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favorably. If for example a mother complains that her neighbor hangs
up dripping wet laundry that drips onto her own laundry, her daugh-
ter must believe that the basic facts are correct and should try to calm
her mother and empathize with her but she should think to herself
that the upstairs neighbor may not have seen her mother’s laundry or
may have hung her laundry out first or perhaps these were raindrops
which her mother didn’t notice. She shouldn’t mention any of these
three possibilities to her mother if she realizes that trying to judge
the neighbor favorably will annoy her mother but she should think
to herself that maybe this is what happened. This way, the mother
will calm down when she sees her daughter sympathizing with her
distress, as though she actually sees water dripping down onto her
laundry but the latter doesn’t think ill of the neighbor and if the
daughter can speak to the neighbor she must do so.

Sometimes it is a mitzvah for the daughter to tell her mother that
the upstairs neighbor is an imbecile and a fool who doesn’t understand
that dripping laundry can do damage, as explained in the Chafetz
Chaim (ibid. 5,3, note) as follows:“If the intention of the person [who
is reporting that his colleague is not clever] is to defuse a quarrel, for
example, if Reuven hates Shimon on account of some injustice he
did him or something derogatory he said about him, a third party is
allowed to tell Reuven that Shimon didn’t intend to offend him but
his stupidity led him to act as he did, in order to lessen the hatred Re-
uven feels towards Shimon.” The daughter is also allowed to respond
in this way to her mother.

Here is another example of how it’s possible to avoid believing
the mother’s accusations without offending her: There was once an
incident where Reuven complained about his friend Shimon who
lived in the apartment above his and made his living from preparing
schnitzels, which involved his hammering the chicken on a table very
late at night, preventing Reuven from sleeping. Reuven went to beis
din and the dayanim summoned Shimon but he denied Reuven’s
claim altogether. The dayanim called at Reuven’s home in the middle
of the night and went around the house. In an out of the way corner
of the yard they found the drainage pipe of an air conditioner that

Lashon Hara in Treatment 2 175