Q&A: Between Human Dignity and the Commandment of Rebuke
Between Human Dignity and the Commandment of Rebuke
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I find it hard to understand how to reconcile the commandment of rebuke, up to the point of “shaming, insulting, and cursing” (in matters between a person and Heaven), with the rule that “human dignity overrides the prohibition of ‘do not turn aside’.” Where is the line drawn in these matters? (I am asking in terms of Jewish law, not practical guidance; obviously nowadays there are other considerations, like the fact that people generally will not listen, etc.)
To spell it out:
On the one hand, Maimonides writes in the Laws of Character Traits the well-known rule: “In what case is this said? In matters between one person and another. But in matters of Heaven—if he does not repent in private—he is shamed in public, his sin is publicized, he is insulted to his face, and he is disgraced and cursed until he returns to the good path, just as all the prophets did to Israel.”
On the other hand, there is the well-known rule that human dignity overrides the prohibition of ‘do not turn aside.’ But those who insult and revile are harming a person’s dignity…
It is impossible to distinguish between matters between a person and another person and matters between a person and Heaven, because the famous Talmudic passage about shaatnez deals with a commandment between a person and Heaven. There is a famous book by Rabbi Rakover on the rules of human dignity, but I did not see that he deals with this in an orderly way.
Various possible distinctions I found:
- One could maintain that the above rule in Maimonides, that one may insult, was said only regarding Torah-level commandments, but with rabbinic commandments one may not insult or disgrace at all. But if that were the distinction, surely Maimonides would have mentioned it.
- Another possibility is to say that the rule of human dignity applies in a temporary situation, but not in a permanent one (Noda B’Yehuda, Orach Chayim I, 35, discusses the law of informing a husband that his wife committed adultery while married to him), since according to Maimonides one insults only after you have rebuked him several times and he did not listen to you, and then there is no difficulty at all. (But then it is difficult for the view of those who permit handshaking and hold that it is only rabbinically prohibited because of human dignity, since those people know that religious people do not shake hands, so it cannot be said that this is a one-time situation.)
- Rabbi Kook in Chavash Pe’er (chapter 10, in the question about correcting elders who made a mistake in putting on tefillin) wrestles with this question and says that one rebukes as required despite human dignity, because otherwise the commandment would be nullified. However, only something that is commonly considered offensive by all people falls under the prohibition (and a mistake in tefillin is not such a thing), and in addition, precisely because the sages are the ones doing the rebuking, there will not be shame in any case.
What does the Rabbi say?
(And again, it is clear to me that nowadays rebuke is not accepted, so it is not clear that the commandment applies exactly as it did in the past.)
Answer
I do not see the difficulty. The rebuke is meant to prevent him from sinning, so obviously it is justified even if it harms his dignity. First, if he expects his dignity to be protected, then he should not commit transgressions—and certainly if he is being rebuked, he should not continue sinning and force me to resort to insults and humiliation. (The practical difference is that if he is sinning unintentionally, as in a case where he would correct his ways בעקבות the rebuke, then indeed one should not rebuke him.) Second, this is being done for his own sake, and therefore overrides his interest in not having his dignity harmed. Something like this appears in the case of a pursuer, who cannot argue against the rescuer that “the blood of the pursued is no redder than his own.” He created the situation, so he should bear the consequences.
And perhaps this can be compared to what the halakhic decisors wrote—that there is no concern of desecration of God’s name if people treat you with contempt because you keep the Sabbath. But that is just an association that requires checking.
Discussion on Answer
I explained in several ways why there is no difficulty here. What is unclear?
I did not understand how ‘do not turn aside’ enters here. I did not mention anything like that.
Beyond that, “you shall surely rebuke” is a Torah-level law, whereas insulting a person is not a Torah prohibition, so what does human dignity have to do here? It overrides only the prohibition of ‘do not turn aside’ (and perhaps also a transgression through passive omission). And here, if I do not rebuke him, two transgressions occur: I failed to rebuke him, and the other person continues with his own sin.
And regarding an unintentional transgression, as is well known, the later authorities linked this to a dispute between the Rosh and Maimonides. But in the case of intentional sinning, it seems obvious that one certainly does not protect his dignity when he himself is at fault.
The difficulty is that there are transgressions that are set aside because of human dignity, so it follows that you should not be able to harm his dignity through rebuke, since his dignity overrides the transgression itself…
In any case, according to your approach, the distinction is that human dignity overrides the prohibition of ‘do not turn aside’—except for the commandment of rebuke, whose purpose is to prevent the transgression from being committed. The problem is that this seems to be contradicted by the Talmudic passage about tearing off a garment of shaatnez in the public domain: there too you can prevent him from a rabbinic transgression, but you do not do so because of his dignity.