Boshes - Bava Kamma 83b
The Mishnah on Bava Kamma 83b states that the compensatory payment for embarrassing someone is dependent on the embarrassor and the embarrassee. The mefarshim (Rashi and others) explain that if a "light" person embarrasses someone, the embarrassment is greater than it would be if a great person were to cause the embarrassment.
If this is the case, how can we understand the kal va-chomer at the end of P' Beha'alos'cha by Miriam (12:14): "If her father had spit in her face, would she not be embarrassed for 7 days? How much more so should she seclude herself in embarrassment for 7 days being that God Himself displayed his rebuke towards her!"? Being that even the great tzaddik Amrom would be an adam kal relative to HaShem, how can we say that Miriam should be more embarrassed by God's rebuke than by her father's rebuke? (I don't see a difference between busha and k'lima as described in the passuk)
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the reason for the distinction for the difference between an adam kal and an adam gadol, as it seems counterintuitive. I don't see how it would be more embarrassing to be slapped by a vagrant on the street than to be slapped by one's rebbe.
Labels: Beha'alos'cha, HaChoveil
posted by Josh M. @ 11:25 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
"Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the reason for the distinction for the difference between an adam kal and an adam gadol, as it seems counterintuitive. I don't see how it would be more embarrassing to be slapped by a vagrant on the street than to be slapped by one's rebbe."
think about high school and its usual/stereotypical social heirarchy. say kid A hangs with the cool kids, but sort of on the periphery. it is much more embarassing for him to have a joke made at his expense by an uncool kid (below him on the ladder) (assuming the joke uscceeds in making others laugh) than by a cool kid (above him), b/c in the former case the kids above him will pile on with "hah, you got dissed by a loser!" did that make sense?
that said, i think your initial question is a decent one, and perhaps i will think about it more...
Your example makes sense. The evaluation of boshes would seem to be dependent upon whether or not the victim is viewed as a "loser" by virtue of his inability to protect himself from the busha, rather than whether or not onlookers would side with his attacker by virtue of his higher status.
This leads me to believe that busha and k'lima are not as synonymous as I originally assumed. I should look at a concordance.
Yes. I was just going to suggest that the difference is that boshet is unjustified, and that is more embarassing the more lowly the source, whereas Miriam's klimah is justified - she "deserved" it, so the higher the source, the more serious the dignitary harm. This may be the difference between bushah and klimah, thogh I don't know whether that would stand up in other texts.
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