12:01 AM
Gil Student
R. Daniel Z. Feldman, The Right and the Good: Halakhah and Human Relations (Yashar Books, 2005), pp. xviii-xix:
[T]he principles dictating people's behavior with each other have been stamped with the seal of Divine commandment, subject to the commitment and seriousness that this entails. However it may be that these principles, for certain purposes, carry a severity that not only equals but exceeds that inherent in mitzvot in general. A story told, involving R. Yisrael Meir Kagan and R. Yisrael Lipkin, may be instructive in this area. R. Kagan (1838-1933) was the revered author of the authoritative work Mishnah Berurah on the Orach Chaim section of R. Yosef Karo's code of Jewish law, the Shulchan Arukh. However, he was perhaps better known for his treatment of the laws of gossip, lashon hara, whose title became his own, Chafetz Chaim. This story relates that a certain businessman requested to purchase all of R. Kagan's many books, with the glaring exception of Chafetz Chaim. When R. Kagan questioned this, the man admitted that the pressures of his business made it difficult to avoid saying derogatory things about the people he came into contact with, and he would rather not purchase a work whose directives he felt compelled to ignore. R. Kagan prevailed upon him to buy it anyway, relating a comment made to him by R. Lipkin. R. Lipkin (1810-1883), known after his hometown as R. Yisrael Salanter, is famed as the founder of the Mussar movement, which popularized the intense study of ethical concepts. When the work Chafetz Chaim was completed, R. Lipkin told its author, "If all you accomplish is to evoke one sigh from one Jew [who becomes aware of the prohibitions and cannot observe them], the work is worthwhile." So, too, R. Kagan told the businessman, he may not believe himself able to adhere to the contents of the book; but if it will at least "evoke a sigh," it is worth the purchase price.The author then goes on to analyze at length why we do not say "better they be inadvertent sinners than intentional ones."
