Telling a lie is only a stopgap measure. Sooner or later the truth comes out. The story is told of four high school boys who couldn’t resist the temptation to skip morning classes. Each had been smitten with a bad case of spring fever. After lunch they showed up at school and reported to the teacher that their car had a flat tire. Much to their relief, she smiled and said, “Well, you missed a quiz this morning, so take your seats and get out a pencil and paper.” Still smiling, she waited as they settled down and got ready for her questions. Then she said, “First question-which tire was flat?”
In this week’s Torah portion we are commanded to “keep far from sheker, falsehoods.” (Ex. 23:7) In our humash, Etz Hayim, the Halakhah L’ma-aseh commentary elucidates the kind of language we shouldn’t be using. “Jewish law prohibits three kinds of speech: sheker “falsehoods”; l’shon ha-ra (literally evil language or slander), that is, negative truths about a person communicated to those who have no practical need to know of the person’s weakness; and r’khilut, “gossip, rumors,” that is truths about a person that are not defamatory but are communicated to those who have no need to know the information.”[1]
The Hebrew word for truth is emet, אמת. The letter aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Tav is the last letter and mem is the middle letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Emet is God’s seal according to the rabbis because truth is His attribute from the beginning, to the middle, and through the very end. Being created in God’s image and commanded to follow in His ways, we should strive for truth in all our words and actions.
I am so disgusted that so many of our politicians in and out of Washington tell such bald face lies with a straight face. Lying may bring them short term gains, but it always results in long-term loss of our democracy. Personally I believe that we should vote these liars out of office.
If
we are tempted to lie we need to remember to tell the truth because “The God of
truth, whose Torah is truth, whose prophets are truth, and who abounds in deeds
of goodness and truth”[2]
will bless us for it.
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