The family of the most recent ICE murder victim, first responder Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse with no criminal record and only a phone in his hand, put out this heartbreaking statement, shared by CNN:
Fulfilling the wishes of this tortured family, I want to focus on those sickening lies, here, because according to the principles of Jewish ethics, to destroy someone’s reputation is a form of murder. The Trump administration has sunk to the new low of killing good people’s reputations at the very same time that they are actually murdering them.
By calling people like Nicole Good and Alex Pretti “domestic terrorists,” and insinuating that Pretti wished to commit a massacre when he was clearly doing nothing of the sort, they have murdered each of them twice over. And they are doing it knowing that they are lying and without a smidgen of conscience or regard for the grieving families.
This is the administration that advocates placing the Ten Commandments in classrooms in Louisiana, a case headed most likely the Supreme Court. So DHS, is there something about bearing false witness that you do not understand?
They are truly the lowest of the low. Kicking a man when he is literally downed, felled by government-supplied bullets, summarily executed with our taxpayer dollars.
The rabbis said that gossip - particularly of the lying, defamatory variety - is so dangerous that it is comparable to murder. They compared it an arrow fired in Rome that can kill in Syria. They knew nothing of viral social media 2,000 years ago. But they understood the virus of slander.1
The expression is found in this linked passage from the Midrash discussing the acrimony between Joseph and his brothers.2 It’s also found in a number of other places in rabbinic literature (see below):
And see what Maimonides had to say about gossip in his Code of Jewish Law (Mishneh Torah).
What Maimonides is saying here is astounding. Gossip (as it is called here, Lashon Harah, which literally means “evil speech”) is not only seen as equivalent to murder, but to murder PLUS idolatry PLUS forbidden sex.
So if we were to put this on Trumpian terms, what the administration did in rushing to judgment against Good and Pretti was the equal of all of Trump’s worship of money and corruption, PLUS the crimes of abetting sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein COMBINED.
We can quibble as to what really is worse, but the bottom line is that Trump, Noem and company have absolutely no qualms about destroying people’s lives if it serves their political purposes. And a bunch of people have no qualms about abetting them, which is why Maimonides stated that evil language destroys not only the victim, but the gossiper and the listener, both of whom shed any moral standing that they might once have possessed. Slander kills the soul of the killer - and anyone who chooses to listen.
And what news channel have you been watching lately?
Were I not a rabbi with a responsibility to somehow bring people together when this nightmare somehow ends, I would simply not speak to anyone who chooses to listen to this garbage. The cruelty is not merely the point, it is a cudgel to advance the true objective. Power is the point. Prevarication is the point.
Six ways to avoid needless shaming
Here are six quick vignettes, six doses of sanity for this crazy week, demonstrating Judaism’s focus on not embarrassing others.
Some have gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid both shaming and bearing false witness.
Once when their teacher had left the room for a few moments, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s students once accidentally spilled a bottle of ink on a volume of the Talmud on the rabbi’s desk. Everyone freaked out, worried because this was the rabbi’s most beloved set of books. When Feinstein returned to the room, he saw the new blue page and said, “Doesn’t this passage look wonderful in blue?”
The Talmud exclaims that “It is preferable for an individual to throw himself into a burning furnace rather than to publicly mortify his companion.” Public embarrassment is forbidden.
Pirke Avot (3:15) lists embarrassing one’s neighbor as one of five acts that will prevent someone from having a share in the World to Come.
Maimonides concurs, saying, “One must not call another by an embarrassing name, nor relate a shameful matter in their presence, whether one be of greater or lesser stature.”
Even in private, the 19th century sage known as the Chafetz Hayyim states that it is transgression to speak to a sinner in a harsh manner.
Rabbi Jonathan Raziel discusses the question of whether the listeners in synagogue should correct a Torah reader, even when this could embarrass the reader. Raziel’s answer: Not embarrassing the reader takes precedence over hearing the Torah being read correctly.
It seems clear that had social media existed in their time, Maimonides and the Chafetz Hayyim would have stayed off of Facebook or X, where public shaming is commonplace and vitriol is viral. Or they would have helped to civilize it.
“What is spoken in Rome can kill in Damascus.”
Now, with that same distance traversable in a millisecond, all the more so, words can kill.
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin tells a story about the novelist Rebecca Goldstein, who was haunted by a malicious review of one of her novels that appeared in an influential newspaper. A decade later, she met the reviewer and recalled, “He approached me nervously, and said, “I actually liked your book, but I was a young writer hungry to make a name for myself.” Goldstein stood there in shock. “Legitimate criticism is fine,” she said, “but to selfishly exploit someone who slaved over a novel for years is beyond words.”
How about selfishly exploiting someone who has been shot dead by your untrained goons?
No wonder the Jerusalem Talmud states that one who elevates himself at the expense of another’s degradation will have no share in the World-to-Come. And no wonder Trump is openly concerned that he may not get to heaven. He must sense the burden of his sins - with now, this weekend, another notch for his belt. Another twice murdered victim.
