Lesson #66: Underhanded
A fellow opens a new business, selling children’s clothing, and the business succeeds and flourishes. And, as happens whenever a business takes off and expands, the business owner realizes that he needs to hire help. He finds a woman with experience in sales, and who happened to have worked for a competing business, and hires her as his saleswoman.
When she arrives on her first day on the job, the owner takes her around and shows her the merchandise he sells. She’s very impressed.
“Wow, these products are very high-quality,” she observes. “In my previous job, my employer – your competitor – used to tell me that you sell terrible merchandise. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that this isn’t true!”
This woman had no intention whatsoever to create tension between her new boss and her old boss. She intended, very innocently, to compliment her new employer, by mentioning that her preconceived notions were dispelled, and he sold excellent clothing. Nevertheless, she has violated the prohibition of Rechilut because this remark inevitably has the effect of evoking feelings of resentment towards the competitor. Her new boss, quite obviously, will be displeased to hear that his competitor was telling people that he sold poor quality merchandise. And therefore, regardless of the saleswoman’s innocent, pure intentions, she is in violation of the prohibition of Rechilut, which forbids informing a person of what somebody else is saying about him, thereby evoking hostility between two Jews.
We need to exercise extreme care when speaking to people about what others say or do, because even if our remarks trigger negative feelings in an underhanded way, they violate the prohibition of Rechilut.
Another example of unintentional, underhanded Rechilut is reminding a person of a time when somebody else caused him embarrassment or harm. Even if the speaker does not mention the name of the person who caused the embarrassment or harm, and even though the person is already well aware of what happened, nevertheless, reminding him of this incident violates the prohibition of Rechilut, because it evokes feelings of hostility. When the person is reminded of something hurtful or damaging that was done to him in the past, he inevitably experiences some degree of heightened animosity toward the one who caused the shame or the harm.
We must ensure to avoid Rechilut even when speaking innocently, without any intention to ignite tensions. Our goal must always be to bring Jews together, and to ensure not to do anything which will pull them apart from one another, even slightly.