The great suffering of the families of soldiers fighting in Gaza, the abyss where the families of the hostages are found – both deepen when rumors circulate. Anyone with a heart and who is sensitive to others must act in accordance.
Causing tremendous suffering to many families in order to make apparent that someone publishing rumors has sources that others do not – is a disgraceful act of those who spread news, rumors, and unverified info on social networks and other places.
It does not involve any other benefit, and there is almost no time that justifies this action.
The Torah, following its moral journey, fights this reality and commands “and you shall not wrong (tonu) one another”. Because of the fact that the modern Hebrew language uses the root word hona’ah to refer to financial sins and sins of falsehood or impersonation, we at times ignore this prohibition. However, in the biblical and Talmudic language the expression “ona’ah” refers to sorrow: the Torah prohibits causing suffering to someone else in any litany of different ways.
This is what the Rambam writes regarding causing emotional suffering (ona’at devarim): “just like there is manipulation in business (hona’ah) there is manipulation with words, as it is stated ‘and you shall not wrong another and you shall fear your God, I am Hashem’ – this is verbal manipulation”. In his words he explains how one can cause suffering to a person, whether when dealing with a person who sinned and repented who we remind constantly and whether a person is suffering and we placate him by saying it is probably due to his evil actions, etc.
The great suffering of the families of soldiers in combat in Gaza, the tremendous tension they are living in, the abyss where the families of the hostages are found, and many more – all of this deepens when rumors, unconfirmed reports, and “news” about an event that is still under a gag order circulate. The fear of the knock on the door continues to grow, the sleeplessness and nightmares come back, and the internal struggle does not end. A person should always put themselves in another person’s shoes, and then the picture seems entirely different.
One cannot prevent this legally. We are nowadays found in an entirely different reality of media, and social media is almost uncontrollable, as well as applications for broadcasting messages. This must be a two-fold ruling – of those who have the information at hand, who decide to make the moral and humane choice and not utilize it, even when they are losing their status as “those who know”; and of those who receive the information, who are called upon to respond to the one sending words of rebuke and redirect their attention towards the terrible act that they have performed, as well as requesting him to stop distributing the information.
This is an obligation that, as stated, is derived from various sources. This is the meaning of solidarity and for sharing truth between people; this is the moral and commandment-based obligation not to freely cause suffering and not to cause constant public loss of morale; this is the internal psychological work that accustoms oneself to forego on their personal pride in order to be sensitive to others. It is important to emphasize that we are not dealing with concealing information and a culture of falsehood. Concealment and a culture such as this are extremely abhorrent.
We are dealing with waiting for an official publication, done after the information has reached the ones whose world has been upended by it before it reached the public, and generally is more precise and trustworthy. On a greater level, it is possible that this is the beginning of a journey against the world of lies that we are in, where stories that never happened and unbased, never-ending blame are distributed.
Anyone with a heart and who is sensitive to others; anyone who has the spirit of God within them and remains steadfast to keeping the Torah’s prohibitions and the moral foundations hidden within them; anyone who is truly worried about raising the nation’s strength and resilience – is ready to hold back, to give up, to forego, to wait and keep the matters to themselves, until the time where it is appropriate to expose the truth, even when it is extremely difficult. This is how a person should act.
