problem. However, while these exceptional cases require more extensive analysis than the standard ones, this does not change the fact that in most cases, sharing negative information about people is prohibited and constitutes a host of biblical violations, whether they be classified as lashon ha-ra or more generic prohibitions such as ona’at devarim (the prohibition against hurting people with words).

 

Additionally, Chazal have particularly harsh things to say about people who embarrass others publicly. In any case where sharing such information on social media is illegitimate, one can only imagine how egregious Chazal would have considered this sin. This is true even in cases in which the information being shared is true, as it is still lashon ha-ra. Additionally, as Rav Daniel Feldman points out and we cited, even when a particular fact is technically true, that does not mean that the picture it will cause people to paint is an accurate portrayal of the person’s entire personality. This problem is acutely dangerous on social media.

 

Recently, several articles have been written which focus on these issues. They have commented on how social media has created a culture which encourages shaming people for indiscretions, real or imagined, often out of proportion to the gravity of the crime; and the consequences are grave. For example, David French recently wrote about one case of social shaming:

 

 

And he’s but the latest victim of a malicious online world that seeks to destroy people in the moment of their triumph. It’s happened to athletes, to entertainers, and even to “regular” folks who enjoy the slightest bit of fame or acclaim in the public eye. It’s almost a joke at this point — when are we going to find out that this person who did this wonderful thing is actually terrible on Facebook or dreadful on Twitter?

 

The incidents happen so fast, and the firings are so quick, that they start to blur together. Can you remember November’s victims? October’s? Who lost their jobs this summer? Who was forced to apologize this spring?

 

 

As Rav Feldman notes, even when the information is true, the image that individual facts project to the world, especially through social media, is unfair. Even more so, the “guilty” party may have changed. However, the nature of social-media shaming is that it does not take this into account. It is unforgiving.

 

Furthermore, the problems French outlines reflect the same sentiments that the Chafetz Chayim presents in several of his conditions for to’elet: specifically, the consequences of the shaming are out of proportion to the “crime”, the “crime” and its gravity seem to have been exaggerated, there is no justifiable reason for publicizing the indiscretion — and even if there were, I would add, no attempt was made to achieve that goal without the lashon ha-ra.

 

French continues to capture another concern of the Chafetz Chayim. The Chafetz Chayim argues that one should first rebuke the sinner to see if he or she will change his or her ways. As French notes, in many cases public shaming happens even after the person has repented, which from a halakhic perspective makes the shaming superfluous, meanspirited and forbidden:

 

 

But then, in this terrible new world, you can’t ever shake the wrong thing you did. Never. It clings to you. It defines you. It becomes, to some people, the entirety of who you are.

 

French further notes the possibility that the fury and intolerance present in the culture created by smartphones and easy access to social media may have contributed to the increase in teen depression and suicide, a possibility raised by Jean M. Twenge in her provocatively titled “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”[2]

 

Helen Andrews recently wrote about her own experiences in an aptly-named article, “Shame Storm.”[3] She describes the beginning of her ordeal as follows:

 

 

In her piece, Andrews admits that she was less than an ideal girlfriend to Todd. However, his accusations were exaggerated and made from a place of pain. As the Chafetz Chayim notes, lashon ha-ra le-to’elet should be shared out of a sense of responsibility, not vindictiveness, which was clearly the case here. Andrews then discusses the repercussions of this video, which she describes as a “shame storm”:

 

I braced myself for the broadcast. Maybe no one would notice? Within minutes, the offending clip had been posted on YouTube, where it got half a million hits in the first forty-eight hours. It made the evening news on Washington’s Fox affiliate. Greg Gutfeld did a segment about it on Red Eye. It was written up in Gawker, the Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, and a hundred lesser sites, and then written up again when Todd expanded his remarks about me into a ­series of blog posts on his personal website.

 

Andrews writes that the follow-up was so bad that she accepted an offer from her new boyfriend, now husband, to move to Australia. However, even then, as we mentioned in a previous shiur, that was insufficient:

 

 

Andrews adds one more point that fits with many of the values we have explored in the previous shiurim. Deciding what is to’elet is difficult. This is especially hard on social media:

 

 

Towards the end of her article, Andrews makes a similar point to that of Rav Stav and Rav Navon: the dangers inherent in using social-media or internet shaming do not make it illegitimate. It just means that this technique should be used as rarely as possible, especially as it is seldom productive, and it remains in the public sphere forever:

 

 

 

Thus, we must take into consideration that public humiliation, especially in our world connected by the internet and all forms of social media, can destroy lives and, in some cases, literally lead to suicide. This may help us understand some of the sentiments expressed by Chazal which equate embarrassing people publicly with murdering them. The central presentation of this law is part of a broader discussion in Bava Metzia about the prohibition of hurting people using words, ona’at devarim. The specific prohibition to embarrass people is derived from Vayikra 19:17:

 

 

Rashi (ibid.) summarizes the interpretation by Chazal in several places (Sifra, Kedoshim, 4:8; Arakhin 16b) that even though offering rebuke is a mitzva, this does not, in most cases, legitimate doing so publicly in a way that embarrasses the sinner:

 

Though rebuking him you shall not expose him to shame (lit., make his face grow pale) in public, in which case you will bear sin on account of him.

 

In Pirkei Avot (3:11), we learn that if one does violate this prohibition, despite many merits that the rebuker may have, he or she loses his or her share in the World to Come!

