LEV731 One who speaks or believes lashon hara also transgresses the positive commandment of וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמֹ֑וךָ , “And you shall love your fellow as yourself” (Vayikra 19:18). This mitzvah requires one to be as concerned about another person's money as he is about his own; it also requires us to be sensitive to another person's honor, and to speak well of him, just as one is mindful of his own honor. Someone who speaks or believes lashon hara or rechilus about another person--even if the information is true--truly demonstrates that he does not love that other person at all, and is certainly not fulfilling the mitzvah of loving him as himself. The strongest proof of this is that every person knows his own faults, yet he still would not want anyone else to find out about even one thousandth of his faults under any circumstances. If by chance someone discovered a few of his shortcomings, and went around telling others about them, he would still hope that Hashem would cause the listeners not to believe the speaker's words. This is also so that others will not view him as a person who is not respectable--even though he knows he has committed many more sins than that which the other person revealed. Nevertheless, the great love that he has for himself overrides all that. This is precisely the approach that Torah requires one to take with regard to a fellow Jew’s honor; (Continued at [[GEN742]] Genesis 9:23 covered SEFER 51).