Columbia Students Once Rallied Against Nazis — Now They Cheer for Them
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Bereishit, 38:25: “As she was taken out, she sent word to her father-in-law, saying, “by the man to whom these belong I am with child’. And she said, ‘identify, if you please, whose are this signet, this wrap, and this staff.
Rashi, Bereishit, 38:25: Dh: to the man: “she said [to herself], if he admits by himself, then he will admit, and if not, they will burn me, but I won’t embarrass him [whiten his face]. From here, they said, ‘it is better for a man to throw himself into a fiery furnace than embarrass his fellow in public.”
When Tamar was about to be thrown into the fiery furnace for supposedly acting immorally, she would have been able to extricate herself from her fate by revealing that Yehudah was the person who owned the items that she received. However, she chose not to do this because it would cause Yehudah gave embarrassment. Instead, she gave Yehudah himself the choice whether to admit his role and save her or to remain silent and let her die. Yehudah famously accepted responsibility and Tamar’s life was saved. Tamar’s refusal to embarrass Yehudah to save her own life, is the source of a remarkable Gemara, cited by Rashi: The Gemara teaches that it is better to let oneself die in a fiery furnace than to embarrass one’s fellow in public.1
A number of issues arise about this Gemara. The commentaries discuss if this Gemara is teaching an actual law that it is an obligation for a person to give up his life than embarrass his fellow, or if this is merely a philosophical teaching, and one does not literally have to give up his life in order to not embarrass someone.2 The problem with the understanding that this is a real obligation, is that the Gemara in Pesach teaches that there are only three sins that a person must rather die than transgress (yehareg v’al yaavor) – murder, immorality and idol worship (known as the three cardinal sins).3 Tosefot4 seems to understand that it is indeed applicable to halacha as he asks why embarrassing one’s fellow wasn’t mentioned in the list of the Cardinal sins? He answers that the Gemara only mentioned transgressions that are explicitly mentioned by the Torah, but embarrassing one’s fellow is not explicitly mentioned.5 Tosefot suggests that one of the sources that one must rather die than embarrass his fellow is another Gemara6 that refers to embarrassing someone as one of the three sins for which a person goes down to Gehinnom and never returns.
Rabbeinu Yonah7 also rules that one must rather die than embarrass his fellow, yet he offers a different source. We know that there is the concept of avizrayhu (loosely translated as ‘accessories) to the cardinal sins. This refers to sins that are connected to the actual Cardinal sin. Even though they appear to be of less severity and indeed the punishment for transgression of them is less than for the actual Cardinal sins, the law is that one must also die rather than transgress one of them.
Rabbeinu Yonah suggests that embarrassing a person is an aspect of murder. He bases this on the Hebrew term for embarrassing – halbanat panim – which literally means the whitening of the case. He explains that this means that when a person gets embarrassed the blood leaves his face and it appears pale. In this way, it is connected to murder where blood is spilt.
However, some commentaries disagree – the Meiri understands that the Gemara is a philosophical teaching that stresses the severity of embarrassing one’s fellow, but it does not mean to practically rule that one must rather die than embarrass someone.8 Evidently, they hold that the Gemara in Pesachim clearly outlined three sins that one must die for, clearly indicating that this Gemara is not meant to be applied to actual Jewish law.
Nevertheless, it is evident that everyone agrees with the severity of embarrassing one’s fellow, to the degree that in some way, it overrides one’s physical life. We saw that Rabbeinu Yonah compares the result of embarrassment comparable to that of death in that the blood is drained from one’s face. He continues that the emotional pain caused by embarrassing someone is comparable to murder. The Maharal elaborates that the pain caused by embarrassment is far deeper than any physical pain, and it touches at a person’s spiritual essence of being in the Image of God. It appears that he understands that this is such a deep pain, that a person should rather give up his own physical life than cause such deep pain to his fellow.
We have seen the severity of embarrassing others, yet a person may think that he is not at risk of such a grave sin. However, this may be a serious mistake - we cited above the Gemara that refers to embarrassing someone as one of the three sins for which a person goes down to Gehinnom and never returns. Rabbeinu Yonah explains that the reason for this is that embarrassing one’s fellow is a sin that the person may never realize he transgressed, and therefore it is much harder for him to do teshuva. This seems to be because often a person may feel pain at hurtful words and a seemingly ‘harmless’ joke, especially when it is said in front of other people. However, the person may never share his true feelings to the perpetrator with the devastating result that he can never repent.9
Such embarrassment can include wrongly rebuking a student or child, or even rebuking them in an overly harsh manner; it can include joking about other people; and in general, arguing in public where others can hear the insults being hurled. It is incumbent upon all of us to reflect on any times where we may have transgressed in this way and to ask forgiveness if necessary. In addition, we must be extremely vigilant in the future to avoid causing pain to anyone in any forum, in particular when other people are present. May we all merit to never cause pain to our fellow Jews.