 

Rabbi Elazar of Modi'in says: One who profanes the Kodashim (sacred material); one who desecrates the holidays; one who whitens (embarrasses) the face of another in public; one who nullifies the covenant of Avraham our father, peace be upon him; one who reveals meanings in the Torah that run contrary to the law — even though he has Torah knowledge and good deeds, he has no share in the World to Come.

 

The Talmud (Bava Metzia 58b; Sota 10b) outlines how far one must go to avoid the sin of embarrassing others. The framing for the Talmud’s comments is the story of Yehuda and Tamar (Bereishit 38). Tamar marries Yehuda’s oldest son, Er. However, Er is evil and God kills him. In an act of proto-yibum (levirate marriage), Yehuda’s second son, Onan, marries Tamar to have children to perpetuate the legacy of his brother Er. Onan, however, has no interest in having children who would be the spiritual heirs of Er, so he refuses to consummate his relationship with Tamar, insisting that all sexual relations end with coitus interruptus to prevent her from becoming pregnant. For this sin, God kills him as well. Without understanding the background, Yehuda concludes that it is Tamar’s fault that his sons have died. Thus, he refuses to let her marry his third son, Shela. However, he does not tell her this explicitly. Rather, he stalls and tells Tamar to wait at her father’s home until Shela will be old enough to marry her and carry on the legacy of his brothers.

 

After a time, Tamar realized that Yehuda is merely stalling. Desiring to carry on the legacy of her husband(s), Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute and waits by the road until Yehuda comes and propositions her. Yehuda does not have the means to provide payment. Thus, Tamar, demanded that he leave collateral: his seal, cord and staff. Yehuda later attempts to pay through a messenger. However, the “prostitute” has disappeared.

 

Months later, people realize that Tamar is pregnant. Not knowing that she is pregnant from Yehuda, which would be legitimate in the pre-Sinaitic context of levirate marriage, he assumes that she has slept with someone not from the family of Yehuda, which would be a kind of adultery, as she is destined to marry Shela. Yehuda, as leader of the family, sentences her to death. Rather than tell the truth publicly, she sends a message to Yehuda which elicits his admission that she is correct:

 

 

 

The question that bothers the Talmud is the following: why doesn’t Tamar simply tell the truth? Her life is on the line. By putting the ball in Yehuda’s court, she is risking that he may attempt to hide the truth and kill her, burying the evidence of his sin with her. With this background, we can understand the Talmud’s striking conclusion:

 

 

The Midrash Tanchuma (Parashat Vayigash) expresses similar sentiments, arguing that Yosef refrains from revealing his identity to his brothers while the guards are present, though being alone with his brothers puts him in danger, in order to prevent his brothers from being humiliated.

 

Is this to be taken literally? A simple understand of this passage would imply that the prohibition to embarrass others publicly is a cardinal sin. However, this would violate the basic rule established in several places in the Talmud, according to which there are only three cardinal sins:

 

 

Despite this, several Rishonim accept the simple understanding of the Gemara. Tosafot, for example, write that this is a cardinal sin; however, as the prohibition is not explicit in the Torah, it is not counted in the list of three cardinal sins:

 

 

This is surprising, as one would have assumed that non-explicit sins are less, rather than more, severe!

 

Rabbeinu Yona (Sha’arei Teshuva 3:141) argues differently, reasoning that embarrassing people, which causes the blood to drain from their faces, is a subset of bloodshed; hence, it is indeed among the “big three.”[4]

 

As surprising as this is, no less an authority than Rav Shelomo Zalman Auerbach (Responsa Minchat Shelomo 1:7) accepts this position as the majority position in Rishonim and thus binding halakha. He even has lengthy discussions why we don’t apply the rules of rodef, a pursuer, to one attempting to embarrass someone else; if one sees a would-be murderer chasing a victim, one is obligated to intervene, even if that requires killing the pursuer. Rav Shelomo Zalman thus raises the possibility that one could kill someone to prevent the embarrassment of the “victim”. He similar discusses whether one could violate Shabbat, or other prohibitions, to prevent such humiliation.

 

Rav Shelomo Zalman claims that the only outlier in Rishonim who does not accept that embarrassing others publicly is a cardinal sin is the Meiri (Berakhot 43b, Sota 10b) who understands this passage as mere rhetoric. Rav Yehuda Herzl Henkin (Responsa Bnei Banim 1:41), however, notes that in fact the majority position in Rishonim and Acharonim is that humiliating others is not a cardinal sin and rules accordingly.[5]

 

However, the very fact that such a conclusion could have been reached points to the strength of the rhetoric that Chazal use. Rivash (Responsa 171), while explaining why many of the sins which Chazal equate with cardinal sins are not in fact on that level, clarifies why Chazal use such harsh rhetoric:

 

 

In other words, even if we rule like Rav Henkin, the strength of the rhetoric indicates that at some level, public humiliation can feel as bad as murder. As we noted, in the world of social media, this is even truer, and in some cases, actually leads to suicide, literally introducing a level of pikuach nefesh.

 

 

Whether or not we accept the most radical conclusions from the Gemara, it is undeniable that Chazal understand that public humiliation is one of worse things a person could endure, and the one who would subject others to this is cruel and evil. Their intuition resonates powerfully in the world of social media, and it guides us to use the potentially powerful tool of shaming with a tremendous amount of care. If one miscalculates and uses this weapon when unnecessary or unwarranted, the consequences may be dire.

 

Next week, we will explore the halakhic perspective on this sin in more detail.