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Yevamos 063: Mehalech b'Shuk Arum
H. David Levine asks:
How is it that Mehalech b'Shuk Arum should be described as Meshukatz
u'Metu'av, when it is not even an Isur? In fact I seem to recall from a
masechta we had just seen, in daf yomi, that it seemed to be Mutar even for
a Ba'al Korei.
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The Kollel replies:
1) I will leave aside for the moment the question of whether there is an
Isur of going naked in the street, but there is another very important
issue also involved here. This is the lack of self-respect that a person
shows if he does such a thing, and the effects that this will have on his
personality and general behavior.
2) We see this clearly from the Rambam, Hilchot Edus 11:5, who writes that
the "Bezuyin" (shameful people) are invalid as witnesses, mid'Rabanan. An
example of this are those people "who walk naked in the marketplace when
they do their filthy work there." The Rambam writes that the reason these
individuals are invalid as witnesses is because they do not care about
their own embarrassment and shame. As a result of this attitude, these sort
of people are not particular about whether or not they tell the truth in a
court of law.
3) This passsage in the Rambam is recorded as law in the Shulchan Aruch
(Choshen Mishpat 34:18, which deals with the Halachos concerning which
people are invalid as witnesses), and the Vilna Gaon (Bi'ur ha'Gra #40)
cites the Gemara here in Yevamos 63b as the source for the Rambam's ruling.
4) Accordingly, the sort of person who is Mehalech b'Shuk Arum is not
believed in a court of law because he has cheapened himself so much that he
no longer has any self-respect.
5) I am not sure what you mean when you say that we learned in Dafyomi that
Mehalech b'Shuk is Mutar. However, the Gemara in Berachos 19b that states
that if somebody is in the street and he discovers that he is wearing
Sha'atnez, he must take it off immediately. The Gemara says there that even
though this is extremely embarrassing, nevertheless the Chilul Hashem
involved in the fact that the wearer of the clothes is transgressing a
Mitzvah of the Torah is even greater than the lack of honor that he brings
upon himself by removing the clothes. However, I would say that, on the
contrary, we see from that Gemara that while it is very bad to be Mehalech
b'Shuk Arum, it is even worse to wear Sha'atnez.
(A way of approaching the question of whether there is an Isur on Mehalech
b'Shuk Arum would be to discuss whether there is a Torah prohibition
against a person putting himself to shame. Perhaps we will come back to
this later.)
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom
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