Halacha 1: There is no difference whether rechilus was spoken by a man or a woman, relative or non-relative as we see by the episode of Miriam speaking out again her brother, Moshe, and we know there is no difference between lashin hara and rechilus. Even if you hear someone say something bad about your parents and you are so upset that you tell your parents what so and so said about them, that is still rechilus. Even if someone said something bad about one’s rebbe or rav, he can’t go and tell the rabbi what heard. However in Kiddushin 70a, we see that speaking badly about a court or the messenger of the court, the messenger is believed like two witnesses, about what was said about him or the court and the court can accept this report back as testimony and excommunicate the guy he was sent to deliver the court’s message to. (See Choshen Mishpat 8:5 with the Be’er Hagola there.)
It also makes no difference whether the subject spoken about was a man or a woman, an adult or a child, it’s the same as lashon hara and forbidden. Achild is also considered “your nation” even though he isn’t liable in mitzvos yet. Especially since the whole point of the spirit of the law is to prevent fighting and damages, of course rechilus will be forbidden even against a child. Let say an adult saw two children get into a fight with punches thrown and he goes over to one of the fathers and tells what happened. That father might go over to the kid and smack him, then the argument might escalate and the two fathers might start fighting with each other. Certainly if you don’t know who is really at fault or started the fight. But even if you do know who did what and whose faukt it is, still you can’t escalate the issue by telling on the child unless the prerequisites in chapter 9 that we’ll be reading will all be met.
Halacha 2: It doesn’t make a difference whether the subject talked about is an am ha’aretz, a simpleton who might not understand the severity of mitzvos, or know all the halachos, but if you see him speak nastily about someone else you can’t tell the other guy what he said because he is still considered part of your nation. Only someone who purposefully sins knowing the alacha and the severity of the sin, but transgressing just to spite is out of the realm of “your nation,” and loshon haa or rechilus could be said about him.
All the more so speaking rechilus about a rabbi or sage is much more wors for a number of reason.
- The sin of rechilus itself, if speaking rechilus about a friend where you might lie, is really bad, then all the more so to tell someone what you heard a rabbi say about you or did to you, most probably has lying with in the report because we can assume most often than not that the rabbi or sage know halacha, is G-D fearing and must have had a calculation of why he said what he said or did what he did, so you can repeat it to the subject, because you ight not understand the whole story and most like saying something false.
- The person himself you are talking about, the Torah commands us to cling to our sages, it’s a mitzvah to eat and drink with them, do business with them, marry our children off to there children, so especially if you speak out against them you are turning yourself away from them as well as others.
- The ramifications of the story, telling over what so and so said about you or did to you, sometimes might not be a big deal, because who caees, he is a no body. But if you say this is what this Rabbi said about you then it hurts more and they will believe it and thbe quicker to hate the rabbi, how could such a respectful person say that about me…, so that another reason why it’s worse to speak recilus about rabbis.