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Sefer Chafetz Chayim
Hilchot Esurei Lashon Hara

Kelal Dalet - Halachah 9

Be’er Mayim Chayim

(4/9/1)-(36)..from what we wrote: All of these subjects are included

in what we wrote above in the 3rd and 4th halachot of this Kelal but it is
repeated here explicitly because many people have mistakenly accustomed
themselves to behaving in this way.

(4/9/2)-(37),,quick to fly into a rage: But to say that a person is

strict and demanding (meaning that he is not easygoing and does not
tolerate things being done in a way that is contrary to his instructions)
if it is true and if one knows that he would tell it to this person directly,
it is permissible (to disclose this personality trait to someone else). One
may make this disclosure because in fact it is not something derogatory,
merely that this person does not give up anything due him, similar to what
was said about Beit Shammai (Gemara Shabbat 30b). I have a proof to
this from Gemara Sanhedrin (113a) from Rebbe Yossi who said that Abba
Eliyahu was a strict person. (Please see that reference).

But one has to be extremely careful about whom this can be disclosed
to, although the disclosure is neither shameful nor humiliating. This
circumstance is not any worse than what Chazal taught (Gemara Babba
Batra 164a), that one should not praise one’s chaver \ fellow Jew because
inevitably the conversation will lead into a discussion of his flaws as well,
and most certainly in this circumstance this will also happen because the
conversation will not remain fixed only on the subject of this person’s
“strictness.” The speaker will say “This person is strict” and the listener
will respond “You know this person now, but I know him for a long time
to be someone who angers quickly,” and because of the conversation one
person began, that this person is “strict,” his friend will come to speak
Lashon Hara and he would have been the cause for his friend to stumble
(into committing a sin). Therefore one who wants to protect his soul will
also stay away from this (and will not disclose this type of personality
trait).

(4/9/3)-(38) ..maybe this person does not understand: Even if this

person has committed a significant sin repeatedly without any possibility of
permitting \ excusing his behavior (because of extenuating circumstances),
but because the action this person did is not widely known (throughout
Jewish society) to be a sin, the law forbids anyone from shaming this
person unless he was first rebuked. Rabbeinu Yonah (in the 3rd sha’ar of
Shaare Teshuvah, in section #219) only permitted shaming this person if
he was not careful of a transgression that everyone knows this mode of

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