Subtle personal interactions demand a discerning, God-fearing heart.  So suggests Rashi in his comment on onnaat devarim-- wronging one’s friend with words.   To the pasuk in the first of this week’s parshiyot from which Chazal derive this Torah prohibition-- “you shall not wrong one another”(Vayikra, 25:17), the Torah appends two seemingly superfluous clauses:  “You shall fear your God, for I am Hashem, your God.”  Quoting from Sifra, Rashi comments:  “A person might say to himself, ‘who knows whether [through my words to my friend] I intended to harm him?’  Therefore the pasuk emphasizes, ‘And you shall fear your God.’  He who probes all thoughts knows.”  He who reads our thoughts even when we lack the sensitivity or the will to do so ourselves holds us accountable for the motivations of our unexamined actions. 

Beside providing a long list of theoretical ways a person might hurt another through his/her words-- in fact even through his/her body language -- the Gemara in Bava Metzia recounts a few vivid, real-life examples of onnat devarim, wronging others with words.  “If a person experiences suffering or disease or buries his children, one should not address the person with the words Iyov’s friends spoke to Iyov:  “Is not fear [of God] your confidence, and your hope the integrity of your ways?  Recall, now, who ever perished, being innocent?”(Bava Metzia, 58b).  Iyov’s friends might have loved him dearly, might have wanted desperately to help him rise above his situation.  But they nonetheless acted insensitively.  Whether or not they were right in associating his suffering with sin (a matter of dispute among commentators) they committed a Torah transgression in merely intimating Iyov’s guilt.

The gemara relays yet another example of onaat devarim.   In the wake of his complicated adulterous sin with Bat Sheva, David ha-Melekh complained to God:  “Master of the world, you know full well that had they torn my flesh, my blood would not have poured forth to the earth [because my skin had turned white of embarrassment].  Moreover, when [the students of the Beit Midrash] are engaged in negaim and ohalot [i.e., in the most technical of halakhic analysis]  they suddenly ask me, ‘Dovid, what is the death penalty for him who seduces a married woman?’  I reply to them, ‘He is executed by strangulation, yet has he a portion in the world to come.  But he who publicly shames his neighbor has no portion in the world to come”(Bava Metzia 59a).  Although we tend to sympathize even less with David’s denigrators than with Iyov’s friends, we must remember who the gemara here criticizes-- those capable of the most intricate halakhic dialogue, the regular students of the Beit Midrash. 

Are these people acting out of cold maliciousness?   Their argument, we should recognize, is not foundationless.   They feel offended that their spiritual leader, the one to whom the questions in the Beit Midrash are directed, should be tainted with sin.  Their outrage is understandable.  (Did they know, for example, that David had done teshuvah for his sin, and that that teshuvah had been accepted?)   Yet David’s pointed rejoinder, putting a resounding and peremptory end to their character assassination, paired with the poignancy with which the Gemara portrays his anguish on their account, graphically illustrate the enormity of their sin. 

What do these two accounts share in common?   In both, the guilty parties engage in what could be regarded as morally justified, even if hurtful, words.  They are guilty of what we might term “frum” onaat devarim.  Of course the gemara does not make sweeping assertions about any and all accusations.    Nor is it always clear under what circumstances one who censures a friend hurts him/her unnecessarily and transgresses a Torah violation-- the usual scenario-- and when he/she embarks on a necessary protestation.  Moreover, the way the objection is voiced plays even more of a role in determining its virtue than the circumstances which prompt it. Especially when it comes to mitzvot bein adam la-chevero, mitzvot between one human being and another, the Torah rarely speaks in absolutes.  But the unmitigated, harsh portrayal of Iyov’s friends and of David’s detractors at very least sends a forceful warning to anyone who feels compelled to engage in similar indictment. 

It is here that the accuser’s honest assessment of the situation and more importantly of him/herself plays a key role.  It is with regard to such a gray situation-- one in which one feels his/her statement justified-- that pasuk goes out of its way to emphasize, “and you shall fear your God.”  When we personally attack or implicate others out of zealousness for Torah ideals, we stand in danger of violating not only Rashi’s warning-- saying “who knows whether I intended to harm him/her?”  We can fall a prey to an even more perilous trap-- unquestioning self-commendation:  “have I not acted for the sake of Heaven?”  To sin while waving the banner of Torah values is one of the worst possible forms of chilul Hashem-- not merely a misrepresentation of the Torah but a gross distortion of Torah values.  It is in these areas that the Torah demands an especially sensitive, carefully penetrating inner eye.  “You shall fear God, for I am the Lord your God.”