 The very venerable news anchorman, senior news anchorman from NBC News, Brian Williams, was suspended from his job after decades of service because it turned out that his reporting about having been attacked shot upon while riding in an American helicopter in Iraq back in 2003 was not entirely true. Apparently, he had not really totally told the truth or reported accurately in terms of what happened 12 years prior, and because of this, he lost his job essentially. They said it was a six-month suspension, but I think it's pretty clear that his days in the news business are pretty much over. So in Jewish thought, what is the value of truth? And clearly within the Torah, truth is a very cherished value. It says in Ethics of the Fathers, Pyrkei Avot, Chapter 1, Mishnah 18, that truth, justice, and peace are the three pillars that allow the world to exist. Without justice, truth, and peace, the world would not exist. Truth is one of these essential pillars for the world to be able to exist. The Torah tells us that God Himself is truth. God is true, and God is truth. We end our recitation of the Shema Yisrael every week, every day, by saying, Hashem Elokechem Emmet, the Lord God is true, is truth. And that comes from a verse in the book of Jeremiah, Yermeyahu, Chapter 10, Verse 10, where the verse there says, Hashem Elokechem Emmet, the Lord God is truth. We're told in Exodus, the book of Shemot, Exodus, Chapter 34, Verse 6, where God is actually describing His essence, His nature, who He is. And one of the major descriptions of God is Rav Chesed Ve Emmet, abundant in loving-kindness and truth. The Talmud says in tractate Shabbat, 55a, that Chosmo Shalakodosh Baruchu Emmet, the signet ring, the seal of God is truth. And we know that one of the most important spiritual principles in Judaism is for us to walk in the ways of God. What they say in Latin is Emmetatio Dei, to follow in the ways of God. The Torah says in the book of Devarim, Deuteronomy 13.4, Uladavka Bo, you have to cleave unto God, attach yourself to God, and that's understood as to try to be like God. As it says in Deuteronomy 28, Verse 9, Ve halachda bedrachav, walk in His ways. So we have a religious obligation to try to pattern our lives, to model ourselves after God. And if God is true, then we should be true. So in order to have a relationship with God, in order to be close to God, truth is a very essential character trait to develop. Now in 1945, it was back a while after the Holocaust, when European Jewry was pretty much decimated, one of the great miracles of modern Jewish history is that we rebuilt. Just like we celebrated recently Lodba Omer that Rabbi Akiva, after he lost 24,000 students, he didn't give up. He went and rebuilt. Torah was rebuilt. And so the miracle of modern Jewish history is that after the Shoah, after the Holocaust, Torah and Jewish communities went to the task of rebuilding. One of the great success stories of this rebuilding is in Lakewood, New Jersey. Today, one of the great hubs of Torah learning, were of Aaron Cutler, built by Medrash Kavocha, the Harvard, if you will, of Jewish Torah academies. And it wasn't easy. And Rev Cutler was not just the Rosh Hashiva, the head of the Yashiva, spiritually, he was the major fundraiser. He had to raise the funds. And he decided to design stationery for this new Yashiva. And when the artist was designing the stationery, the artist noticed that there were tall trees that blocked the building of the Yashiva. And so when he rendered a picture, a drawing of the Yashiva, he airbrushed these trees out. And he inserted some shrubbery. And he touched up the lawn to make the lawn look like it was nicely manicured. When Rev Aaron Cutler saw this stationery, he refused to use it. He said it didn't look truthful. When Rev Aaron in his fundraising letters would report on the number of students in the Yashiva, he was meticulous to make sure that he knew exactly how many students there were. And if the number of students changed by even one student, from between the time the letter that he was sending out was typed, and he signed it, he would request that the letter be re-changed, that it be corrected. He wanted to make sure that the number was exact to the number of students in the school. It's not only virtuous to be truthful in our words and our behavior. Our sages tell us that we are to be truthful even with our thinking, with our thoughts. Every morning in our prayers we recite Psalm 15, where verse 2 says that the righteous person is someone who is Dover Emmet Bill Vavo, someone who speaks truthfulness from within their heart. What does this mean? So the Talmud gives an example. Traktate Mako 24 about Rev Safra, one of our great sages. Rev Safra had a donkey that he was selling, trying to sell a donkey. And a prospective buyer came in to purchase a donkey, and he was in the middle of reciting the Shema. And you're not supposed to interrupt while you're in the middle of saying the Shema. So this fellow comes in, and he makes an offer, and Rev Safra can't respond. He's in the middle of praying. The fellow didn't understand that the rabbi couldn't respond, because he was in the middle of praying. He thought the rabbi's silence meant that the rabbi was not accepting the offer. So the fellow says, okay, I'll give you 500. The rabbi remained silent, and this fellow kept on upping the offer. But then when Rev Safra finished saying Kriyachma, he turned to the fellow and said, you're going to be getting the donkey for your original price that you offered. Because that was the price I would have accepted. He certainly could have taken the guy for a ride. Because the guy at the end of the day was offering, let's say it was a thousand. And he originally offered a hundred. But Rev Safra would only accept a hundred. And we understand why truth and honesty is so important within Judaism. So clearly falsehood is viewed as particularly loathsome. The Talmud says in Tractate Sota 42a, that there are four groups of people who will not merit to receive the divine presence. Scaffers, flatterers, slanderers, and liars. Shakranim. Because it says in the book of Psalms, chapter 101 verse 7, he who practices deceit will not dwell within my house. That's what God says. The safer Ma'alot Amido says that someone who accustoms themselves to lying, it's as though they're refuting and denying the existence of God who is