Criticism and Rebuke: What Judaism Really Teaches – with Rabbi Michael Skobac

We live in a culture where the ethos is to mind our own business, and this flies directly in the face of Torah values. As we're going to see, there is a biblical commandment to rebuke those who do wrong. However, this is an extremely difficult directive to fulfill. Some say that it is one of the most difficult commandments in the Torah, and this is to such a degree that already in Talmudic times, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah wondered if in his days there was anyone who was fit to be able to offer rebuke. And yet today, especially on social media, some people act as moral policemen and vigilantes and relish in informing people that they are wicked and that they're going straight to hell. So it would be helpful for our discussion to begin looking at the foundational verse in the Torah about this topic. Leviticus chapter 19 verse 7 teaches, Do not hate your brother in your heart, you shall surely reprove your fellow, and do not bear sin through him. Now this verse begins by warning us not to conceal hatred in our heart and to let it simmer and stew when someone has hurt us or offended us. Do not hate your brother in your heart. And the verse goes on to say that instead of harboring this kind of hatred, we should surely reprove the one who has provoked us. We should speak to them openly about our grievance. And this will begin a conversation where the person can then go on to explain what they did. There may be some kind of misunderstanding. You may not know the whole story or they will now have a chance when you confront them to admit that they were wrong and ask for forgiveness, to apologize. So the Torah recommends rather than just keeping this hatred in your heart, the Torah recommends dealing with the situation, speaking to the person who has bothered you, letting them know how you feel, and hopefully beginning a process that can be in some way a resolution to the problem. And our commentaries point out that there may be two kinds of issues that are going on here. There may be two kind of issues that might require you to reprove someone. First of all, it could be personal where someone wronged you and you're upset with them and the Torah instructs us to speak up and express our feelings. Don't hate this person in your heart. Deal with what the irritation is all about. But then it may not be personal. It could be a situation where someone is acting in a way that violates the laws of the Torah. And because we are supposed to care about the spiritual well-being of others, we are commanded here in the Torah to not just mind our own business, but to explain to this person why their behavior needs to be corrected. The Hebrew in this verse, for you shall surely reprove, is it's a double expression. And according to the Talmud, this repetition teaches us that we may have to repeatedly rebuke someone until the matter is resolved. The Talmud says even a hundred times it may be necessary. Now our verse ends significantly by saying that in giving a rebuke, we should not bear sin. Now there are several ways that this is understood. Number one, although you may be required to give rebuke, be very careful, the Torah says, that you yourself don't end up sinning by rebuking improperly. For example, don't rebuke someone publicly, which would embarrass and humiliate them. Our sages teach that if you embarrass someone in public, it's tantamount to murdering them. But another way this ending of the verse is understood, that you should not bear sin through them, is that if you don't give rebuke, you can be held responsible if they persist in their wrongdoing. By allowing someone to continue sinning, we transgress the negative biblical commandment of don't stand idly by the blood of your fellow when it is being spilled, meaning we have a responsibility to be concerned about if people are going to be harmed. And if someone is going to persist in their sinfulness, they're going to be punished. We cannot stand by and just allow that to happen. So we violate that negative commandment, don't stand idly by. And as well, we violate, if we just mind our own business, we violate the positive commandment to reprove someone that's doing wrong. Now the Talmud in Tractate Beta 30a teaches that if someone is sinning unintentionally, what does that mean to be sinning unintentionally? It means they're not aware that what they're doing is prohibited. So if someone is sinning unintentionally, you should not rebuke them if you know clearly that they will not accept the rebuke. If you happen to know that this person is going to just ignore you or be upset by your rebuke or your reproof, you should not reprove them if they're sinning unintentionally. Why is that? So the case, it is preferable that they remain ignorant, meaning by sinning unintentionally, it meant they weren't aware that it was wrong. So the Talmud says it's preferable that they remain ignorant and sin unintentionally rather than become informed through your reproof and then sin intentionally. You'll be doing them a great disservice if you give them rebuke. Now a similar situation is if someone has totally rejected the relevance and the authority of the Torah in their life. And the truth is that today there are many Jews, unfortunately, who simply don't believe in the Torah. They don't care what the Torah says. It's not important to them. They simply don't accept it. So for these people, there is no obligation to rebuke them for violating a particular commandment. And this is because the obligation to rebuke is given to those who are actually your fellow in the observance of the commandments. The Torah says you shall surely reprove your fellow, your fellow. And the Talmud understands this to mean those who are with you, they share with you a commitment to following the Torah. So if someone is in the ballgame, so to speak, if they're playing the ballgame of observing the Torah, so they're concerned about the Torah. They're interested in the Torah. You should rebuke them if they're doing wrong. But if they have totally disregarded and rejected the Torah from their life, there's no obligation to rebuke them when they are violating a Torah commandment. It says actually in the book of Proverbs chapter 9 verse 8, do not rebuke a scoffer because he will hate you for it. So we see that rebuking someone who has rejected the Torah is not going to be effective. You're not going to accomplish anything. And it's actually going to lower the esteem of the Torah and of those who observe the Torah in the eyes of these people. They're going to say, look at this busybody. Can't they mind their own business? What are they interfering in my life for? They're going to hate you for rebuking them. You're not only not going to accomplish anything, you're going to cause a great disservice by lowering this person's estimation of both the Torah and those who observe the Torah. However, while you're not obligated and you shouldn't rebuke them, you certainly should try to positively influence them to embrace the Torah. As Maimonides says, you should