Secret Eavesdropping and Recordings - Rabbi Yisrael Metuf shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lema’an Yishme’u,” a podcast of Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 As often happens when we discuss a Torah topic, one subject reminds us of another, and then another. We started with neighbors and visual intrusion between neighbors. We spoke about cameras—a form of visual intrusion that’s more relevant today. Then we spoke a little about intrusion through hearing. Is there such a thing? We mentioned it briefly, but it’s really a broader subject. It applies not only between neighbors, but between people in general. Hearing something I don’t want to hear, or making someone else hear it—there are several examples. First of all, recording someone else: May you record someone without their permission, without their knowing? May you listen in? Everyone understands that’s forbidden, but what exactly is the prohibition? Listening in on a conversation someone doesn’t want others to hear. May you share a recording? Someone sends you a recording. In principle, there isn’t such a big difference between a recording and written material, but with a recording you hear the person himself. With written material, it gets passed along; you don’t always know exactly who wrote it, so it’s a little easier. But when it’s someone’s voice, you hear him speaking. Sometimes it seems simple to you: he said some sentence to me, and you don’t see any problem with it. But you pass it on to someone else, and it could create a problem from that innocent sentence he said. The question is whether doing that is permitted or appropriate, or whether it’s forbidden. There are various sources on this. First, I’ll recall what we’ve already learned. Let me retrace the progression. At the start of each class, we review where we’re up to. We spoke about visual intrusion and all its details, and now we’ve added eavesdropping and recordings, which are

02:18 Speaker 2 essentially a form of intrusion through hearing. So there’s eavesdropping—listening in on someone else—which everyone understands is forbidden. But what is the reason for the prohibition? What are its details? Then there’s recording conversations. The law says that if you’re a party to a conversation, you may record it because you yourself are present. That makes a lot of sense: you’re hearing it yourself. There’s nothing here that you’re not allowed to hear; you’re only documenting it, recording it. The question is, what is the halacha? And the third issue is sharing it—sharing the recording with others. So let’s look at the reasons behind the prohibition of visual intrusion, see which ones apply here, and then discuss some other points. Visual intrusion, we said, is a matter of privacy. You see the other person all day, and that’s a problem of privacy. The evil eye. How?

03:22 Speaker 3 You see a picture.

03:23 Speaker 2 Seeing him all day—that’s a situation where it’s all day.

03:26 Speaker 3 What he’s doing at that very moment.

03:29 Speaker 2 Yes. In fact, we can make a careful inference from the Alter Rebbe as well. I saw that halachic authorities cite the Alter Rebbe on a point that shows that intrusion through hearing and visual intrusion are really the same idea. We’ll look at the Alter Rebbe’s wording in a moment. The evil eye and lashon hara. Now, the evil eye is a rule specific to sight: a person looking can cause harm to someone else. But what about privacy and lashon hara? What does it mean to say that visual intrusion is prohibited because of lashon hara? We showed that when you look at someone else’s property and see what he has, that’s a kind of gossip. You’re concerning yourself with someone else’s affairs. So if you listen to someone else, it’s the same thing. You’re prying into his affairs; you’re spying on him. So that reason applies here too. And what about privacy? Let’s look at the Alter Rebbe’s wording. I haven’t brought the text here; we’ve seen it in all the classes and read it several times. It isn’t on the sheet now. The Alter Rebbe discusses visual intrusion. He begins with the evil eye and then continues: “Even with regard to another person’s business and activities, where there is no concern about harm from the evil eye, if he is doing them in his home or on his property, it is forbidden to look without his knowledge.” Why? “Because perhaps he does not wish others to know about his activities and business.” That wording—“does not wish others to know about his activities and business.” What difference does it make whether they find out by seeing or by hearing? So why isn’t intrusion through hearing mentioned? Let’s return to the sources we read in previous classes, which say that intrusion through hearing is not a problem, and examine why. Why is it a problem for someone to learn about his activities and business by seeing, but not by hearing? First, let’s look at the Meiri. These are essentially the two sources everyone cites; apparently, they’re the only sources people have found on this subject. The first source is the Meiri. The Meiri says, in source

