Study Berakhot folio 19A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
And if it should enter your mind that the dead do not know, then what of it if he tells them? The Talmud rejects this: Rather what will you say, that they know? Then why does he need to tell them? The Talmud replies: This is not difficult, as he is telling them so that they will give credit to Mo
On this subject, R' Yitzḥak said: Anyone who speaks negatively after the deceased it is as if he speaks after the stone. The Talmud offers two interpretations of this: Some say this is because the dead do not know, and some say that they know, but they do not care that they are spoken of in such a
The Talmud asks: Is that so? Didn’t Rav Pappa say: There was once someone who spoke disparagingly after the death of Mar Shmuel and a reed fell from the ceiling, fracturing his skull? Obviously, the dead care when people speak ill of them.
The Talmud rejects this: This is no proof that the dead care. Rather, a Torah scholar is different, as God Himself demands that his honor be upheld.
R' Yehoshua ben Levi said similarly: One who speaks disparagingly after the biers of Torah scholars and maligns them after their death will fall in Gehenna, as it is stated: “But those who turn aside unto their crooked ways, YHWH will lead them away with the workers of iniquity; peace be upon Israel