New York (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) A caveat is in order at the outset. This author has been, and remains, generally supportive of the Prime Minister. His wartime leadership, the decisions to mobilize the reserves from the first day, the operations that decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership, and the resolve that Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons — these are matters for which he deserves credit rather than condemnation

That said, his recent remark was indefensible, and he owes the bereaved families an apology.

A caveat is in order at the outset. This author has been, and remains, generally supportive of the Prime Minister. His wartime leadership, the decisions to mobilize the reserves from the first day, the operations that decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership, and the resolve that Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons — these are matters for which he deserves credit rather than condemnation.

That said, his recent remark was indefensible, and he owes the bereaved families an apology.

During a Channel 14 interview on Tuesday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked what had changed in him personally since the October 7th massacre. His initial answer was, “I lost a little weight.” The response drew immediate and anguished criticism from bereaved families organized under the October Council.

Yoram Yehudai, whose son Ron was murdered at the Supernova festival, wrote that when one is asked what changed since that day, an answer about weight reflects a complete disconnect between those who lead the country and those who lost everything. Ayal Eshel, father of the fallen IDF lookout Roni Eshel, responded that he too has lost weight since October 7 — because there is no appetite when one is raising a dead daughter.

The pain here is real, and it is worth examining his words as a matter of halacha. This author would submit that the remark falls squarely within a Torah prohibition — that of Onaas Dvarim.

THE PROHIBITION OF ONAAS DVARIM

The verse in VaYikra (25:17) states, “velo sonu Ish es amiso” — one may not wrong his fellow. Rashi explains that this lav refers specifically to onaas devarim, the wronging of one’s fellow through speech. The Mitzvah is generally called Onaas Dvarim, or simply Onaah. The Sfas Emes explains that the fundamental reason behind this Mitzvah is so that we should all have a sense of complete oneness as a people. Causing another pain is prohibited precisely because it fractures that unity.

Onaas devarim is verbal injury — causing another person distress through words that arouse anger or wounded feelings. It is forbidden to cause a fellow Jew pain through speech whether one does so deliberately or through simple thoughtlessness, and one may not cause even a fleeting moment of distress — unless there is some genuinely constructive purpose that can be achieved in no other way.

The Talmud (Bava Metzia 58b) records that three sages explain how the prohibition of verbal abuse is far more severe than the prohibition of monetary abuse (Onaas Mamon). One reason offered is that money can be returned, but words that wound the heart cannot be undone.

PAIN IS PAIN — EVEN WHEN THE INTENT IS PROPER

A striking feature of this prohibition is how little the speaker’s intent mitigates the offense. As noted above, the halacha reaches pain caused through mere thoughtlessness, not only pain caused with malice. There is a little-known debate between Rav Henoch Leibowitz zatzal and Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz zatzal regarding Pnina and Chana. Pnina taunted Chana about her childlessness — according to the Midrash, leshaim shamayim, in order to spur Chana to daven with greater intensity. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz (Sichos Mussar) holds that Middah keneged Middah applied to Pnina even though her intention was entirely proper. Rav Henoch Leibowitz held that there must have been an infinitesimally small trace of improper motivation. Either way, the lesson is unmistakable: the seriousness of causing another Jew pain is not erased by good intentions.

If even a Pnina, acting for the sake of Heaven, is held to account for the pain she caused, then a public figure who wounds thousands of grieving parents — even carelessly and without malice — cannot shrug off the injury as unintended.

A THIN LINE, AND ON WHICH SIDE THIS FALLS

It is true that he may have misjudged and perhaps thought that a joke could help ease tensions, but in order to avoid the disconnect, one must always keep another’s kavod and sensitivity in mind — whenever one says anything. This is precisely the exception the halacha carves out and just as precisely why it does not apply here: distress is permitted only where a constructive purpose truly requires it. A quip about one’s waistline serves no such purpose.

The Sefer HaChinuch (251) notes that even necessary rebuke and even parenting must be measured against the pain it causes. Here there was no necessity to weigh against the pain at all.

LO’EG LARASH — A SECOND SOURCE

There is a second halachic principle from which this insensitivity may be derived. In Shulchan Aruch 23:1 and the Mishna Brurah there, we see that the halacha requires one to tuck in or conceal his tzitzis when walking among graves in a cemetery. The reason is the prohibition of Lo’eg laRash — “mocking the poor” (Mishlei 17:5), derived from the fact that the deceased can no longer perform mitzvos. To flaunt one’s tzitzis before those who can no longer wear them is treated by the halacha as a kind of taunt — even though the dead cannot hear and no insult is intended.

The principle is profound. Lo’eg laRash is not about the subjective feelings of the one “mocked.” It is about the objective posture of displaying, before those who have suffered an irretrievable loss, precisely that which they have lost. The Torah brands this as mockery regardless of intent.

When one uses words to cause another pain, one violates not only the mitzvah of onaah but also one further negates the positive command of “v’ahavta l’re’acha kamocha” — for no person wishes to be spoken to in a manner that inflicts such hurt. The weight of the matter, in other words, is cumulative.

CHOSER REGISHUS — INSENSITIVITY ITSELF

There is a further dimension worth naming, and it falls squarely under the halacha of onaas devarim. What produced this remark was, at bottom, choser regishus — a lack of sensitivity, a failure to feel the weight of the moment and of those in it. The seforim that treat this middah understand insensitivity not as a mere personality trait but as a spiritual defect: a timtum haLaiv – a dullness of the heart that must be actively repaired through the refinement of one’s feeling for others. The very faculty that lets a person sense another’s pain before he speaks is the faculty that prevents onaas devarim in the first place. 

This is why the prohibition of onaas devarim is not satisfied merely by avoiding cruelty of intent. The Torah demands a cultivated sensitivity — a trained awareness of the person standing before you and of what your words will do to others.

EVEN THROUGH INACTION, AND CERTAINLY THROUGH WORDS

Rav Yechiel Michel Stern cites the Chikrei Laiv (YD Vol. III #80) that Onaas Dvarim can be violated even through inaction — for instance, by pointedly omitting one person from a Mishebarach. If pain caused by omission is a violation, pain caused by an affirmative and public remark is a fortiori a violation. And a sad and recurring feature of this prohibition is that violators are frequently unaware that they have caused pain, and are quick to characterize the wounded party as “overly sensitive.” That temptation must be resisted here. These families are not overly sensitive. They are bereaved.

THE OBLIGATION TO PLACATE

What must one do when he has violated this prohibition? The Talmud (Yoma 87a) teaches that there is an obligation to placate the one he has wronged, and to undo the damage as far as possible. The Talmud invokes the verse in Mishlei, “Press your plea with your neighbor.” There are opinions that one must even seek to make amends publicly, before others.

The application is straightforward. The Prime Minister should apologize — clearly, publicly, and without the reflexive defensiveness that so often accompanies these moments. He need not surrender his record or his resolve to do so. He need only recognize that a grieving nation asked him a sacred question, and that his answer caused pain to those who have already borne the unbearable.

CONCLUSION

Support for a leader does not require the suspension of Torah judgment; if anything, it demands the opposite. One who genuinely wishes the Prime Minister well should want him to correct this. The remark was a violation of Onaas Dvarim, it implicated the mitzvah of v’ahavta l’re’acha kamocha, and it evokes the very sensibility the halacha of Lo’eg laRash was designed to protect.

The bereaved deserve better.

An apology is not weakness — it is the beginning of the placation that Torah-true Judaism requires.

One other thought:  Kosher food breeds Kosher words.  We find this thought throughout the great Torah commentaries of the past.  Let them both come.

The author can be reached at [email protected]