05:42 Speaker 2 one: “Whenever visual intrusion is eliminated, we follow local custom, even if the partition is extremely flimsy.” If two people have adjoining courtyards and put up a partition between them, even the flimsiest partition is enough, provided they can’t see each other. “We are not at all concerned about intrusion through hearing—that is, that sound passes clearly from one side to the other because the partition is thin—since people ordinarily take care with what they say.” Intrusion through hearing isn’t a problem because people take care with what they say. What’s the underlying point? With visual intrusion, there’s nothing he can do. He hasn’t put up a partition; he’s moving around there, going about his business, and the other person sees him. He can’t cover himself up. But when it comes to hearing, he can speak more quietly. And by the way, we’ve been saying all along that the Alter Rebbe distinguishes between seeing and looking, right? We said that a loss of privacy can result even from a mere glance. If it’s someone’s private space, even seeing it in passing is already harmful; it’s already forbidden. If you’re permitted to see it, then there can still be a problem with deliberately looking. Looking is a further step. Seemingly, the same applies to hearing. What do you think? What corresponds to seeing, and what corresponds to looking, when it comes to hearing? What words do we use?

07:10 Speaker 4 Listening in, too.

07:11 Speaker 2 Right. There’s hearing someone, and there’s listening in on him. Now, with visual intrusion, we said that someone who wants to prevent the other person from seeing him has no solution except to put up a partition. With hearing, what does someone need to do if he wants to prevent the other person from hearing him?

07:28 Speaker 4 Speak.

07:28 Speaker 2 Speak more quietly. So if a person, for example, shouts at his children in his home, or shouts about something, and the person on the other side of the wall hears him, there’s no issue of intrusion through hearing. He raised his voice enough to be heard. That was his choice.

07:47 Speaker 4 But if even when he whispers—

07:50 Speaker 2 The question now is whether we would go that far because of this. What did we say about visual intrusion? The Sages instituted an obligation to build a partition between neighbors because of visual intrusion and all the problems we mentioned. They did not institute such an obligation for intrusion through hearing, because ordinarily people can—people normally take care with what they say. They didn’t require neighbors to put some kind of soundproofing between them so they wouldn’t hear each other. Let’s read another source that takes a lenient position, the second source. What? Now the question—

08:30 Speaker 5 About protection between—

08:31 Speaker 2 Ah, so I’m saying now, what happens if a person—

08:34 Speaker 5 Puts his ear to the door.

08:35 Speaker 2 Listens in on someone else’s conversation in his home—that’s already something different. Although we said that we aren’t concerned about intrusion through hearing, if you start listening in on someone else, that’s already harmful. What does the Alter Rebbe say? Why might the person not want others to know about his activities and business? When you listen in on someone, you may discover all sorts of things he might not want others to know. We’ll soon see other sources explaining why this is forbidden, but seemingly the first source for the prohibition—first from our perspective, after everything we’ve learned—is what the Alter Rebbe says. Just as there is visual intrusion, there is also intrusion through hearing. But merely hearing something in passing isn’t an issue, because a person can guard against that. Listening in on someone else is different.

09:18 Speaker 5 Not only in his home. Someone who simply sits near them, or by the neighbors’ door—it’s the same thing.

09:23 Speaker 2 Right, right, it has to be. There are situations where people speak so loudly that... So yes, if you’re busy with something else, you try not to pay attention, but sometimes that’s hard. It’s hard not to pay attention, not to hear it. But they’ve really brought it on themselves by speaking so loudly. And there’s something interesting in Sefer Chassidim. Sefer Chassidim says that if someone comes to daven in shul and sees the town leaders sitting there in some kind of meeting, he should go daven somewhere else, because perhaps they don’t want him there. I don’t know whether, in the case discussed there, they saw him or didn’t see him, but even though there’s a reason to daven in shul, he should go daven somewhere else so he won’t hear things he shouldn’t hear. Okay, so that’s what we learned about invasion of visual privacy, which would seem to have a parallel in hearing. I wanted to read source number two. Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi, the Re’em, says: “One cannot object on the grounds that they can hear one another, for nowhere in the Talmud do we find a category of harm of this kind, and there is no reason to distinguish between courtyards and houses, etc.” He says that just as, in a courtyard, they said you can put up even a thin partition, without addressing the problem that people can hear one another, the same applies to a house. If someone wants to extend his house on his own private property, bringing it close to his neighbor, the neighbor can’t prevent him. What about this, though? This comes up in one of the contemporary books. What happens if a person wants to extend into a shared area? Let’s say all the neighbors agree, but one neighbor says, “You’re coming closer to me, and now, because you’re coming closer, you’ll hear my conversations.” Here we always have to remember what we’ve been saying all along: the moment you use property belonging to someone else, whether it’s private or

