The Gemarah in Masechet Sotah(41 a)says,
מיום שגברה אגרופה של חנופה
From the day that the fist of flattery became strong….
and then continues on with a long down hill list of what happened to the Jewish people.
The Ben Ish Chai, in his sefer Ben Yoyada is bothered by the use of the words “fist of flattery.”
Rashi says it’s because a fist represents strength, like a fist used to punch.
When we say flattery, we are referring to when someone is doing something wrong, and rather than tell the person that they are doing wrong, or give them proper feedback, you do the opposite and tell him everything is fine, because you don’t want to get involved. It is too much of a hassle to give people feedback, so you ignore it. As we said yesterday, you are not doing anyone any favors this way.
The Ben ish Chai explains that people usually flatter this way because they want to get pleasure or benefit out of it.
For example, a person thinks he is benefiting by not telling the boss that his jokes are improper, or off-color, and just laughing along instead.
(The Chafetz Chaim actually discusses a case where boss speaks lashon hara and an employee doesn’t want to say anything, and he calls this Hanufa/flattery.
The Ben Ish Chai explains that the term /אגרופהfist” is used to depict a “fistful,” because the person wants a fistful of benefits.
He also points out that the word חנופהHanufa can be rescrambled a number of ways, to indicate deeper meaning:
It can be rescrambled into
1-חפונה/ hafuna.
A hofen is a large amount, or scoop of benefits. You flatter someone to get benefits.
2- חן פה chen peh -when you flatter someone, you think you get charm through your mouth
( you don’t, quite the opposite)
3- נפוחה nefucha, which means bloated or swelled, because when you flatter someone, you try to bloat them with arrogance.
4- נוחפה/ to cover up
You cover up the person’s weaknesses when you flatter.
5- In the name of his son Rabbi Yaakov, the Ben Ish Chai says that sometimes in our language, certain letters are interchangeable. The ה heh of חנופה Hanufa can be interchanged with an Aleph, because the sounds of the heh and aleph come from the same part of the mouth (whereas other sounds are formed from teeth, tongue, lips etc), so Hanufa can rescrambled into חנו אף hanu-af which means anger dwells there, because the Gemarah says flattery brings anger to the world.
A flatterer may think that he is going to find charm by flattering a person, but he doesn’t realize that it brings anger upon the world.
So the BeH Ish Chai explains the flatterer is out to get a fistful of pleasure, which is why the term “fist of flattery,” is used. Furthermore, he’s also trying to gain charm through his mouth, he covers up the man’s sins and causes the person to become bloated as well, but the real end is that it just brings anger to the world.
Flattery comes from an underlying hatred. If you cared about a person, you would tell him what he did wrong.
Have a wonderful day.