Lesson #58: Getting Even
We’ve all seen people act improperly and come up with justifications for their inappropriate behavior. For example, when someone sets out to act wrongly towards his fellow, he might justify his conduct by saying, “He did it to me, so I’m allowed to do it to him.” From a halachic standpoint, this has absolutely no basis. We are not allowed to cause somebody harm simply because that person had done the same to us.
Let us imagine a group of students playing together during recess, and one of them gets up and starts telling stories about another kid. He ridicules him, with theatrics and drama, making everyone else laugh as he tells of all kinds of things that the other youngster had done. One classmate stands up and reminds the boy that he is speaking forbidden Lashon Ha’ra, but the kid justifies his ridicule, claiming that the boy he is talking about had spoken Lashon Ha’ra about him numerous times. He proceeds to list all the negative things that student had said about him in the past.
This is a baseless excuse. It is forbidden to speak Lashon Ha’ra about somebody simply for the purpose of “getting even.” For one thing, one is not allowed to believe that somebody had spoken Lashon Ha’ra about him. If one is told that a certain person shared negative information about him, he is not allowed to firmly believe it. But additionally, even assuming it is true that the person had spoken Lashon Ha’ra about him, speaking Lashon Ha’ra is allowed only for a constructive purpose, and “getting even” is not considered a constructive purpose.
If we try to “get even,” we are in effect mirroring other people’s misconduct. Instead of following the bad example that other people set, we should instead be striving to following Hashem’s example of “Deracheha Darcheh Noam” – “[The Torah’s] ways are ways of pleasantness.”