11:15 Speaker 2 shared, they can object to even the slightest disturbance: “We don’t want this. We’re not giving you the use of our property so you can disturb us.” So even though there’s no category of harm caused by hearing in this context, if you’re using someone else’s property or shared property, he can tell you no. You can’t say to him, “What is this? That’s the trait of Sodom.” It isn’t the trait of Sodom. You’re coming closer to me, and you’ll hear my conversations. So that’s the subject of what we learned about invasion of visual privacy and its partial parallel in hearing. Now let’s look at a few more prohibitions connected with listening to someone else without permission. There are several levels to this kind of listening without permission. Let’s go from the less severe to the more severe. First, recording someone. Recording someone when you’re allowed to hear him—you record a conversation between the two of you.

12:15 Speaker 2 The recording itself would seem to cause no harm. But what? Recording creates the possibility of problems later on. It could be shared afterward, and so on. The second thing is playing that recording for someone.

12:38 Speaker 6 For someone else.

12:39 Speaker 2 What?

12:40 Speaker 6 For someone else. Not giving it to the person.

12:42 Speaker 2 If he himself listens to it again, there would seem to be no problem. But he plays it for someone else. Now, within that there are several levels. There’s simply playing something for someone. Someone sent you a recording, and you play it for someone else. At first glance, there isn’t much of a problem with that. We’ll see in a moment. Then there’s revealing a secret: someone told you, “This is a secret; don’t reveal it,” and you play it for others. Everyone understands that’s a problem. The question is whether it’s a Torah prohibition and which prohibition it falls under. Then there’s playing something derogatory—something that reflects badly on the other person, even though he didn’t tell you, “Don’t tell others.” And the worst is playing something false. What does that mean? Taking what he did, what he sent you, editing it the way the media does, and then taking things out of context and playing them. That’s a much more serious level. I’m sure everyone can already guess the differences between these cases, but let’s see what the Torah prohibits. We have three prohibitions: rechilus, lashon hara, and motzi shem ra. According to most halachic authorities, rechilus is telling others things about a person—things you saw him do or things he said—even if there’s nothing derogatory about them and he didn’t tell you not to share them. That’s rechilus. Lashon hara is a more serious level: it’s derogatory. And motzi shem ra is false. Those are essentially the three levels of Torah prohibitions. Now let’s look at the sources. We’ll start with what we saw earlier: revealing a secret. Someone told you a secret, and you tell others. What’s the issue? Let’s see. Source number three: “The Sages taught: How do we know that when he leaves...” This is talking about a judge who sat on a beis din where the ruling was decided by a majority. “How do we know that when he leaves, he may not say, ‘I ruled in his favor, but my colleagues ruled against him.

15:00 Speaker 2 What can I do, though? My colleagues outnumbered me’?” How do we know that a judge is forbidden to say, “Listen, I was one of those who ruled in your favor; it’s just that the majority ruled against you”? He’s not allowed to say that. How do we know? “The verse says, ‘Do not go about as a talebearer among your people,’ and it says, ‘One who goes about as a talebearer reveals a secret.’” That second verse is from Mishlei; we’ll mention it shortly. So this is a form of rechilus: the judge tells someone what happened behind closed doors.

15:28 Speaker 6 Is it permissible to say that two were in favor and three were against?

15:35 Speaker 2 At first glance, that wouldn’t fall under this prohibition.

15:37 Speaker 6 The question is, if there’s a case now, for example... I think that, in a situation like that, saying two were in favor and three were against is not [unclear].

