The Prohibition Against Hurting Others and Causing Distress (Ona’at Devarim)
23. It is forbidden to delay court proceedings without cause or to turn away a person who has come for advice.
24. The prohibition of “ona’ah” is more stringent when converts (proselytes), widows, or orphans are involved. Concerning a convert it says: “Do not wrong a convert or harm him.” This prohibition is mentioned in the Torah thirty-six times. Regarding a widow and an orphan, too, it says explicitly: “Do not wrong any widow or orphan.” In other words, this applies even to people of means, whom widowhood or orphanhood makes very vulnerable and defenseless.
Anyone who wrongs a convert, a widow, or an orphan violates several Torah prohibitions at once.
****Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin converted one room for use on Pesach. It was a second kitchen, opened only during Pesach. Each year a new oven was installed there, even though Rabbi Yehoshua Leib himself ate matzah only on the first night of Pesach. The wheat they used was no ordinary wheat, either. His students brought wheat that had been harvested especially for making matzah. A sack of this wheat had been kept at the home of one of his close students since the beginning of the summer. The sack hung from a hook driven into the ceiling, above a person’s height. Even the most agile mice could not reach it.
Before the festival began, the student would bring the sack of grain, and after a thorough inspection, the grain would be sorted by hand. Water was brought two days before Pesach from the Motza spring (near Jerusalem), and the matzah was baked only just before the festival began (erev Pesach). Rabbi Yehoshua Leib personally supervised the entire process of preparing the matzah.
One day, his close student fell ill and died. Now it was necessary to decide who would be responsible for storing the grain. The students themselves came to ask about this, but Rabbi Diskin asked that the sack be left in the same place. “Can the widow really look after the grain better than we can?” the students asked. “Next year we will decide who will keep the grain, but for now let everything remain with her,” their teacher replied. “If you go now to take away the sack, it will be another bitter reminder of her loss. All our stringencies are not worth a single little sigh of hers!”
**** The spiritual mentor of the yeshiva in Radin asked the Chafetz Chaim what to do about a student who had offended a widow at whose home he often ate lunch. (In those days, yeshivas had no dining halls, and students ate with local families.) The woman related that the young man had behaved insolently and that his behavior had deeply hurt her.
There must have been some conflict, but the Chafetz Chaim did not investigate it. He was so shocked by what had happened that he told the young man to leave the yeshiva and return home, even though this student was considered one of the best. The mentor could not understand what had prompted the great Jewish sage to deal with the boy so harshly. When he asked about it, the rabbi replied: “Someone who speaks rudely to a lonely widow must have a good store of insolence and bad character traits. After all, the Sages said: ‘The brazen-faced are destined for Gehinnom, and the shamefaced for Gan Eden.’ And why? Because with someone who feels shame—even if he has done something wrong—there is still hope that he will do teshuvah, whereas an insolent person will not be able to repent!
25. Sometimes a teacher considers it necessary to be stricter with certain students, even when the student is a convert, an orphan, or a widow. This is not forbidden, since it is done for their own benefit, in order to teach them Torah or a trade. Nevertheless, it is preferable to be more lenient with them despite everything.
26. When the Torah speaks of an orphan, it means a child growing up without a mother or without a father. Until when is he called an “orphan”? Until he is old enough to no longer need an adult’s help and can take care of himself. When the Torah speaks of a widow, it means a woman of any age, since as long as a woman has not remarried, she feels very unhappy.