Two kinds of frauds we should be careful of #Behar-Bekhukotai#devartorah#parashathashavua

A small-town baker bought his butter from a local farmer. One day he weighed the butter and concluded that the farmer had been reducing the amount in the packages but charging the same. So the baker accused the farmer of fraud.

In court the judge asked the farmer, “Do you have measuring weights?” “No sir,” replied the farmer. “How then do you manage to weigh the butter that you sell?” The farmer answered, “When the baker began buying his butter from me, I thought I’d better get my bread from him. I have been using his 1-pound loaf as the weight for the butter I sell. If the weight of the butter is wrong, he has only himself to blame.”

Everybody agrees monetary fraud is forbidden, but not everyone knows that verbal fraud is considered a sin. Commenting on the phrase found in this week’s Torah portion “you shall not wrong one another” (25:14) the rabbis in the Talmud extended this concept of wronging a person with words. “Just as fraud exists in buying and selling, so wrong can be done by the spoken word. A man may not say: ‘How much is this?’ If he has no intention to buy it. If a man is a repentant sinner, one must not say to him: ‘Remember your previous deeds.’ If a man is descended from proselytes, one must not taunt him: ‘Remember the deeds of your ancestors.’…” (Baba Metzia 4:10)

The Gemara continues to list other forms of wronging a person with words. “The Gemara relates that the tanna who recited mishnayot and baraitot in the study hall taught a baraita before Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak: Anyone who humiliates another in public, it is as though he were spilling blood. Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak said to him: You have spoken well, as we see that after the humiliated person blushes, the red leaves his face and pallor comes in its place, which is tantamount to spilling his blood. Abaye said to Rav Dimi: In the West, i.e., Eretz Yisrael, with regard to what mitzva are they particularly vigilant? Rav Dimi said to him: They are vigilant in refraining from humiliating others...

“Anyone who descends to Gehenna ultimately ascends, except for three who descend and do not ascend, and these are they: One who engages in intercourse with a married woman, as this transgression is a serious offense against both God and a person; and one who humiliates another in public; and one who calls another a derogatory name. The Gemara asks with regard to one who calls another a derogatory name: That is identical to one who shames him; why are they listed separately? The Gemara answers: Although the victim grew accustomed to being called that name in place of his name, and he is no longer humiliated by being called that name, since the intent was to insult him, the perpetrator’s punishment is severe”(58b)

We should demand this the standard of honesty and refraining to wrong a person with words from our politicians, from those on social media platforms, and from ourselves.