Giving Feedback and Growing as a Person
These are hard things to do, the Talmud is here to help.
Growing as a person is hard.
Doing it well requires us to be self-reflective, change our behaviors, and regularly push ourselves outside our comfort zone. That is when we are in charge of our own changes.
However, the dynamic changes when we see someone else doing something they shouldn’t. Or when someone sees us doing something we shouldn’t be doing.
What is required of us? What happens?
This is the dilemma raised by this verse in our Torah portion, Acharei-Mot-Kedoshim, and the Talmudic text that unpacks it.
לֹֽא־תִשְׂנָ֥א אֶת־אָחִ֖יךָ בִּלְבָבֶ֑ךָ הוֹכֵ֤חַ תּוֹכִ֙יחַ֙ אֶת־עֲמִיתֶ֔ךָ וְלֹא־תִשָּׂ֥א עָלָ֖יו חֵֽטְא׃
Do not hate your brother in your heart; you shall surely rebuke [hokhe’aḥ tokhiaḥ] your fellow, and do not carry sin on account of [that person]. (Leviticus 19:17)
Let’s unpack the verse into its three parts first:
We are instructed about an emotion.
We are instructed about an action.
We are instructed about a consequence.
Each of these will have implications for our understanding of the verse and our obligations.
Emotion: Do not hate your brother in your heart.
This is how the Talmud begins on Arakhin 16b:
The Sages taught in a baraita: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall rebuke [hokhe’aḥ tokhiaḥ] your neighbor, and do not bear sin because of him” (Leviticus 19:17).
[The unspoken question by the Talmud is: Why does the verse specify “in your heart”?]
One might have thought that the verse means: Do not hit him, do not slap him, and do not ruin him due to hatred. Therefore the verse states “in your heart.” This teaches that the verse speaks of hatred in the heart.
The Gemara quotes our verse and provides us with an answer. Rabbi Steinsaltz above has added the unwritten question the rabbis seek to understand.
There is a construction in Talmud that begins with the word יכול followed by an idea and then the phrase תלמוד לומר. Yachol, the first word, in modern Hebrew, would be translated as “one is able to,” but in the Talmud, that is not its meaning. It introduces an assumption we might make that is wrong. It is generally translated as “you might have thought.”
In our text, this is precisely what happens. We might have thought that this verse about hatred someone refers to hitting, slapping, or ruining someone. I’m not sure that is what I would have assumed, but maybe you might.
The second part of our construction, Talmud Lomar, despite the literal meaning of “the Talmud says” always introduces a Biblical text and should be translated instead as “therefore the Torah says…”
In our case, we might have thought hatred meant the things listed above, but we’d be wrong, therefore, the Torah says, “in your heart.” This additional phrase teaches us that we should not harbor hatred in our hearts.
This is more than just feeling frustration and lashing out, but a deeper set emotional turmoil that the Torah and the Talmud are warning us away from.
Action: You shall surely rebuke.
The Talmud moves on after grounding us in the first limitation, not having hatred in our hearts.
From where is it derived with regard to one who sees an unseemly matter in another that they are obligated to rebuke them? As it is stated: “You shall rebuke [hokhe’aḥ tokhiaḥ] your fellow.”
The Gemara continues by establishing that we are obliged to tell someone when they are doing something “unseemly.” The Hebrew is דבר מגונה, davar m’gunei, which I’d translate as something “disgraceful” or, as the Jastrow translates it, “reprehensible.”
Our second limitation is that the behavior we observe has to be at a level we see as unseemly, disgraceful, or reprehensible. We are not just talking about annoying or frustrating, but something harmful or problematic.
So how do we know? Because of our verse, “You shall surely rebuke your fellow.” This sounds like an obligation to me. But how far does it go?
If one rebuked them for their action but they did not accept the rebuke, from where is it derived that one must rebuke them again? The verse states: “You shall rebuke [hokhe’aḥ tokhiaḥ],” and the double language indicates he must rebuke in any case.
Moving beyond the obligation to rebuke at all, what happens if they don’t listen to us? Do we continue to rebuke?
Here we are told, yes, continuing to offer feedback on the problematic behavior is incumbent on us since the language is doubled. There is a grammatical construction in which two words with the same root are paired, the first as an “absolute infinitive” and the second word in the second person. This pair is translated as “you shall surely do x,” emphasizing the instruction beyond just “go and do the thing.”
That is what we see here, and the Talmud is jumping on it. That emphasis is a reminder that we are obligated to continue saying something about this behavior.
However, there is a limit.
Consequence: Do not carry sin.
Our third limitation:
One might have thought that one should continue rebuking the person even if their face changes due to humiliation. Therefore, the verse states: “Do not bear sin because of them”; the one giving rebuke may not sin by embarrassing the other person.
We see our “assumption-Torah verse” construction again.
We might have thought we should continue rebuking forever, but we’d be wrong. When we’ve reached the stage of embarrassing another person, we’ve crossed the line. This is why the Torah says, “Do not bear/carry a sin.”
It is at this stage that we’ve done something wrong. The rabbis take embarrassment very seriously. You can read more in Bava Metzia about it, but in short:
Anyone who humiliates another in public, it is as though they were spilling blood.
This reminds me of an adage I once heard: “Give praise in public and critique in private.” While it is possible to embarrass someone privately, and we should be careful, giving feedback or rebuke in public makes it likely that we’ll cross the line.
It is not me. It’s you.
The final part of our sugiyah (unit of Talmud) that I want to share highlights a bit more about how the rabbis thought this would all go down.
It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Tarfon says: I would be surprised if there is anyone in this generation who can receive rebuke. Why?
Because if the one rebuking says to them: Remove the splinter from between your eyes, i.e., rid yourself of a minor infraction, the other says to them: Remove the beam from between your eyes, i.e., you have committed far more severe sins.
Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria says: I would be surprised if there is anyone in this generation who knows how to rebuke correctly, without embarrassing the person they are rebuking.
Rabbi Tarfon highlights how human nature is still…human nature.
When confronted with challenging feedback, our knee-jerk response is, “Well, you’ve got a worse trait.” I know I’ve done that, and I’m willing to bet you have too. We’ve been doing it for at least a few thousand years.
As a result, he comments that no one has enough self-reflection and humility to truly receive the kind of rebuke/feedback we are obligated to give. Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria adds that no one has the capacity to provide the obligated rebuke in the right way.
We collectively do not know how to truly give or receive rebuke.
Moving forward with limitations.
In this short sugiyah on giving rebuke, we are given three limitations:
Do not have hatred.
The behavior has to be disgraceful.
We cannot embarrass the other person.
We are not permitted to let problematic behavior go unchallenged, and we are told to be careful. The rabbis knew that this would be difficult.
To grow as human beings, as I said at the beginning, requires us to do the work to improve ourselves. Since it is difficult to see ourselves from the outside, listening to others who challenge our behaviors is important. While the text of the Torah is focused on how to give rebuke, the rabbis remind us at the end that receiving rebuke is just as essential and difficult.
We are told not to have hatred in our hearts to teach us that we should avoid resentment in the journey of self-improvement. When we call out bad behavior, we have to be clear about why it is problematic, not just annoying.
But most of all, we must remember that the person on the other side of the equation is just that: a person.