15:46 Speaker 2 More than that: some write in the wording of the ruling, “We sat as a panel of three,” and word it in a particular way so that people will understand it was a majority ruling, not that everyone agreed. After all, all the judges sign it. A judge signs a ruling he didn’t want to make at all, and the judge is required to sign. There’s a whole body of law about this. He can refrain from signing, but in principle he has to sign even if the ruling is the opposite of his own decision. So, plainly, there’s no problem with saying that it was a majority decision and not unanimous. Now the Gemara relates: “There was a student about whom a report emerged that he had revealed something said in the beis midrash.” Let’s skip the parenthetical for a moment. “After twenty-two years.” A student was reported to have revealed something that had been said in the beis midrash twenty-two years earlier. Any statute of limitations would already have passed, everything—and he told it. He leaked it, right? “Rav Ami expelled him from the beis midrash, saying, ‘This person reveals secrets.’” He expelled him from the beis midrash after twenty-two years. Now, what happened there? What exactly had been said in the beis midrash? There are differing opinions among the Rishonim. In parentheses I brought the Ramah, in Yad Ramah. He quotes the Gemara and adds two words: “as a secret.” In other words, it was told in the beis midrash as a secret, and this student revealed it. So we see that Yad Ramah understands the Gemara this way: the issue in the story was that someone revealed a secret. That’s also connected with “one who goes about as a talebearer”; the verse says, “One who goes about as a talebearer reveals a secret.” Later, though, we’ll see other interpretations of that verse. Rashi, by contrast, says: “It was a matter of lashon hara.” Rashi says there was something derogatory involved.

17:41 Speaker 2 That is already a matter of lashon hara, and that student related something disparaging that had been said in the beis midrash. The Semag—the Semag, as compared with the passage the Alter Rebbe cites from the Semag. It’s not the same passage; it’s a different one, but it expresses the Semag’s idea. Let’s look at the Semag: “And if the person who said it warned that it should not be repeated.” If someone gave a warning. He says this: “Rechilus is when you relate something you saw yourself. If something happened in public and became widely known, there is no problem of rechilus. But if the rabbi warned, ‘Don’t tell others about this,’ then even if it happened in front of many people, there is a problem with relating it.” That’s what the Semag says: “And if the person who said it warned that it should not be repeated, even if he said it in front of many people, relating it constitutes lashon hara. As we say in the chapter Zeh Borer: ‘There was a certain student who revealed something said in the beis midrash,’ and so on.” He cites the same Gemara we discussed about the student. He says, “There, they warned people not to relate it, so it appears that it is forbidden to relate it even if it has already become known.” In any event, it would be forbidden to relate it, and that is called lashon hara, or is included in lashon hara. Now, we’ll often see rechilus and lashon hara mixed together. There are, however, halachic authorities—for example, Rabbeinu Yonah. We’ll read part of what he says. From his perspective, rechilus means relating disparaging things. For him, rechilus and lashon hara are the same thing. The Alter Rebbe, too—now we’ll read the Alter Rebbe, which I didn’t include on the sheet. In the Alter Rebbe’s Orach Chaim, volume one, there is a section called Hilchos Metzia U’pikadon. Now, this is interesting. There are—unlike the other sections in the Alter Rebbe’s work, there are also parentheses within the Alter Rebbe’s text, parentheses containing sources. It’s something interesting. Usually you don’t find that in the Alter

19:37 Speaker 2 Rebbe’s work. So let’s read what he writes here about rechilus. He writes: “One who goes about speaking of his fellow violates a prohibition, as it says, ‘Do not go about as a talebearer among your people.’ What is a talebearer? Someone who carries information, going from one person to another and saying, ‘So-and-so said such-and-such,’ or ‘I heard such-and-such about so-and-so,’ even if it is true, is not disparaging at all, and that person does not deny it at all.” The Alter Rebbe makes a clear distinction between three levels: rechilus, lashon hara, and motzi shem ra. Rechilus applies even when it isn’t disparaging at all and the person concerned doesn’t deny it. In other words, it’s true and it isn’t disparaging. There is still a problem of rechilus in passing it from one person to another. It destroys the world, and so on. After that he quotes the Kesef Mishneh himself. I won’t read that. Then he says: “Included in this prohibition is lashon hara, which is speaking disparagingly of one’s fellow.” Included in this prohibition—in other words, the Torah’s prohibition of rechilus applies even without disparagement or making a false accusation, but it also includes, by a kind of a fortiori reasoning, relating something disparaging, which is lashon hara. That’s a more serious level. How?

20:58 Speaker 7 [unclear] That’s certainly it.

