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Sefer Chafetz Chayim
Hilchot Esurei Lashon Hara

Kelal Gimal - Halachah 1

making the comment in this person’s presence or in his absence (and it is
definitely not permissible).

Hashem has helped me to find this consensus in a responsa written by
Maharee Braunah in section #38 as follows: I was asked if one is permitted
to make a truthful comment about a fellow Jew and I answered, no! (one
would not be permitted to make those comments) even though the Gemara
Shabbat (118b) quotes Rebbe Yossi as saying “May it come to me (may
I be rewarded for) never once in my life did I have to retract something
I said.” There, Rashi comments (that Rebbe Yossi was implying) that
if someone (the “victim”) came back to him and asked if he made that
comment about him he would not have to retract it because the comment
was truthful. Rebbe Yossi held that any remarks that would be repeated
directly to that person are exempt from the laws of Lashon Hara and it is
apparent from the words of Rashi that according to Rebbe Yossi a truthful
statement is not Lashon Hara.

It appears to me that Rashi’s commentary requires an explanation. Because
taken at face value, what is the novella of Rebbe Yossi, that he would
not speak Lashon Hara? Yet a listener who accepted his remarks as truth
would have violated an esur, as cited in the Gemara Shabbat (56a), chapter
Bameh Behemah, (regarding the gemara’s discussion of whether or not
David HaMelech A”H accepted Lashon Hara) that King David accepted
Lashon Hara, which is prohibited. Most certainly one should not speak
it, and the punishment for speaking Lashon Hara is extremely harsh, as
the pasuk says (Tehilim 101:5) “the one who speaks in secret about his
contemporary, I (Hashem) will destroy him (the speaker of Lashon Hara)”
and his death will be by ascara (choking \ strangulation) as described in
Gemara Shabbat (33 a-b) (Bameh Madlikin).

Therefore, necessarily, Rebbe Yossi was referring to a case where a squatter
was living on his land and was eating his crops. Even though Rebbe Yossi

Quoting from the Chafetz Chayim’s Sefer Shemirat HaLashon in English
translation, entitled Mazal Elul, Sha’ar HaZechirah, 8th chapter (Mazal
Press, 2006, distributed by Feldheim Publishers, New York and Jerusalem):

Sometimes the punishment for having spoken Lashon Hara, this most severe
of sins, is death by “ascara,” a certain type of choking which is the most
difficult and painful of all deaths. Chazal teach in Gemara Berachot (8a) that
903 ways of inflicting death were created in the world and the most severe of
those deaths is ascara \ choking. A sign was given to all the world that this

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