When is it permissible to embarrass someone publicly?
Shmuel Herzfeld, 5771
This week the New York Times published an article about the Agunah controversy situation in the
Greater Washington community. In case you missed it, the matter refers to a Hill staffer named Aharon
Friedman who is refusing to grant his wife a Get in the hopes that he will get a better child custody
arrangement.
The Times referred to a letter I wrote to Aharon’s bosses alerting them to his wrongful and hurtful
behavior and quoted me in a manner that was critical of Aharon’s behavior. Clearly this was an attempt
on my part to embarrass Aharon publicly and in front of his colleagues.
Although most of the feedback I have received has been overwhelmingly supportive, some have been
critical of my approach and have suggested that it is inappropriate to embarrass someone in public and
to take the matter of the Agunah to the work place.
Moreover, one of the unwritten rules of etiquette in this city is don’t try and cost someone their job.
Now I have never asked for Aharon’s employers to actually fire him, but in response to my letter to his
bosses others have certainly inferred that.
I remember when I first came to DC, a person had done something which in my opinion was very
objectionable. I publicly called for the person to resign. A friend who was trying to help me said to me
that it is ok to criticize people, but when you try to get them to lose their job, well that crosses the line.
Therefore I want to address today the issue of whether in this circumstance it is appropriate to
embarrass and shame someone in public, even and especially to the point where their livelihood can be
affected.
What do the Jewish sources say about this topic?
First, we need to be very clear that in general the act of embarrassing someone in public is a very grave
sin.
The Talmud derives from the story of Judah and Tamar that it is better to die than to embarrass
someone in public. “Noach lo leadam shayapil atzmo lekivshan haesh ve-al yalbin penei chaveiro
berabim.” In that circumstance, Judah was supposed to allow Tamar to marry his son. He had refused
to allow the marriage to take place, so she disguised herself like a harlot. Not realizing that the harlot
was in fact Tamar, Judah slept with her and impregnated her. Since Tamar was technically committed to
Judah’s family, when she became pregnant it was assumed that she had committed adultery. All Tamar
had to do was say that Judah had impregnated her and she would be exonerated.
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But Tamar did not want to publicly embarrass Judah for impregnating her and so she was prepared to
allow herself to be killed in a fiery furnace rather than to reveal this fact. From this we learn to what
lengths a person must go in order to embarrass another person.
And indeed it is a lengthy discussion in Halakha whether one is permitted to actually kill themselves in
order to not to embarrass someone.
In Shaarei Teshuvah of Rabbeinu Yonah of Gerona (a 13th century work) he gives another reason why
one should allow themselves to be tossed into a fire before embarrassing someone else.
There is a general principle that one can not kill someone else who is innocent in order to save their own
life. So Rabbeinu Yonah explains that we should apply this principle to embarrassing someone in public.
The reason for this is that embarrassing someone publicly is akin to murder. He calls it avak-retzicha, or
the “dust of murder.” Because when one shames a person his face turns white and its ruddiness
disappears and in this sense it is like murder.
Rabbeinu Yonah concludes his discussion of the topic by quoting the Talmud (Bava Metzia 59a), “One
who shames his neighbor in public has no share in the World to Come, hamalbin et penei chaveiro
berabim ein lo chelek beolam habbah.”
He explains that this terrible punishment for embarrassing someone is even worse than for murdering
someone. The reason is that one who embarrasses someone, unlike one who murders someone, does
not realize the enormity of his sin and thus he is very far from repentance.
Rabbeinu Yonah knew from whence he was coming. He was involved in the great Maimonidean
controversy which ultimately caused Rambam’s books to be burnt for heresy.
Rabbeinu Yonah was a student of Rebbi Shlomo min Ha-Har (also known as R. Solomon of Montpelier)
who led a public movement against Maimonides writings by claiming that the writings were heretical.
Rabbeni Yonah was such an anti-Maimonidean zealot that he was directly behind the public burning of
the Rambam’s works by the Christian authorities in Paris in 1233.
But then Rabbeinu Yonah changed his perspective. Following the Paris Disputation in 1240 between the
apostate Nicholas Donin and Rabbi Yechiel of Paris, the Christain rulers burned twenty four wagonloads
of Talmudic books in Paris. Rabbeinu Yonah witnessed this horrible tragedy and immediately he saw
this as a divine punishment against the Jewish community for attacking Maimonides and causing
Maimonides’ books to be burnt.
In response to this incident he took it upon himself to repent. He thus wrote an entire work about
repentance called, Shaarei Teshuvah, Gates of Repentance. And for the rest of his life he took it upon
himself to cite Rambam’s teachings as often as possible.
So when Rabbeinu Yonah tells us about the horrible sin of embarrassing someone in public, he is coming
from a place of personal pain and anguish.
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And yet, all this being the case the rabbis tell us that under certain conditions one must embarrass
another person publicly.
The classic work Sefer ha-Chinuch (an anonymous 13th century work) also discusses the prohibition
against shaming a person. After first laying out the fact that there is a prohibition against shaming a
person because it causes great anguish to the one being shamed (lefi she-haboshet tzaar gadol labriut),
he then (basing himself on Maimonides) limits the prohibition as follows:
“The Sages taught us that this prohibition only applies to matters between man and his fellow-man.