20:59 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. Then he continues: “One who tells a lie about his fellow is called a motzi shem ra.” That’s a more serious level. Now there’s an interesting quotation here. We’ll read two quotations, and then move on to another interesting source from the Gemara. There’s a book called Mivchar Hapeninim. It’s an old book from several hundred years ago, and there’s a dispute over who wrote it—Rabbi Yedaya Hapenini or Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Gabirol. In any case, it contains all sorts of beautiful sayings. It was recently printed in a very readable edition, and there are many lessons to take from it. So this is what it says, number five. It says, “And he said”—there’s a sage quoted there. The sage said: “Your secret is your prisoner; if you reveal it, you will become its prisoner.” Your secret wants to be your prisoner: you keep it inside and don’t tell anyone. If you reveal it, in the end you’ll suffer because of it and become its prisoner. You’ll be harmed by it. Another source. Earlier we mentioned the verse, “One who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets.” That’s in Mishlei. It also says it the other way around: “One who reveals secrets goes about as a talebearer.” So let’s look at a nice explanation from Rabbeinu Yonah. Let’s read it: “A person is obligated to conceal a secret that his fellow disclosed to him privately, even if revealing that secret does not constitute rechilus.” As I mentioned earlier, Rabbeinu Yonah holds that rechilus means relating something disparaging; the rechilus the Torah forbids is relating something disparaging. He says that even if it isn’t rechilus, it isn’t disparaging, if the person told you not to tell, don’t tell. Why? He says: “For revealing the secret can harm its owner and cause his plans to fail.” As it says, “Plans fail without counsel.” That’s the first point. He says: the person didn’t want it told, and you’re telling it; you’re harming him. You don’t know why he doesn’t want it told. The

23:11 Speaker 2 second point—and here it reminds us of what Rabbeinu Yonah mentioned regarding a certain reading: “Second, one who reveals a secret has departed from the path of modesty, and in doing so he goes against the wishes of the person whose secret it is.” That, too, is a lack of modesty. If he doesn’t want to reveal it and you do, there’s a problem of immodesty here. Tznius has the sense of keeping something private, of concealing it. He continues, but I won’t read the whole thing. He connects going about as a talebearer with revealing secrets. He says that one leads to the other. Someone who reveals secrets will eventually come to speak lashon hara and be a talebearer. Remember? Rechilus is lashon hara. Or the other way around: “One who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets.” If you see someone relating lashon hara, don’t tell him secrets, because he’ll tell those secrets too. Okay, so far we’ve discussed someone who was told not to tell. So if we’re talking about a recording, for example, and someone sent you a recording and said, “Don’t forward it,” of course it’s forbidden. The question is what happens in cases where you weren’t told not to tell. Someone tells you something and doesn’t say not to tell anyone. Is there a problem with telling it to someone else, with passing it on? First, there is what the Rambam says about a talebearer: “So-and-so said this; so-and-so said that.” But a talebearer sounds, first of all, like someone who does this as a practice. He’s constantly telling others what happened with other people. The question is whether, on a one-time basis, you... Someone sent you a recording, and you want to let another person know something, so you send him the recording instead of telling him orally the part that concerns him. Other things can be heard in the recording too. So let’s see.

24:54 Speaker 2 There are differing opinions here. There’s a Gemara in Yoma: “From where do we know that when a person tells his fellow something, the listener must not repeat it unless the speaker says to him, ‘Go and tell’? As it says, ‘And Hashem spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying.’” By the way, just as an aside, I once studied mediation in a mediation course. They taught us there that when someone comes to you and tells you things in mediation and so on, you need to tell him that it’s confidential, that nothing may leave the room, and so on. Now, this is just an interesting point: What do you tell him? Do you say, “I won’t tell anyone anything you don’t permit me to tell,” or “I won’t tell anyone anything unless you tell me I may”? Right? Is everything permitted except what you forbid me to share, or is everything forbidden except what you permit me to share? So they recommend there—I don’t know whether this actually works or not—they recommend that at the beginning, when people come to you, you say, “Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone anything you don’t permit us to tell,” and so on. At the end, when you finish, you ask them—it’s not such a problem. You say, “Is there anything you don’t want me to tell?” Then, if they haven’t said not to, you can tell it. Just a technique like that. But the real question is: What is the halacha? Someone tells you something and doesn’t say, “Don’t tell.” What is the default? Are you permitted to tell it? Are you forbidden? The Gemara here says that when someone tells his fellow something, the listener “must not repeat it unless the speaker says to him, ‘Go and tell.’” By default, as long as no one has told you, “Go and tell,” it is as though they told you not to tell. That’s what the Gemara says here. “From where do we know this?” The Gemara answers: “As it says, ‘And Hashem spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying.’”

