LEV604 Private reproof of a peer and social protest are complex and even potentially dangerous--although valuable--types of speech. The Talmud takes the Torah's command to "Reprove your kinsman" [this verse] as the source for the notion that one must reprove a peer who is observed doing something unseemly (B. Arakhin 16b). Maimonides interprets this precept to mean that one who sees his peers sinning, or following "a path that is not good," must bring him back to the good and inform him that he is sinning (M.T. Laws of Ethics 6:7). [This verse] closes with the admonition "but incur no guilt because of him," which the Talmud interprets to mean that one must not reprove a person in a manner that causes "his face to change," that is, humiliate him, as evidenced through his changed facial complexion (B. Arakhin 16b). Maimonides takes this command a step further in ibid. 6:8, where he rules that it is forbidden to "humiliate a [fellow] Jew, and all the more so in public." Such humiliation is a "great sin" although it cannot be punished by a human court. A person must reprove another in private with gentle words, letting him know that the reproof is only for his own good (ibid. 6:7). (By Alyssa M. Gray, "Jewish Ethics of Speech")