 So the Hebrew word for flattery is chanifa and in our literature it has many shades of meaning and form Ranging from severe sin to situations where it is actually tolerated The term actually appears in the Torah in a very unusual context in the book of Numbers chapter 35 At the end of that chapter the Torah speaks about The need to make sure that we punish people who are murderers in the land of Israel The Torah says in verses 31 to 34 you shall not accept ransom for the life of a murderer Who is worthy of capital punishment for he shall surely be put to death You shall not pollute the land in which you are for the blood will pollute the land The land will not have atonement for the blood that was spilled in it except through the blood of the one who spilled it Now the truth is that our sages tell us that it was virtually impossible to administer the death penalty The laws of testimony were so strict that it was virtually impossible to secure a A sentence of capital punishment, but the Torah here is telling us that there are people who certainly deserve capital punishment and We have to punish them and so even in cases where we don't execute a murderer The court is certainly allowed to punish them for example with prisonment. You can throw them into prison for life The Torah here is telling us we cannot Allow people that are guilty of a capital crime murderers to go free to go without being punished Now the word used here in this portion of the Bible for pollute That the scripture here said that if you allow the murderer to go free you'll pollute the land The word used here literally means to flatter The word to flatter now where there were other Hebrew words that could have been used To convey the meaning of to pollute the land or to bring guilt upon the land There were several other Hebrew words that could have been used So why did the Torah use the word for flattery sort of a strange usage? So Nachmanides the Ramban wrote that Don't flatter the land means the following He says it means don't make the land into a hypocrite Flattery is often a form of hypocrisy when you don't really mean what you say and So Nachmanides says that the land of Israel is supposed to produce Abundant fruit and produce that's the promise that God made to us But God also promised in Deuteronomy chapter 28 that if we pollute the land By not carrying out justice The land will not produce for us the land will not produce what it promised us And so if we don't carry out justice by punishing murderers We will turn the land into a flattering hypocrite another medieval commentary the Kisquni understands the phrase don't pollute the land as Don't Flatter The murderers who dwell in the land again the literal word is not pollute It's flatter and he says don't flatter the land really should be read as don't flatter the murderers Who inhabit the land and the broader context here is that we must not flatter? wrongdoers in general and this is how the sifri a Talmudic commentary understands this verse in the book of numbers the sifri says that Hanifa is false flattery of any wrong behavior any time we condone Negative behavior. We are guilty of flattery and a Talmud Intractate sota page 41 gives an example of this We know that every seven years there was a commandment of Hakel Where the entire Jewish nation gathered in Jerusalem in the holy temple on the holiday of Sukkot following the sabbatical year and During this ceremony of Hakel the king is supposed to read the book of Deuteronomy to the nation So the Talmud in this tractate sota describes what happened when King Agrippus Read the Torah in the year 41 of the common era now Agrippus was really technically disqualified From being king because of his lineage. He had issues with his limit lineage but somehow he became king anyway and He was someone who did have a tremendous of a man of respect for the Torah and for Jewish law and he was actually Respected as a person that was very humble and modest and so when he was reading from the Torah He stood even though the king is allowed to sit However, when he came to the verse in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 17 Which says you may not place over yourselves a foreign person to be king over you The Talmud says that his eyes began to flow with tears The people saw this and they cried out to him do not fear Agrippa. You are our brother The Talmud has Rabbenos and teaching that at that moment the nation of Israel became liable for destruction Because they flattered Agrippa Meaning they shouldn't have given him the impression that his lineage was fine and there was no problem with him being king and One of the great problems with this kind of flattery is that when you condone Condone wrongful behavior. You're misrepresenting the Torah You're giving the impression that the Torah does not forbid what it actually does forbid our literature has Different levels of Hanifa of this kind of flattery Rabbeno Yonah and his chara Chuva describes nine different levels of Hanifa here are some of them The worst is telling someone that the sin they have done is okay. It's acceptable then the next level down is Praising or honoring a sinful person publicly without necessarily telling them that what they did was okay Meaning that you don't point out that their sinful act was okay, but you publicly praise them as a great person the third level down is Praising the wrong doer in private meaning you're not publicly praising them, but privately you praise them as a great person That's also flattering them number four Not that you ever praise the person, but you fail to offer reproof when you could have Meaning you don't say anything positive about them But if someone does something wrong and you don't say anything to tell them that they're wrong You didn't you don't reproof them That's a problem now This actually is complicated because our sages teach us that if you know that someone won't listen It's better not to say anything and that before we ever give reproof We need to first build rapport and trust So the idea of giving reproof is not necessarily an easy thing to do But if we are able to give reproof if we're able to correct someone and we don't That's a form of flattery number five Remaining present when wrongdoing is taking place meaning in a situation when it may not have been possible to give reproof for example if you're with a group of people and Someone is speaking La Shonhara is speaking slander or alive is speaking slander about other people So normally you're supposed to tell someone that slander you can't speak like that But again, it may be a case when you're not able to give them reproof maybe they won't listen But if you stay there in the room with them and you don't leave That's also considered a form of flattery meaning remaining present when wrongdoing is taking place In a situation where you're not able to correct people number six is treating a evil person with respect in Some way just showing them respect. So you're not flattering them and telling them. They're a great person But you treat them with respect You might for example stand up when they walk into the room Another example a little bit lower down is when a respected person out of self-interest a point someone Not fully qualified to a position of leadership or to be in a rabbinic position That's considered a form of flattery Now the problem with Hanifa with flattery is number one It hinders the person that's doing wrong from repenting meaning if you give them the impression that what they're doing is fine Then you're putting a roadblock in the path of their chuva of their repentance number two By not correcting people and by by even doing worse by praising someone who's an evil doer You encourage others to emulate that bad behavior Number three if you praise someone who's doing wrong It's a desecration of God's name because what you're demonstrating is you're more concerned with offending the evil doer than offending God number four by as I said before when you Praise a wicked person. You are distorting the Torah. You're giving the impression that the Torah Accept certain behavior that it doesn't really accept and number five What happens with flattery is that you neglect your obligation of giving tohaka of giving reproof Now we move from here to the more common understanding of flattery Which is essentially insincere compliments in order to get something from someone else meaning out of self-interest You compliment someone else an example It sounds innocent, but let's imagine someone invited you for a Shabbat lunch in July Now you don't particularly enjoy their company But you feel an obligation to pay them back to reciprocate you happen to know that in August they're going to be out of town and So you go over and you say you'd like to have them for Shabbat dinner in August So here you're trying to create the impression that you really would love their company When in fact you wouldn't that's considered insincere and misleading. It's a form of hypocrisy and flattery however, if it's not self-serving if It's for another person's benefit Flattery is okay meaning it's only considered Objectionable if you're being insincere out of self-interest Meaning that you want to get something out of someone But if you're trying to help someone else or you're trying to benefit a relationship flattery is okay. So for example let's say Someone gives a speech You're allowed to compliment them and even slightly exaggerate what you thought about the speech in order to make them feel good And in order to encourage them in their future speech making Now if your motivation is that you're going to compliment them because you want to receive a favor from them That's prohibited similarly It's okay for a teacher to flatter a student In order to build their self-confidence in order to encourage them to study That's perfectly legitimate The teacher can talk about what a great question they asked or what a great homework assignment They handed in even though it may not have been that great But the teacher is allowed to flatter the student in order to encourage them and certainly in a husband-wife Relationship it's perfectly okay for a husband to flatter his wife in order to build the love and connection and Shalom buy it between them so we see that flattery is a diverse concept ranging from Totally evil behavior where we literally praise wickedness to forms of flattery that are totally okay for positive reasons