27:02 Speaker 2 What? How is that connected? Rashi there says that the word “leimor” means “lo emor”—“do not say it.” It’s a play on words: don’t tell it to others. Now, this is a bit... There’s a serious implication here. Why? The same reading of “lo emor” appears in Pesachim 42. There, the Gemara discusses certain things that are prohibited by a positive commandment and asks: How do we know there is also a negative prohibition? The Gemara answers that the passage says “leimor.” There, too, they read it as “lo emor,” or—there are two possibilities for how to read it. So there, too, we see an actual negative prohibition derived from the word “leimor.” There are further discussions about this. The same [unclear] there says that this doesn’t mean every place the Torah says “leimor” gives us a negative prohibition. There’s a reason the word is superfluous there, and that’s why it creates a negative prohibition. A negative prohibition. The Gemara shows that it’s a real negative prohibition. Accordingly, if Rashi understands it the same way here, it would follow that anyone who repeats something someone told him violates a negative prohibition. If he wasn’t told, “You may tell it,” and he tells it, he violates a negative prohibition. That’s what seems to follow. So let’s see. There really are several opinions on this. Later, as time permits, we have a story involving Rabbi Chaim Palachi. It’s the last source, number ten. I brought it here briefly, but it provides a kind of summary of all the issues in this subject. So let’s see. Number eight: Look at how the Meiri understands this Gemara, the matter of “you may not say it.” The Meiri says: “And as for the word ‘leimor’ stated there, it means that He told him these things so that he would say them. From this we learn proper conduct.” Now, the emphasis is mine, of course, not the Meiri’s. “We learn proper conduct for someone who tells his fellow something

29:08 Speaker 2 that, even though he did not instruct him to keep it secret, he may not repeat it unless the person who told him says of those words, ‘Go and tell.’ This is the meaning of the verse, ‘A trustworthy spirit conceals a matter’—meaning even something that is not a secret. ‘And a talebearer reveals a secret’—even when it was told to him in confidence.” So he says that the same verse about a talebearer also speaks of concealing a matter. On the one hand, he seems to be stringent: you have to conceal not only a secret but also something you were told that isn’t a secret. On the other hand, he says this is only proper conduct. It isn’t a prohibition; it’s good practice. And he cites the Gemara we discussed earlier. In other words, he understands that Gemara as teaching not a prohibition, but only proper conduct. Now, the Maharsha there offers two ways to understand what we learn from the verse. One possibility is not like Rashi’s reading of it as “lo emor.” The reading “lo emor” was used to derive an actual negative prohibition. Here, the Gemara doesn’t state a negative prohibition. It says he may not repeat it until he is told he may; it doesn’t say what the Gemara in Pesachim says about a negative prohibition. In one of his explanations, the Maharsha says that this is because the passage later already says, “Speak to the Children of Israel,” so the word here is superfluous. From this they learned that if you were told here to say it, that means that in other cases you shouldn’t say it. So it isn’t a negative prohibition; it’s only proper conduct. That’s one way to understand the Maharsha, and apparently that’s how the Meiri understood it. But Rashi apparently implies that it is a negative prohibition. Now, who is the halachic authority on these matters of rechilus, lashon hara, and so on? The Chofetz Chaim. Notice that the Chofetz Chaim rules as follows, and then we’ll see how he reconciles it with the Gemara. He

30:55 Speaker 2 rules that if someone didn’t tell you not to repeat something, there is no prohibition against repeating it, unless there is concern that it might cause the other person some harm. If there is no concern at all that it will cause harm, he says it is permitted. But the Gemara here said, “Do not say it.” So let’s see how he explains that. Number nine. Let’s continue. “One can also say...” The Chofetz Chaim’s first explanation is like the Meiri’s: what the Gemara says is only proper conduct. It is only a pious practice, not a prohibition. It’s a recommendation, a good way to act. His second answer: “One can also say that when we say he may not repeat it, that applies specifically when the other person brought him into his home alone, which somewhat suggests that he does not want the matter disclosed. This is like the case here, where Hakadosh Boruch Hu brought him into the Tent of Meeting alone, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s voice was not heard outside the Tent, as Rashi writes in his commentary on the Chumash in the name of Toras Kohanim. Therefore it is forbidden, even if disclosure would cause him no harm at all. But if he told him outside, with no indication whatsoever that he objected to disclosure, then it depends only on this: if revealing it could cause him even a little harm, it is forbidden, unless he told it in the presence of three people. Otherwise, it is permitted.” In other words, the Chofetz Chaim says, first, perhaps it is only proper conduct. Second, just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu brought him into the Tent of Meeting and spoke with him—and even though He spoke aloud, His voice did not carry outside—so, too, if someone brings you into his home and speaks with you in a way that cannot be heard outside, then even if he didn’t tell you not to repeat it, repeating it would be forbidden. But if it wasn’t like that—just an ordinary conversation outside—and you have no concern that it will cause harm, then it

32:50 Speaker 2 would be permitted to repeat it.