reach out with love and concern and try to, in a positive way, impress them, inspire them with how relevant and how beautiful the Torah actually is. Now, the most critical element in giving rebuke is that it has to be effective. Already in Talmudic times, Rabbi Tarfon wondered if there was anyone back then in his generation who was fit to receive rebuke. We know this. It's very hard for people to be criticized. No one likes being criticized. We recoil from criticism. Today, when most people are hypersensitive, this is clearly going to be an issue. In the 18th century, Rabbi Chaim of Oloshan wrote that someone who doesn't know how to reprove with mildness is exempt from the obligation of rebuking. It's not something that you should even try to do if you cannot do it with gentleness and with finesse and with kindness and with mildness. In order for rebuke to be accepted and effective, it is worth recalling that verse in the Torah that follows our verse, our directive to give rebuke. The next verse says, love your neighbor as yourself. So, your motivation in giving criticism has to flow from your love of the other person, not from any kicks you might get out of feeling superior by criticizing someone. And that love has to show. It has to come through. And don't forget, the verse of reproof has this double expression, you shall surely reprove your fellow. The Baal Shem Tov explains why this double expression, and he explains that the first mention of rebuke in the verse is directed to ourselves. We have to rebuke ourselves before we rebuke someone else. Before criticizing someone else, we have to recognize our own limitations and not rebuke others with an air of superiority. We have to remember to end that the end of our verse, the end of our verse says, the verse that mandates giving rebuke says you should give rebuke. Don't bear sin through him. But Rabbi Gedalia Shor said you can translate this phrase as don't raise the sin over him. What does that mean, don't raise the sin over him? It means don't magnify the sin and minimize the person. It's not going to be effective to pile on with accusations like, how could you do something so terrible? Don't you realize what an incredibly serious sin this is? Because this kind of approach will make the person feel very small. You're going to destroy their self-esteem and you will only get them to resent you and to resent your preaching. Instead of building up the sin, instead of magnifying the sin, build up the person. You're a very special human being. How could a fine person like you do something like this? This kind of behavior is beneath you. We would say in Yiddish, it's not becoming of you. You're better than this. It's not befitting of the kind of person you really are. That is going to be an effective path of rebuking someone. In 1 Samuel, the book in the Bible, we read about King David who notices a beautiful married woman named Bathsheba bathing and he's smitten with her. He's taken with her. David devised a way of getting rid of her husband by sending him to fight on the front lines in battle. Of course, all of this was very displeasing to God. God sends the prophet Nathan to speak with David. In chapter 12, the next chapter, Nathan tells David a story about two men, one who's very wealthy and one who's very poor. Nathan says to David, the rich man had many sheep and many cattle and the poor man had nothing except for one little sheep. This poor man took care of the sheep. He raised it with his own family. He almost considered this little sheep like a daughter of his. One day, Nathan tells David that a visitor came to the rich man. The rich man did not want to take any of his livestock to feed his guests. So what did he do? He went and he grabbed that little sheep of the poor man and slaughtered it and served it to his visitor. David was furious when he heard this story and he was indignant. He said to Nathan, anyone who would do such a thing deserves to die. Nathan said to David, you are that man. David said to Nathan, I have sinned against God. He acknowledges it. He doesn't make excuses. He doesn't defend himself. He doesn't deflect. He doesn't attack the messenger, which are all the kinds of things people would normally do when they're being accused of something so terrible. But by Nathan approaching David indirectly, where David is not going to feel defensive, he allowed David to pass judgment upon himself. And that was very effective rebuke. When I was growing up, I would hear stories from my grandmother all the time about a saintly Jew named Rabbi Israel Meir Hakohen of Radin, known by the name of his famous book called the Chafetz Chaim. It was a book about speech ethics. He passed away in around the year 1930 and he ran a yeshiva. He had a school where people studied Torah. And there's a famous story where one of the boys in the yeshiva was caught smoking on Shabbat. Smoking on Shabbat in the yeshiva. And the Chafetz Chaim was told about this. And he asked that the boy should come to see him. The boy went to the room of the Chafetz Chaim. He was there for about two minutes. That was it. And for the rest of his life, he observed Shabbat scrupulously. And people wondered, what did the Chafetz Chaim say? What could he have said in two minutes to straighten out this boy? People always wondered, what was it that the Chafetz Chaim said to this boy? And there was once a rabbi who was telling this story. The rabbi said, I would love to know. And one of the older men in the audience came over to the rabbi and he had tears coming down his eyes. And he said, Rabbi, I can tell you what the Chafetz Chaim said to that boy. Because you see, I was that boy. And the rabbi was shocked. And he said, please, can you tell me, what did the Chafetz Chaim say to you? So the boy said, now he's an older man. He said, when I was called to the Chafetz Chaim's room, I was terrified. I was shaking. What would I be able to say to this great Tzaddik, to this tremendously righteous sage? How can I justify smoking on Shabbat and doing it right in the yeshiva? I didn't sneak off into the woods. I wasn't even able to justify it to myself. It was just one of those rash and foolish things that young people do. They don't think. Sometimes they just do things. So I walked into the room of the Chafetz Chaim. And there he was with his holy face distorted in a grimace of pain. And he walked over to me. His head was barely reaching my chest. The Chafetz Chaim was very, very short. And he took my hand in his. And he said to me softly, Shabbos. And he began to weep. And after a minute, he looked up at me. And he said once again, Shabbos. And his hot tears dripped onto my hands. And the sound of his weeping penetrated my heart. And that was all it took. Two minutes of the Chafetz Chaim's pain and the Chafetz Chaim's love. And I was not the same person for the rest of my life. The Chafetz Chaim did not put this boy down. He did not criticize him. He did not belittle him. He did not berate him. He just gently but powerfully impressed upon this young boy the holiness of Shabbat. And that was the most effective rebuke that he could have given.