When it’s OK to shame
All that said, there are times when shaming is absolutely called for. As I watch today’s megastorm blizzarding outside my window, a storm that likely has been intensified by climate change, despite Trump’s mocking dismissal, I wish to share an idea that’s been brewing in me for quite some time, ever since the day when the late senator James Inhofe (R-OK) tossed a snowball on the Senate floor to “prove” that a warming planet is a hoax.
My proposal is that we start naming natural disasters after those whose activities are putting us and our children in such peril. We can begin with hurricanes, wildfires, floods, heatwaves and droughts. Maybe blizzards too. There are enough deniers to go around.
I know. Let’s change today’s superstorm’s name from Fern to Donald.
Would the rabbis agree? Well, if what’s spoken in Rome can kill in Damascus, what’s legislated in Washington can kill in Connecticut. So, yes. I think so.
And they won’t even have to check their Ten Commandments posted on the wall.
Here’s a story that I used to illustrate this point in a sermon a few years ago:
And then there was the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier and the subsequent indictment of Lori Drew, Megan’s best friend’s mother, in her murder. Lori’s actions were unquestionably despicable (she created a teenage boy character who gained Megan’s confidence online and then dumped her, saying that the world would be better off without her), but the story raises difficult questions as to whether moral blame also should be legal responsibility in this case. Because of the peculiar grounds used for the indictment, a journalist writes, “What Drew’s indictment means, in essence, is that any Internet user now risks criminal proceedings for doing something as simple as creating a fake name to post messages on a website, something many people do each day for legitimate reasons.”
This is a legitimate question. Is meanness a crime? Is bullying the same as murder?
The Jewish answer is the moral answer. And that answer is Yes. Long before Facebook existed, the rabbis recorded in the midrash (Bereshith Rabbah 98:23), “What is spoken in Rome can kill in Damascus.” Now, with that same distance traversable in a millisecond, all the more so, these words can kill.
Words have extraordinary power – the power to ruin careers, as the teachers at Horace Mann are finding out, and the power to kill, as in the case of Megan Meier. Lori Drew is guilty, but the law simply has to catch up with the technology and find a way to put her away without compromising our cherished freedoms.
Your thoughts always soften my sorrow a bit. Thank you. But after yesterday, and seeing with my own eyes a beautiful man executed while trying to help another will take me a long time to get over. Like his bereft family, I am apoplectic on my inside. First lovely Renee, now lovely Alex. Imagine how things must be where we cannot see. The photo of the 5 year old little boy is seared onto my brain. God! That little bunny hat. This madness must, must stop! My heart is broken. Sneak in a tiny prayer for me among all the others you are carrying. Thank you, your friend, Claudia. 😐🫥☁️
Thank you for the well written essay. It renews my faith when I see and hear clergy of so many religions speaking out against this horrible regime. It means a lot to me so thank you.
Hard to even imagine how Alex’s family is feeling. The words are as deadly as the gun. Thank you for the excellent lesson.
Good evening Rabbi, I whole heartedly agree that the disparaging of these two kind and loving victims of this regime is abhorrent. Neither was deserving of their fate and even less deserving of the lying done by trump, noem and bovino.
I, as reading and listening to what they had to say, was the second victim of the three. My punishment was an upset stomach and a headache. Neither of which do I usually experience and spent some time trying to figure out what I had eaten or done to deserve those symptoms. For some reason I craved eating crackers. lol
I had chores that had to be done so went outside to do them. After a couple of hours my stomach was better and the headache gone. That seemed peculiar also. Why had those symptoms disappeared?
Having a library at my fingertips I looked up the causes of stomach issues and found this:
https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/gastrointestinal-articles/stress-stomach-pain-when-to-see-a-doctor
“What is spoken in Rome can kill in Damascus.” Now it can maim and kill all over the world.
I am thankful that you and other religious leaders will be taking on the task of helping people after this horrid time passes.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hundreds-of-clergy-descend-on-minneapolis-and-go-on-lookout-for-ice/ar-AA1UM329?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=69734bd7714f448dad924f054c6897f1&ei=55
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Thanks for providing this context of Jewish thought. It is particularly appalling when two assassinations of onlookers by uniformed Federal officers are then followed by the officers driving off before local police can assess the death scene and by the Homeland Security Department leader and the President defending the deaths by committing character assassination of the victims. The use of ICE as a runaway vehicle for Indiscriminate Conscience-free Executions is an evil that cries out for an immediate stop and investigation.
Thank you for this, Rabbi Hammerman. I needed this taste of Torah today.
Trump doesn´t only have blood on his hands for those killed in Minnesota in his name , but what about his promise made to the Iranian people that "Help is on its way" ... "Keep protesting" ... of course in his simplistic way, he didn´t specify what "help" looks like, but he encouraged the people to protest. Thousands were murdered, and how many of those had decided to continue protesting, thinking that "help" from America was on its way? Some Iranians who heard the message interpreted it as a concrete commitment to U.S. intervention or rescue, and this influenced their decision to protest despite the danger. Others later said they felt betrayed when no direct assistance materialized. (Guardian) As far as I´m concerned, Trump has a lot of blood on his hands concerning those killed in the streets of Iran as well. Nobody talks about this anymore.