Q&A: Is the prohibition of publicly shaming someone more severe than the prohibition of bloodshed?
Is the prohibition of publicly shaming someone more severe than the prohibition of bloodshed?
Question
The Sages said, “It is preferable for a person to throw himself into a fiery furnace rather than publicly shame his fellow.”
It seems to me that in our times Western culture has also reached this conclusion. After all, “a woman’s right over her own body” gives her the right to abort her fetus, but “a woman’s right over her own body” did not give Yuval Dayan the right not to extend her hand to Joe Biden.
That would mean that public shaming is more severe than bloodshed, since a value that overrides bloodshed is itself overridden by public shaming.
Am I correct in understanding it this way?
Answer
First, on the straightforward level, that Talmudic statement does not establish a hierarchy between values; it is an aggadic saying. It is true that Tosafot interpreted it literally, but that is puzzling.
The comparison to Yuval Dayan is baseless. There is a difference between obligating a woman to carry a baby in her womb for nine months at the expense of her health, her emotional and physical well-being, and with various risks, and obligating a woman to shake a man’s hand. There is also a difference between the values that stand against that right: in abortions, what is at stake is the fetus, whereas with Biden it is not embarrassing a person or showing honor to the president. In short, there is no basis to this absurd a fortiori argument.
Beyond that, the assumption that relations between values are transitive (if A is more severe than B, and B is more severe than C, then A is more severe than C) is not at all clear. For example, one executes a Sabbath desecrator, and that ostensibly means that the value of the Sabbath overrides the value of life, but one does not give up one’s life to avoid desecrating the Sabbath. I seem to recall that Meshekh Chokhmah noted this.
Discussion on Answer
It’s not that extending the hand prevents public shaming. Not extending the hand is itself public shaming.
Otherwise we would never find any prohibition of public shaming at all. Every time I could just say that I’m not obligated to stop talking so that the other person won’t be offended.
I thought the Rabbi would write that Yuval is not obligated to extend her hand in order to prevent public shaming, just as she is not obligated to do so in order to prevent bloodshed, because this is her own domain, and one does not save a person using another person’s property—certainly not with his body [and this is timely, the Pinchas portion, from which we derive this, and the rabbi of this place here often has on his lips the reasoning of Kli Chemdah that Zimri was not obligated to Pinchas to stop sinning].
A person who does not jump into the water to save a woman was defined in the Talmud as a pious fool, not as a murderer and not even as a wrongdoer. Apparently, it is his right not to endanger his body.
It’s a good thing they didn’t attack Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah [the fiery furnace…] for embarrassing Nebuchadnezzar by not bowing to the idol.