In the previous section we looked closely at the Torah's wording in Parshas Noach regarding Shem and Yefes: "וערות אביהם לא ראו", "and they did not see their father's nakedness." The question is what these words add. The verse has already told us "they walked backwards with their faces turned away," from which it is obvious that they could not see anything, since a person has no eyes in his back, and the entire act was performed in an unnatural way. All of that is already contained in the first phrase, so what is being added by "and they did not see their father's nakedness"? To explain this, we need to first introduce another topic.
From unseemly seeing to unseemly speech:
Until now we have been dealing with seeing: either an unseemly act of seeing, or refraining from it. Of Cham the verse says "And Cham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness" - he had an unseemly seeing. Of Shem and Yefes it says "and they did not see their father's nakedness" - they held back from an unseemly seeing. To understand what is really going on here, let us leave seeing aside for a moment and turn to speech: refined speech and unrefined speech. And it is striking that the source for proper speech is found in this very same parsha.
The Gemara in Maseches Pesachim states: "Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: a person should never let an unseemly word leave his mouth." This does not refer only to avoiding curses or coarse language. Even when a person has to say something whose content is unpleasant, he should express it in positive terms.
A familiar example: we have grown accustomed not to say "house of the sick" but "house of healing," and over the years this spread in various directions in different places - "medical center" and the like - and even to avoid calling a person "sick," saying instead "not well," and so on.
And from where does the Gemara derive this principle? "For Scripture went out of its way and added eight letters rather than let an unseemly word leave its mouth." The Torah is precise with every single letter and will not write an extra letter when it could economize. And yet, in Parshas Noach, in describing the animals entering the ark, the verse says "of the pure animal and of the animal which is not pure." The Torah could have written briefly "and of the impure animal," yet it chose a phrasing eight letters longer. From the fact that it did not economize on letters we see that the Torah is teaching us not to let an unseemly word leave our mouths.
Does the Torah never use the word "impure"?
The commentators ask: the Torah uses this very word explicitly many times. For example, in Sefer Vayikra, in the section of the impure animals, verse after verse says "it is impure for you," "she is impure for you," "they are impure for you" - dozens of times. Why, then, specifically in Parshas Noach did the Torah avoid this language?
The commentators answer that there is a difference between telling a story and ruling halacha. When relating what happened, it is fitting to add a few letters, as long as the matter is not expressed in an unseemly way. But when ruling halacha, absolute clarity is required. We can illustrate this with an extreme example: if the rav were sitting in a shiur and said, "The pig is an animal which is not pure," someone in the shiur might doze off for a split second, miss the words "which is not," and walk away remembering that the rav said "the pig is pure." To prevent mistakes like that, when ruling one must state it plainly: impure, pure, with no added words.
At first glance, this answer implies that when one states a halacha one has no choice but to use language that is not refined.
The Rebbe's explanation:
The Rebbe takes the words of the commentators deeper. The intent is not that when stating a halacha a person is forced, for lack of an alternative, to use words that are unrefined. On the contrary: at the moment of stating the halacha, this word is a refined word, and there is no unrefined language here at all. Stating a halacha means that a person is saying things purely according to Torah, with no emotions, no feelings and no associations attached to the matter. His intent is the halacha and nothing beyond it, and therefore he says the thing exactly as it is. But when a person is telling a story - there were such and such animals that entered the ark - he enters into the matter with all his feelings, and therefore he must express himself in a refined style rather than an unrefined one.
To sum up the subject of speech: when speech is obligatory, necessary and called for according to Torah, one should not imagine that he is dealing with something unclean or improper. When the thing is needed, it is clean, it is truth, it is good, this is how it is supposed to be, and there is no problem with it whatsoever. There are many examples of this in questions people bring to a rav, questions a person feels uncomfortable asking. But when it is halacha, it is halacha. The rav does not relate to it with emotions and feelings; he states the halacha: pure, impure, and so on. Where halacha is involved there are no questions, and the matter must be stated clearly. But where there is no halacha involved and it is simply telling a story, there caution is required.
