Making fun of friends? Writing about someone on social media? After reading this, you won't be able to sleep at night

Know that feeling when one of your friends throws a joke at someone, in good humor of course, and everyone bursts out laughing, including the person being teased?

Well, there’s a name for that – humiliating your friend in public. Yes, even if they're laughing too.

Know that feeling when someone writes something hurtful about another person on social media, and with one click it’s exposed to hundreds or thousands of people?

That also has a name – humiliating your friend in public, multiplied by a thousand (or more).

Anyone who causes someone else to writhe in shame is guilty of an extremely serious transgression. The Sages call it (among other things) “making someone’s face blanche” because the humiliation causes the person to turn pale.

After you read what else the Sages said about this aveirah (sin), you will hopefully think twice (or as many times as it takes) before “just making a joke” at someone’s expense.

1. “Someone who humiliates his fellow in public has no share in the World to Come” (Tractate Bava Metzia 58b).

2. “A complete wicked person, an adulterer, and a person who is consumed with lust—all these are better than a person who humiliates his fellow in public” (Netiv Mitzvotecha, Shvil HaYichud 4).

3. “Everyone who descends to Gehenom eventually ascends, except for three [categories of people] who descend and do not ascend: those who commit adultery with a married woman; those who humiliate their fellow-man in public; and those who give their fellow-man a derogatory nickname” (Tractate Bava Metzia 58b).

4. “The sin of humiliating one’s fellow-man in public is more severe than all other transgressions” (Pnei Yehoshua, Tractate Bava Metzia 59a).

5. “This is the book of the generations of Adam – in the image of Hashem He made him” (Bereishit 5:1), and about this it is written: “Someone who disgraces his fellow-man in public is included in ‘for he has despised the word of Hashem,’ because man was created in the image of Hashem” (Tosafot Yom Tov, Avot 3:11).

6. “Whoever humiliates his fellow-man in public, it is as if he sheds [his] blood” (Bava Metzia 58b).

7. “The pain of humiliation is more bitter than death” (Shaarei Teshuvah 3:139).

8. “’He who despises his ways will die’ (Proverbs 19:16), and about this it is written: ‘We learn that any action that might reveal a person’s flaw is a despised path, and one who walks it is deserving of death and has no right to exist’” (Sichot Mussar, Part 2, Article 6).

9. “The second section of Gehenom is called ‘Destruction,’ and it is a green fire and there is only darkness there, and there is no mercy at all there, and there they judge: those who humiliate their fellow-man in public, those who gain honor via their fellow-man’s disgrace ... and those who curse their fellow-man in jest in a way that brings him shame” (Zohar Chadash Ruth, 79:3).

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The following story was told by an eye-witness:

“It was the festival of Simchat Torah and I was in a large synagogue packed with people. During the hakafot [dancing with the Torah scrolls], the celebration reached its peak, with crowds of people dancing in circles with such joy, in honor of the Torah. Suddenly, a certain community activist who had been engaging in dubious activities entered the synagogue. This was a person whose actions were not in line with the Torah’s teachings, and many were not happy to see him there.

“Most people ignored him, but one person—in fact, a great Torah scholar—became infuriated to see this activist there and he totally ‘lost it.’ He got up and started yelling at this person to leave: ‘Get out of here, you sinner who causes others to sin as well. Get out!’

“No one can understand these things, but it is a fact that just a few months after this incident, this Torah scholar—a young man—passed away in his prime.”

Adapted from the book, “Character Improvement” by Rabbi Avraham Tobolsky