Bais HaVaad on the Parsha, Parshas Matos-Mas’ei

Getting You Nowhere

Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Dayan Yehoshua Grunwald  

July 13, 2023

You shall not bring guilt (lo sachanifu) upon the land in which you are, for the blood will bring guilt upon the land; the land will not have atonement for the blood that was spilled in it, except through the blood of the one who spilled it.

Bemidbar 35:33

The Sifri, quoted by the Ramban, says we derive from this pasuk a prohibition on chanufah (flattery). The Yerei’im writes that chanufah is an issur de’Oreisa and says one violates it if he sees someone commit an aveirah and either praises him for it or does not protest. (The latter, he says, is liable only if his silence is due to wickedness or fear of conflict, not if it’s attributable to fear of either injury or financial loss.)

The Chafetz Chaim offers two examples of chanufah de’Oreisa according to these Rishonim in the realm of lashon hara: a) Speaking lashon hara about someone you know your interlocutor despises, in order to gain his favor. b) Hearing lashon hara and nodding in assent or otherwise validating the report.[2]

Rabeinu Yonah in Sha’arei Teshuvah cites additional cases of chanufah,[3] including praising a rasha, even for the mitzvos he performs. (R’ Moshe Feinstein says this means praising him more than he deserves, and that even excessive praise may only be a bad midah rather than a true issur, so in case of great need, one may, for example, have a rasha perform psichah in shul.) R’ Chaim Kanievsky also permits praising a nonobservant Jew more than he deserves in order to encourage him to perform more mitzvos.

[1] It seems that the other Rishonim, who do not count chanufah as an issur de’Oreisa, hold that it is asur mideRabanan and understand the Sifri to be an asmachta.

[2] The Chafetz Chaim does not specify whether one violates the issur if he doesn’t respond.

[3] Rabeinu Yonah offers nine examples of chanufah but does not cite this pasuk; it would seem he holds they are asur mideRabanan.