Lesson #89: The Cleaning Lady
Ilana leaves her home one day, and as she is walking down the street, she passes by her former non-Jewish cleaning lady.
“Hi,” Ilana says. “You still work in the neighborhood?”
The cleaning lady replies that she works for one of Ilana’s neighbors down the block.
Ilana is startled. Sometime earlier, a different neighbor, Mrs. Levine, caught this cleaning lady stealing. She promptly fired this cleaning lady, and warned all the families on the block not to employ her. Naturally, Ilana is very surprised that there is someone on the block who is willing to hire this woman. She is tempted to talk to the cleaning about her surprise, to let her know that Mrs. Levine had warned everybody on the street not to hire her because she was suspected of stealing.
If Ilana would tell this to the woman, then she would be in violation of the most grievous form of Rechilut – informing a non-Jew about something that a certain Jew did to him or said about him, which would arouse the non-Jew’s feelings of resentment toward that Jew. Telling a Jew what another Jew said about or did to him violates the standard prohibition of Rechilut. But when one speaks Rechilut to a non-Jew, the sin is far more grievous, because non-Jews might resort to extreme measures in response to something that a Jew did to them or said about them. Thus, for example, it is forbidden to tell a non-Jew that the merchandise a Jew sold to him was not high quality, or that a Jewish worker whom he hired did not perform his job properly. This kind of Rechilut could potentially cause the Jew great harm, and is therefore considered the most severe form of Rechilut, more severe than when one speaks to a fellow Jew about something another Jew said or did.