Concerning matters of Heaven, however, if the sinner did not repent through the reproof in private, it is
a religious duty to shame him publicly, announce his sin, and condemn and curse him, until he returns to
good conduct.”
In other words, the Sefer Hachinuch draws a distinction between a personal sin where one should
refrain from embarrassing a person, and a sin between man and God where one is obligated to
embarrass the sinner.
There is a classic commentary on the Sefer Hachinuch which is called the Minchat Chinuch (19th c., R.
Yosef Babad).
The Minchat Chinuch comments on this as follows:
“The distinction that Maimonides and Sefer Hachinuch draw between sins against a fellow man and –
where it is prohibited to embarrass and shame someone publicly—and between sins between man and
God—where we do shame people publicly—is specifically between two people. That is if one sins
against another person, then the person who is wronged should not embarrass the other person
publicly, as it is better for him to forgive the sin. However (when a third party is involved) if one sees
that a member of the community is sinning by hurting another person then one may shame him.
Indeed the prophets used to shame people publicly for sins that were committed against fellow men.
The books of the prophets are filled with these examples. It is just the wronged person himself who is
prohibited to shame the other person and who is encouraged to forgive.”
In other words the Minchat Chinuch is teaching us that if we are a third party that is witness to a wrong
being done against a person the laws of embarrassing someone publicly do not apply.
Now we must be very, very careful before applying these laws and acting upon them. The potential for
a misreading of the law, of the situation and of our own intentions is very great. And of course, the
potential damage to another and to our own spiritual well being is enormous and should cause us to
shudder in fear before intentionally embarrassing someone in public.
However, at times we are compelled to do so.
There is a biblical injunction “lo taamod al dam rei-ekhah,” do not stand by the blood of your brother.
This injunction requires us to not be passive bystanders in the world. When a person is being hurt or
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attacked, if we say, “we will sit this one out; it doesn’t affect me personally,” then we are directly
violating a biblical commandment.
And while this injunction is true in general it is even truer as it relates specifically to a Get.
Recently the following question was posed to the Erz Hemdah Institute, a scholarly academy in the land
of Israel. Someone asked about a man who was not giving his wife a Get and was then being shunned
by the rabbi. The questioner wrote: “I question whether our rabbi has the halachic right to treat him so
harshly.”
This was the answer of the Erez Hemda Institute(Living the Halachic Process, 2007): “One of the people
who we are most required to help…is an aguna. At different times and place in history, religious courts
had the ability to physically coerce a stubborn husband to give a get, when a get was mandated in the
most clear-cut manner…In cases that are a little less clear-cut a harchaka d’Rabbeinu Tam can be
employed. This is a painful form of publicly shunning the husband, not only in shul but also in
commercial and public settings.”
This position is codified in the Rema’s gloss on the Shulchan Aruch where he writes (Even Ha-Ezer 154):
“In any circumstance where we cannot force the husband to give Get by beating him or
excommunicating him, we can nevertheless tell people not to do business with him or to do any favor
for him in the world (she lo laasot lo shum tovah or lisah ve-litten immo).
So from the perspective of Jewish law the matter is clear: If a person is not giving his wife a Get and is
using it as leverage, one can (and depending on the circumstances, should) embarrass him publicly even
to the point of threatening his livelihood.
While this is never a pleasant thing to do; it is also not pleasant to live with the pain of not being able to
remarry or go out on a date by virtue of the fact that you are being chained to a recalcitrant spouse.
Although, the halacha is clear I still felt trepidation in this area. Perhaps I was misreading the sources or
perhaps there were other factors that I did not consider. So I personally discussed this case with Rav
Hershel Schachter, a leading authority at Yeshiva University, who is directly involved in this exact case.
He encouraged me to continue on this path. I specifically asked Rav Schachter if I should let all of
Aharon’s colleagues on the Hill know about his behavior and he said, “yes.”
Subsequent to our conversation, Rav Schachter wrote a psak on this matter where he wrote: “Limnoa
mei-habaal she-lo ye-agen et ishto—inyan zeh eino tzarikh pesak beit din, upeshita desaggi behoraat
chacham, to work to prevent the husband from chaining his wife—this matter does not require a ruling
from a Beit Din, and it is obvious that all that is required is a ruling from a single Torah scholar.” He
further noted that the great Rabbi Akiva Eiger also ruled that if we know a man is planning on making his
wife an Agunah we can even throw him into jail on the Shabbat itself. So in this case specifically it is
appropriate to convince Aharon to give a Get.
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The Halakhah on this matter is clear: Aharon should give the Get immediately and not hold it as
leverage. Until he does that it is permissible to embarrass him into doing so.
Of course, at the end of the day it is not just Aharon who is embarrassed publicly. The New York Times
article did not just embarrass Aharon, it also embarrassed the Torah; it is a Chilul Hashem to see such
behavior being conducted under the auspices of the Torah.
But that is not the fault of the New York Times. That is the fault of our own community for not being
strong enough in this area.
Aharon still has many supporters who are encouraging him in his recalcitrance either explicitly or
implicitly through smoke screens and redirected, irrelevant complaints about his ex-wife. And so Tamar
Epstein’s status as an Agunah continues, and for that we should all be embarrassed.
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