Back to the seeing of Cham, Shem and Yefes:
Here it is the same. All three of them heard about the very same incident, that their father was lying in the tent in an immodest state, yet the reaction of each of them was completely different:
Cham: The moment he heard, he found in it an interesting story. Here is a headline, here is something to tell, something to publicize: "Did you see what he did? Did you see how he is lying there?" And he immediately went out and told his brothers.
Shem and Yefes: The moment they heard what had happened, they immediately asked themselves not what the interesting story about their father was, but what this was saying to them and what it demanded of them right now. Our father is lying in an immodest state - what do we have to do? And they immediately answered themselves: cover our father.
This is why the Torah says "וערות אביהם לא ראו", "and they did not see their father's nakedness." They did not see their father's nakedness at all. What did they see? They saw a task placed upon them. Cham saw nakedness; Shem and Yefes did not see nakedness. The Torah's intent is not that physically they did not see, for that was already said earlier with "their faces turned away." The Torah is adding and telling us their greatness: not only did they physically not see their father's nakedness, but in their minds there was no nakedness there at all. They saw only the task placed upon them to carry out.
Back to our subject in chapter 32:
We learned that when a person sees a fellow Jew, the mitzvah is to hate not him but the evil in him; and also that this was said specifically regarding one's "friend in Torah and mitzvos" and not regarding another Jew. In light of everything above, the difference is simple:
With his friend in Torah and mitzvos: When a person sees evil in him, he must immediately say to himself: what does it mean that I am seeing evil in him, and what does it demand of me? And the answer is a halacha: "You shall surely rebuke your fellow." And if the other has no intention of changing, the situation demands of him right then to hate that evil and to push it away.
With another Jew who is not his friend: He heard something bad about him - what does that have to do with him? What business does he have making an affair out of it? He cannot even tell himself "now I will hate the evil in him," because it is simply not his business at all. And if the matter touches his heart, let him go and draw that Jew closer; beyond that it is not his concern.
This is why the Alter Rebbe says that with a Jew who is his friend there is a mitzvah to hate the evil. And what makes it a mitzvah? That it is part of the Torah process which the Torah obligates a person to carry out. And which evil does the Torah obligate him to deal with? The evil of a Jew who is his friend, regarding whom it says "You shall surely rebuke your fellow." But regarding another Jew the Torah says not to get involved: it is not his business and it has nothing to do with him at all. Nothing would come of it but lashon hara, emotions and feelings, and the making of headlines. Consequently, a Jew who is a stranger to him and who has evil in him from here until further notice - it is simply not this person's business to hate that evil at all, except in the specific case where dealing with it is his responsibility. This is the context in which we brought the principle from the subject of speech and the subject of seeing.
It is worth addressing the difficulty with the very wording. The word "sinah," hatred, which opens this page in Tanya, is unusual and strange language, not at all common. But from everything we have said it becomes clear that this is precisely where we have strengthened the point: this is not hatred in its plain sense. It does not exist, and if it does, it is the rarest of rare cases. We are not speaking of hating the person, but of hating the process: a very specific and narrowly defined situation in which a person must hate the yetzer hara in his friend.
In summary: In this section we examined what the Torah adds with the words "and they did not see their father's nakedness." To explain it we turned to the subject of speech: the teaching of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi in Maseches Pesachim, "a person should never let an unseemly word leave his mouth," derived from the fact that Scripture went out of its way with eight extra letters in Parshas Noach and wrote "which is not pure"; the commentators' question from the Torah's frequent use of the word "impure," and their answer that ruling halacha requires clarity; and the Rebbe's explanation, that at the moment of halacha the word is not unseemly at all, since the matter is stated purely according to Torah, without feeling and without anything added. From there we returned to seeing: Cham saw a story and nakedness, while Shem and Yefes saw only a task. In this light we understood the Alter Rebbe's novel point: the mitzvah to hate the evil was said specifically regarding one's friend in Torah and mitzvos, toward whom one bears the obligation of "You shall surely rebuke," and not regarding another Jew, where it is not his business at all.
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words in chapter 32 and with the continuation of his explanation of ahavas Yisroel.