Lesson #35: Circumstantial Evidence
Imagine a home where a bunch of young children are running around, and the parent suddenly notices that a chocolate chip cookie is missing from the plate in the kitchen that nobody was supposed to touch. The parent does some investigating…and notices that the six-year-old has crumbs on his fingers and chocolate around his mouth.
This is what is called “circumstantial evidence.” Nobody witnessed the child take the cookie, but there is strong evidence implicating him as the culprit.
What happens if a person is told negative information about somebody, and he then sees circumstantial evidence strongly supporting what he heard about that individual? He does not personally see the individual act in a way that corroborates the allegations, but there are clues that lead him to this conclusion. Is he then allowed to believe the Lashon Ha’ra which he had heard?
Halacha permits believing the information in such a case only for a constructive purpose, such as to protect oneself. And even when believing the information is necessary for a constructive purpose, if there is a way of judging the individual favorably, then he must do so, despite the evidence suggesting the opposite conclusion. Moreover, the Lashon Ha’ra may be believed only if the listener directly saw the supporting evidence; if he merely heard something which lends support to the negative information he was told, then this does not authorize him to believe the Lashon Ha’ra. Finally, even when it is permissible to believe the Lashon Ha’ra, it is certainly forbidden to repeat the information to other people.
The Yeser Ha’ra (evil inclination) is very clever, and it knows how to make inconclusive evidence look conclusive, how to convince us to believe things with certainty despite the fact that we have no ironclad proof. We must counter this human weakness by making a conscious effort to stop and think before we accept Lashon Ha’ra and judge people on the basis of circumstantial evidence.