32:56 Speaker 8 That’s a little strange, because the Meiri says here that He told him these things so that he would say them. So that he would say them. So that he would say them.

33:06 Speaker 2 When it says “leimor,” he understands it as we explained in the Maharsha: “leimor” means, “I permit you to say it.” From that I understand that wherever it doesn’t say “leimor,” you may not say it. But no—not that it is forbidden. The Meiri says that not saying it is proper conduct.

33:21 Speaker 8 And if it’s

33:23 Speaker 2 Yes. So let’s summarize what we’ve said so far, and then, time permitting, we’ll read the last source. First, there’s the recording itself. We haven’t discussed that. Simply making the recording—the recording itself. What happened? Someone is speaking with me in a conversation. I’m not talking about a case where someone secretly records something he isn’t supposed to hear. Eavesdropping is a separate prohibition, and that is certainly forbidden. I’m talking about recording a conversation you are part of.

33:55 Speaker 8 Does the other person know?

33:57 Speaker 2 Here, the other person doesn’t know. If he knows, everything is fine. He doesn’t know. There is some room to say that this violates “Love your fellow as yourself.” We’ll see that later in the last source. Let’s put that aside for a moment. Apart from that, it would seem to depend on whether you sometimes share things with others. If making a recording might lead you to share it, then, as we said regarding damage caused by overlooking someone else’s property, it’s forbidden to open a window even if you won’t look at the other person. It’s forbidden to do things that will later cause that kind of harm, even if there is no harm right now. If you know that you readily share things with others—that if you hear a recording that’s a bit funny and embarrassing to the other person, you’ll send it around, and so on—then apparently even making the recording would already be forbidden, because it leads you to commit a prohibition later. But an ordinary person who isn’t going to share it with others might record, for example, all his conversations to keep in an archive. When he needs them, he’ll use them. When would he use them? We’ll see later in the last source. If he wants to protect himself from harm—for example, he spoke with an insurance company or with a friend, and then suddenly needs to prove various things—he uses the recording. So that apparently would not be a problem. Now, deliberately recording a particular conversation in order to play it for someone else, with no purpose such as protecting yourself—that becomes a kind of problem, because you’re playing something the other person said. That brings us to everything we’ve discussed now. Let’s see. Playing the recording itself, letting someone else hear it. So we’ll start with the more serious cases: letting someone hear a secret. We cited several sources saying that this would be

35:40 Speaker 2 A problem. We also brought what the Gemara says about a judge who goes out and tells what happened behind closed doors: “A gossip goes about revealing secrets.” We brought Rabbeinu Yonah, who explains at length why it is a problem to reveal a secret when the other person said not to tell anyone. Now, saying something derogatory or false is certainly forbidden. Saying something derogatory is the prohibition of lashon hara; saying something false is motzi shem ra. Telling people things you saw behind closed doors, constantly talking about one another—that falls under gossip. Now, what about simply playing a recording for someone else, just once? The person didn’t tell you not to share it. That’s where the Gemara in Yoma that we just learned comes in. It is certainly proper conduct not to pass it on. If someone sends you a recording, proper conduct is not to pass it on unless he tells you, “I give you permission to pass this on.” As for whether it is prohibited, what we have seen so far is that the Meiri permits it, while the Chofetz Chaim says that if it was done in a way that suggested secrecy—he brings you into his home and tells you something in that manner—then it is forbidden to pass it on until he permits you. Here, it was out in the open. I’m not sure how to define WhatsApp: when someone sends another person a recording, that would seemingly be considered like being out in the open. It isn’t something where—we haven’t seen any act of concealment here. So seemingly, according to the letter of the law, it would be permissible to pass it on, but proper conduct is not to. Now—

37:16 Speaker 9 Among Jews.

