Yente

Yesterday morning we were discussing a topic that I'd like to highlight a problem that exists, and I don't know the full scope or magnitude of the problem, either within our own yeshiva or many yeshivas, and I'm not even going to guess, I'm not performing any demographic study, but it's a problem that does exist, it's a problem that does exist. And basically it's going to exist again, to whatever degree, to whatever extent, that there's a certain culture of, again, I'm not sure what the best word in English is, of being a yenta, a certain culture of being a yenta, of gossip, which doesn't necessarily cross the line of rechilus or loshon hora, but gossip. What are we talking about? If someone happens to know, if someone happens to know that another guy in the beis medrash went out on a date with a certain girl. Okay, so sometimes it's information which you see them, you see them out on a date, you happen to bump into them wherever, wherever they went on a date, so you happen to see them, so you know about it. So this then becomes a topic of conversation of who's dating who. So I don't know, is it loshon hora? I don't know. You'd have to check in, itachen maybe it is, I don't know, you'd have to check in Chofetz Chaim. But let's say, let's say that it takeh isn't. Or other times, other times, anytime a person comes into possession of information about someone else which is private, and again, not necessarily, not necessarily intrinsically demeaning, but it's not, it's not that you found out that a person has a skeleton in his closet. No, then already we're talking about loshon hora. But not that it's intrinsically demeaning, but that it's private. And again, that example is a prime example. So I think intuitively, instinctively, we all recognize that it's wrong, and it's more than wrong, it's disgusting behavior. What are the issurim involved? Maybe our intuition isn't correct. What are the issurim involved? So lechora there are many, many considerations. The Gemara in Yuma says in the first perek on

דף ד' עמוד ב': מניין לאומר דבר לחברו שהוא בבל יאמר עד שיאמר לו לך אמור?

