Bais HaVaad on the Parsha, Parshas Ki Savo

Advice Column  

September 19, 2024

Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Dayan Shmuel Fuerst   

Cursed is one who misleads a blind person on the way…

Dvarim 27:18

Rashi, citing Chazal, explains that this pasuk and Vayikra 19:14 refer to someone who gives bad advice. For this reason, explains Rashi (Vayikra 19:14), the Torah says “and you shall fear your G-d,” because only Hashem knows whether the adviser intends to be helpful or not. The Rambam (Sefer Hamitzvos, Lavin 299) explains the mitzvah similarly, that one may not fool someone or cause him to err by offering him bad advice.

To fulfill this mitzvah, one must give advice that is good for the recipient, not for oneself or others: An insurance agent must advise a client to choose the policy most beneficial to the client, not the one most lucrative for the agent. The same, said R’ Moshe Feinstein, applies when a student asks his rosh yeshiva whether he should change yeshivos.

If Reuven asks you if he should offer Shimon a job, and Shimon asks you whether he should accept Reuven’s job offer, each must be given the advice that is correct for him, even if that means telling one no and the other yes.[1]

In some cases, the giver of bad advice is financially liable: If a numismatist is paid to assess a coin’s authenticity and confirms that it’s real, but it turns out he erred and the coin is counterfeit, he is liable to pay compensation for his customer’s resultant loss (Shulchan Aruch C.M. 306:6). This also applies to other advice-dispensing professionals like attorneys and accountants.

[1]Rav Fuerst derived this from a story about the Brisker Rav.