37:18 Speaker 2 Oh, good, good. That is exactly the question now. We’ll see how much we can cover. There is a responsum here that takes up a whole page in my copy. I’ve put little markings on it. Let’s read just his question: “I was asked about one of our people who has business dealings with a non-Jew, who is holding his money. He fears that the non-Jew may do something wrong with his money, and a letter came into his hands that this non-Jew had sent to another non-Jew.” A non-Jew sent a letter to another non-Jew, and the Jew wants to open it to find out what it says, so the non-Jew will not harm him. “Is this prohibited or not?” Is it permissible to open a letter that one non-Jew sent to another? Now, he brings up the well-known ban of Rabbeinu Gershom against opening someone else’s letter. People used to write the initials PGYN on letters, standing for “One who breaches a fence will be bitten by a snake.” The poskim discuss whether it is still forbidden to open a letter if the sender did not write that on it, and the conclusion is that it is. You may not open a letter someone sent to another person. The question is why it is forbidden, and from that we can learn about our case. So let’s briefly look at the reasons he gives for the prohibition. Then he discusses whether it applies to a non-Jew as well, or only to a Jew. Let’s see. His first explanation is based on what our Sages said about the verse “Love your fellow as yourself”: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” When a person sends a letter, he doesn’t want—just as you don’t want your things shared with others, you should not do that to someone else. Based on this, he says, the prohibition applies only to Jews. The prohibition against opening a letter would apply only to a Jew’s letter, because “Love your fellow as yourself” refers to a Jew. Now, it may be possible to derive from the mitzvah of loving your fellow as yourself that it is also forbidden to play something another person said for others. There is room to discuss how far that falls under “what is hateful to you.”

39:15 Speaker 2 Things that are a little more detailed, a little longer. Not just some ordinary recording. So there is some basis to say that it would be forbidden. The second reason he brings is “Do not go about as a gossip.” He brings this in the name of Halachos Ketanos. “Do not go about as a gossip,” he says, applies whether you are doing it for others or for yourself. It does not just mean telling other people. He uses an interesting expression here: it is forbidden to seek out and search for another person’s secrets—to go and try to find out what is happening with someone else, to be a sort of snoop [unclear]. Right? To get into someone else’s cards. He says that this is included in “Do not go about as a gossip.” Now, what about a non-Jew? He says the verse is “Do not go about as a gossip among your people,” not among non-Jews. According to this reason, too, it would be forbidden only with a Jew, not a non-Jew. His third reason is deceiving people. He quotes the rabbi: when you pass it on, you are, as it were, deceiving him. Some disagree and say that deception does not apply here, but he mentions the issue of deceiving people. Here he says that, as we know, it is forbidden to deceive people, even a non-Jew. According to this reason, it would be forbidden with a non-Jew as well. Fourth, because of theft. He quotes the Erech Shai, who says that this is considered using something without its owner’s knowledge. The person who sent you that letter gave you permission to open and use it. He did not give someone else permission. That would seemingly not apply to recordings. When you pass on a recording, it is not an object that belongs to someone. He wanted to say that passing it on to others without permission is a form of theft. He says that here, too, there is no distinction between a Jew and a non-Jew. And this is the part I want to end with. What is the—I didn’t say who this is.

40:59 Speaker 2 It is simply Chikekei Lev, by Rabbi Chaim Palagi, whom I quoted earlier. He concludes as follows: “It further seems that even when a person sends a letter to a friend, the friend who receives it is forbidden to reveal its contents to others. Even when it is an ordinary letter, with nothing that would cause distress, nothing unseemly, and nothing that would harm the writer, it is forbidden to reveal it, as the Gemara says: ‘Anyone who tells his friend something—he is under a prohibition against telling it to others.’” Notice that Rabbi Chaim Palagi’s is admittedly a lone opinion. The other poskim do not present this as a prohibition. The Meiri, one of the great Rishonim, did not cite a prohibition. But Rabbi Chaim Palagi says it is prohibited. Anything you received from another person, if he did not tell you that you may share it, is prohibited to share with others: it is under the prohibition against telling it. He also brings a source from the story of David and Yoav. We don’t have time to read it; anyone who wants to can look at it themselves. At the end, he concludes that in the case he was asked about, it would be permissible, because the person is trying to protect himself from harm. Accordingly, regarding what we mentioned earlier—someone who listens to recordings to protect himself from harm—there is room to permit it on the grounds we discussed here: he wants to protect himself from harm.