How do you know that if someone tells you something, that unless he gives you permission, unless he tells you to repeat it, how do you know that you're not allowed to repeat it? And the Gemara darshens from a pasuk that you're not allowed to repeat what someone tells you. And obviously the Gemara is not talking about if someone came in from outdoors and you asked them, oh, is it cold out? Do I need my coat or don't I need my coat? So the Gemara's not talking about whether or not you can then relay that information to someone else. But what we're talking about, anything where there's a possibility that for whatever reason, maybe it was private, maybe it was private, which is our immediate context, we're now digressing for a minute, the way a person says something, and for that matter even what a person says, is often a function of the forum that he's in, the venue in which he's speaking, the audience to which he's speaking, and a person has to exercise discretion in knowing where... I have no record of, no one does, of everything the Rav said but all I can tell you is that like everyone, no one, you express yourself in the way that's most appropriate in the forum in which you find yourself and people are not supposed to repeat that in a different forum which has the effect of totally distorting what was intended or what would have been said in such a forum. Dai l'chakima b'remiza. Nachzor l'inyanenu. So certainly this Gemara in Yoma, certainly this Gemara in Yoma says that if there's the slightest hava amina that what your chavruta told you is private, is something that he doesn't want shared, so he doesn't have to swear you to secrecy. The assumption is that what someone tells you is in confidence or if it's if it's a confidence that you stumble upon because you happen to see him when he's out on the date. He didn't volunteer the information to you but you happen to bump into him so then it certainly applies that a person's bal yomar until chavero tells him lech emor. And in general, maybe this is, I'm not sure if this is a second or maybe maybe these two are shnayim shehem echad. Kavod Habriyot is certainly a chiyuv. Certainly a chiyuv. גדול כבוד הבריות שדוחה לא תעשה שבתורה. So the Rav explains that the definition of Kavod Habriyot is human dignity. That's what Kavod Habriyot means. And he also explains that dignity is inseparable from privacy. That to be dignified means to have a sense of privacy, to have a sense of privacy. Again, that's why part of being dignified is to be clothed properly, to be clothed properly because that's part of one's sense of privacy. So there's no question that when you have a culture of being a yenta which compromises people's privacy, so there's no question that that's a violation of Kavod Habriyot. Certainly a violation of Kavod Habriyot. A third consideration is, again, the first two I think are issurim that are violated. The third is not an issur that's violated but there's no question that the mindset of idle curiosity is a very unhealthy one and a very negative one and one which very easily deteriorates into Lashon Hara and Rechilut because it's not so easy to always satisfy one's idle curiosity just by finding out neutral pieces of private information and usually once, if a person cultivates or or just allows that that side of human nature to flourish within himself of idle curiosity about other people, so then and one can probably safely say that inevitably inevitably it has to result in Lashon Hara and Rechilut. A person's going to be so self-disciplined, no, I only want to hear the private things which are sort of neutral, I don't want to hear the private things, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. It inevitably leads to Lashon Hara and Rechilut as well. Where does this come from? Where does this come from? What is this this this this this again very seemingly unhealthy desire that a person has to know, to know, to know, to know what's going on in other people's private lives which is none of his business, which he doesn't need to know. So maybe, I don't know, I don't know, but it's an interesting fact. But we've discussed a few times, there's no such thing as an instinct that we have, right? Igeres Hakodesh says there's no such thing as a human instinct, something innate, right, which the Ribono Shel Olam, right, who's the architect of the human personality, if he put it there, there's no such thing as it being innately wrong or innately evil. It always means that somehow or other we misdirect or we abuse a certain capacity that the Ribono Shel Olam gave us. So what's the, what's the capacity which he gave us over here? The capacity he gave us over here, I'll give you a mashal. I'll give you a mashal. The Gemara in Brachos says in the fourth perek when רבן יוחנן בן זכאי was dying and the talmidim asked him for a bracha, so he said שיהא מורא שמים עליכם כמורא בשר ודם. So the talmidim are very taken aback and they say, עד כאן עד כאן רבינו. And he says, U'levai. Halevai that you should have that much yiras shamayim. תדעו כשאדם עובר עבירה אומר שלא יראני אדם. When a person's being over an aveira, he's very concerned that no one should see him. So the pshuto shel Gemara seems to be he says, you know, halevai that you should have that much yiras shamayim. That's also a darga in yiras shamayim because most people go through life more concerned with what other people think than with what the Ribono Shel Olam thinks. That seems to be the pshuto shel Gemara. So the בעל שם טוב הקדוש says no. The real pshat in the Gemara is like this. Ba'al Shem Tov says he says human nature is such, a person can be bechadrei chadarim, can be in an inside room in his house, a room with which has no windows, and אף על פי כן even though it has no windows, he's got window shades on the wall and the window shades are drawn. And he's being עובר עבירה בחדרי חדרים. Says the בעל שם טוב הקדוש, human nature is such that the whole time he's being over that aveira, he keeps looking over his shoulder because he has this irrational sense that someone's watching him. What do you mean someone's watching him? He's in a room, the room has no windows, he taped the keyhole if there is such a lock on the door. It's impossible that he's being seen. No, and he has, he can't shake this irrational sense of being watched. So says the בעל שם טוב הקדוש, so what's that all about? He says because he is being watched. And a person has an innate sense of being watched because the Ribono Shel Olam gave us such an innate sense because we are being watched bechadrei chadarim when there are no windows and the window shades are drawn, so we're being watched. We're being watched. Ela mai, so we misdirect this, right? So we misdirect this into an irrational paranoia about people. But it's not, the ikar is not irrational. The ikar is not irrational. So a person is supposed to be curious. A person is supposed to be curious. A person is supposed to... you're supposed to want to know what's in the second half of Sanhedrin. A person is supposed to be curious about chochmas haborei, chochmas ha'olam. A person is supposed to want to go beyond himself. Ribono Shel Olam gave us such a netiya to transcend ourselves. Not just that I should be interested in me and my... my life is boring. No, I'm interested, I want to know, I can't wait to get to the sugya of shlichus on daf kaf-vav. A person is supposed to have this netiya to know and to want to know everything. But a person is not supposed to vulgarize that wonderful capacity the Ribono Shel Olam gave him and vulgarize it into wanting to know about and intrude on other people's privacy which are devarim hamiyuchadim lahem in which he has no connection, to which he's not entitled. It's wrong for anyone and everyone, and על אחת כמה וכמה it's wrong for bnei Torah who should really understand what that capacity is all about.