{"id":39907,"date":"2018-09-12T23:45:27","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T20:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=39907"},"modified":"2022-04-05T17:30:53","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T14:30:53","slug":"shades-of-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/shades-of-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Shades of Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In Jewish ethics, humiliating another person is regarded as an extraordinarily grave offense. Take, for example, how Joseph acts towards his brothers.\u00a0<\/span>Seemingly still angry at his brothers for long ago selling him into slavery, the now powerful Joseph has made their lives extremely difficult, ending in Benjamin\u2019s imprisonment on trumped up charges. The brothers know that they cannot return to their father without Benjamin. Stricken, Judah begs to be enslaved in Benjamin\u2019s place (Genesis 44:33-34). <\/span><\/p>\n

Seeing how Judah, who had hatched the plan to sell him into slavery, now stands ready to do anything to help Benjamin avoid a similar fate, Joseph is overcome with emotion. What he does next strikes a Talmudic Sage as exceedingly strange: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJoseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, \u2018Have everyone withdraw from me!\u2019 So there was no one else about when Joseph made himself known to his brothers… Joseph said to his brothers, \u2018I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?\u2019\u201d (45: 1, 3). <\/span><\/p>\n

R. Samuel b. Nahman comments: \u201cJoseph put himself in grave danger, because if his brothers had killed him, no one would have known whom to blame. So why did he say, \u2018Have everyone withdraw from me?\u2019 This is what Joseph thought: better that I be killed than I humiliate my brothers in front of the Egyptians\u201d (Midrash Tanhuma, Vayigash 6).<\/span><\/p>\n

Joseph would rather die than humiliate another person. Those whose feelings he wants to protect have hurt him immensely and caused him great pain and suffering. Perhaps, in learning from these biblical models, we are meant to reason as follows: if Joseph, nursing such deep wounds, nevertheless refused to humiliate those who have aggrieved him, how much more so must we subdue the impulse to shame and humiliate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why is Judaism so preoccupied with avoiding humiliation? Rabbeinu Yonah (d. 1263) suggests that humiliation has \u201cshades of murder\u201d to it (<\/span>avak retzichah<\/span><\/i>). Close your eyes for a moment and imagine the moment in your life when you have felt most deeply humiliated. How many people have found themselves wishing they could die rather than be humiliated in the same way again? <\/span><\/p>\n

The message of the Sages seems clear: humiliation is a heinous offense and there is rarely\u2014if ever\u2014an excuse for it. The Sages want us to live as if the dignity of the people we meet is the most important thing in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

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