Musar for Bava Metzia 116:17

And anyone who causes pain to a fellow Jew transgresses a prohibitive command, as it is said: "And you shall not wrong one another but you shall fear the Lord" (Lev. 25:17), and this phrase "you shall not wrong" is said concerning wronging by words (Baba Mezi'a 58b). And our Rabbis, of blessed memory, said: "All gates are closed to hearing accusations against the repentant except the gate of wronging a fellow Jew" (Ibid. 59a). Therefore, should one be very careful not to cause pain to his companion in any way — not by deeds and not by words.

This is what our sages said: "if he were a Baal Teshuva (penitent), do not say to him 'remember your former deeds...' if sickness befalls him do not say to him in the way the friends of Job said: "Remember, please, who ever perished, being innocent?" (Job 4:7). If traveling merchants ask you for grain, do not tell them 'go to such and such who sells grain', and you know that he never sold grain in his life" (Bava Metzia 58b).

(Devarim 22:19): "And they shall fine him a hundred (shekels of) silver… for he has given out an evil name about a virgin of Israel." (Arachin 15a, Mishnah): "We find that one who speaks [(lashon hara)] with his mouth is worse than one who commits the act." [For one who ravishes or seduces must give only fifty shekels and, also, is not liable to stripes, as opposed to one who gives out an evil name (motzi shem ra).] And this may be the intent of (Amos 4:13): "For He forms the mountains and creates the wind and tells a man what his converse is." That is, a man, when he reflects sometimes about his affairs, thinks only of his deeds, and not at all of his words, saying to himself: "What harm can my words do? Are they not insubstantial?" But, in truth, it is not so. For the effect of his words on high can be much worse than that of his deeds. And this is the intent of "He tells a man what his converse is." That is, at the time of judgment they will set out before him and show him to his eyes [(as it is written (Psalms 50:21): "I will reprove you and set it out before your eyes")] what damage he had done with his converse. It is not written "what his speech is," but "what his converse is," "converse" connoting light, simple talk. As our sages of blessed memory have said (Chagigah 5a): "Even slight converse between a man and his wife is related to him at the time of judgment." Not even one word is lost that is not written down, as Scripture states (Koheleth 10:20): "For the bird of heaven will carry the voice, and the winged one will tell the thing." As it is known, "the winged one" is the angel Gavriel, who proclaims above, everything that is done in this world. As to "will carry the voice," this is as the naturalists write, that every article of speech — the voice, with every letter that issues from his mouth — is found in the air, not even one letter being lost. And this is what happens when a man speaks with his friend. The voice and all of its letters reach the ears of his friend. And along these lines they said (Bava Metzia 58b): "R. Yochanan said in the name of R. Shimon b. Yochai 'More severe is verbal wronging than monetary wronging (i.e., cheating)' [even though monetary wronging is by deed and verbal wronging only by speech]; for of the latter it is written (Vayikra 25:17): 'And you shall fear your G-d,' and of the former it is not written 'And you shall fear your G-d.'" R. Elazar said: "This [(verbal wronging)] is with his body; the other is [only] with his money." R. Shmuel b. Nachmani said: "This [(monetary wronging)] is subject to restitution; that [(verbal wronging)' is not subject to restitution." And if he caused his face to "whiten" [with shame] thereby, his sin is too great to bear. As we find there: "If one causes his friend's face to whiten in public, it is as if he has spilled blood."

The second category; he who speaks gossip that is true Even if he should remind another in private of some evil deed of his ancestors, he transgresses what is written in the Torah, "And ye shall not wrong one another" (Lev. 25:17); it is concerning wrongs done with words that the Scripture speaks (Baba Mezi'a 58b).

The fifth category is this. If the object of the gossip is a former sinner who has repented, and someone tells about the sins that he committed before he repented, in this there is great guilt (Baba Mezi'a 58b). "For one who repents of his wrongdoing, his sins now become merit" (T.P. Peah 1:1). And this gosiper shames him with sins that, through repentance, have become his merit. Moreover, he places a stumbling block before him for the victim may think in his heart, "Just as he shamed me so shall I shame him," and enter into a quarrel with him, with the result that he perverts his repentance and returns to his former state. Moreover, others who hear of this one's shame may be restrained from repenting their evil deeds, and thus the gossiper has locked the doors of repentance. And know, that if a man sees that his companion transgressed a commandment in secret and he reveals it in public, he is guilty of a sin, for perhaps the transgressor has repented of his evil way and did not want to admit it except to an understanding Sage who would not shame him, so that he could repent of his evil deed. But one should keep away from one who has done evil until he knows that his companion has repented of his evil way. And if the sinner is a scholar and a man who fears to commit a sin, it is proper to take it for granted that he has done repentance, and that if his evil inclination overcame him once he surely must have had remorse afterwards.

The paragraph commencing with וכי יגור אתכם גר, "When a stranger (convert) resides amongst you, etc" (19,33), contains an allusion to Abraham, the first convert to Judaism. He also became the first אזרח, natural born citizen, as we know from Psalms 89,1, which, according to all our sources, is a reference to Abraham. The reason the Torah alludes to Abraham as the first convert is to teach us not to accuse others of shortcomings when we ourselves suffer from the same type of shortcoming. To denigrate a stranger is to forget that we ourselves started our career as a nation as strangers. In the words of Baba Metzia 59b: "If one's family tree contains the name of someone who has been legally hanged, he should not even say to a fellow "hang this fish up for me," for the very mention of hanging is a reminder of a blemish in his own family." The Israelites were guilty of idol worship while in Egypt as well as of many abominable practices. How then could they dare remind a convert of his pagan past? Abraham himself chose exile (Shemot Rabbah 59) for his descendants in preference to their having to linger in purgatory. Purgatory comprises both the dimension of dryness and wetness. The dryness expresses itself in the fire, the wetness in a form of snow. As an allusion to this, the Torah here continues with the prohibition to sacrifice to the fire-god Moloch (20,2-5) a warning of what is in store for Esau and his followers. The Torah speaks only of people who sacrifice some of their offspring to Moloch. The author of Semag writes an explanation as a reply to the heretics; however, the true reason for this is analogous to the statement of our sages on Genesis 21,12 where Abraham did not want to expel Hagar and Ishmael. G–d told him there that his principal heirs would be "part of Isaac." Just as the Torah referred in that case to "part of Isaac," so here too the syntax of the Torah speaks of the likely event, i.e. that someone offers some of his offspring as a sacrifice to that deity. Just as only part of Isaac's descendants turned away from the Abrahamitic tradition, i.e. Esau, so the Torah, by speaking of "some offspring being offered to the Moloch," reassures us that it is inconceivable that a descendant of Isaac would sacrifice all of his offspring to such a deity. The Torah continues in 20,7: והתקדשתם. This is a reference to Jacob. He had succeeded in attaining sanctity of his body.