Q&A: Full of Themselves
Full of Themselves
Question
At the Sabbath sheva berakhot, the groom’s friends were puffed up with exaggerated self-importance and were telling all kinds of stories about themselves and the groom—overblown and false stories.
Among other things, they said that the groom gets up every day for the morning prayer service with a minyan, and that was a total bluff.
One of the guests got up to speak and decided to teach them a lesson.
He asked them: how do you know that the groom gets up every day for the morning prayer service?
They said that they always prayed the morning service with him, because they get up for prayer with a minyan.
That was already a double and triple lie.
He asked them: every day?
They answered: of course…
Fine, then tell me—on what day will Rosh Chodesh fall?
They started getting tangled up: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday…
Everyone laughed, because that Sabbath wasn’t even the Sabbath before the new month was announced…
Is it permitted to do something like that to them?
Or is that an inappropriate humiliation?
Answer
It seems to me not. It would be proper to rebuke them privately.