truth. Someone whose words and whose mouth is always expressing falsehood is literally with their mouth denying the reality of God who is the ultimate reality of truth. Proverbs chapter 12 verse 22 says that the lips that utter lies are an abomination to God. The Talmud in Tractate Sanhedrin 92a says Anyone who changes their words is slippery with their words. It's as if they worshipped idolatry. That's how insidious lying and falsehood is considered. The Talmud in Tractate Psalm 113b tells us God cannot stand those who say one thing while having completely different thoughts in their heart. So because falsehood is so negative and is seen as so evil, the Torah tells us to stay far away from falsehood. Exodus chapter 23 verse 7 from words of falsehood keep far away. And we have to understand there is nothing else in the Torah. There isn't any other negative behavior where the Torah tells us keep far away from it. The Torah doesn't say keep far away from non-Kosher food. It doesn't say keep far away from being arrogant. It doesn't say keep far away from eating on Yom Kippur. It doesn't say keep far away from anything except for falsehood. So obviously the Torah takes lying very seriously. Rabbeno Yonah in his classic work on ethics, the Shareh Chuva, lists nine categories of lying that range from lying in business dealings where obviously people can come to financial harm, all the way down to more innocent situations such as changing minor details when retelling an occurrence. Oh, I was attacked by 25 Indians. It was only 20. It's not good. It's very important to be very careful with what we refer to as small lies, those little innocent lies that we just simply overlook. Oh, I'll call you back as soon as I can. Now, if you're not going to do it, you're not telling the truth. But we often say it, it just slips off our tongue very easily. I'll call you back as soon as I can. I'll try my best to find out for you. Good chance we're not going to do it. One thing that really irks me and it bothers me because I know that I fail is I meet a lot of people and I'm often asked, please give my regards to your wife. And I know it's so easy to say sure, no problem. And I realize how often I'm just not going to remember later that day or the next day. And so I have to be careful if someone says, please give my regards to so-and-so, if I'm going to agree to do it, I've got to do it. I've got to be true to my word. Someone once asked, someone was once asked by the Chazanish. The Chazanish was one of the great Torah sages in Israel. He died in 1953. The Chazanish asked him to go and try and get a book from the library, from the Sifriah. He came back and he said to the Chazanish, I looked all over for the book and it wasn't there. The Chazanish says, no, what you should have said is I looked for the book and I couldn't find it. And the truth is a little while later one of the brothers-in-law of the Chazanish did find the book in the library. But the rabbis teach us we have to be extremely careful with our words. Now one of the most insidious forms of deception is what our sages refer to as geneva dat, stealing someone's mind. Basically, this involves creating a misleading impression to gain some personal benefit. For example, let's say you know that someone's going to be visiting Toronto and you press them to stay with you. You want to be the host. You want to have them over. And you keep on hocking them and nudging them. They should stay with you. You know full well they're not going to stay with you either because their kids live in Toronto or because you have three cats and they're allergic to cats. Whatever the reason is, you know they're not going to stay with you. But you're pressing them to stay with you. Why? Because your intention is that they're going to feel indebted to repay your so-called hospitality and do you a favor in return. The truth is that you're not hospitable because you know they're never going to come to your house. That's called genevas das, deceiving someone. Or if you have guests over and you try to give someone the impression that you're opening up a new bottle of wine just for them. And your intention was to open up this bottle of wine anyway. You weren't opening up this bottle of wine just for them. So if you give the impression that you're doing it to honor them when that wasn't your impression and your intention was that you want to get this person to be indebted to you, that's considered genevas das. Or Bechatku Levenstein who was the great Mashiach of the Panavitchesheva was once asked to give a eulogy for the dean of the Slavotka Yeshiva in Israel. And he wouldn't do it. He turned it down. He later explained the reason why. A few days earlier, one of his beloved grandchildren had passed away. And he said the following. He said, I was afraid that if I gave the eulogy, I'd be reminded of my own loss. And I would shed some tears. However, the people at the funeral would think I was crying because of the death of this great Torah scholar. And it wouldn't be true. And I couldn't put myself in a position where I might be giving a false impression. Now there were philosophers, great philosophers through history who taught that truth is an absolute value and that it is never permissible to bend the truth and to be less than truthful. For example, Immanuel Kant taught, he insisted that this was so even to the degree that if a would-be murderer asks to be shown where a person that he's pursuing is hiding, you've got to tell the truth. We say in Hebrew, adkede kach. That's how truthful you have to be according to these philosophers. They see honesty and truthfulness as an absolute moral imperative that cannot be bent at all for any reason. It is an absolute. Does Judaism have such a rigid view of the need to be absolutely honest? Now it's true, it's true that truth is a very important value. But the truth is there are other values that are also important. For example, that mission that we saw earlier this evening, Pirke Avot 118 included along with truth both justice and peace as foundations upon which the world depends. So the question is what happens when two of these values bump up against each other? What happens when there's a conflict between peace and truth? The Talmud in Yavamot 65b is a critical source. Listen very carefully. The Talmud says a person is allowed to alter the truth for the sake of peace. A person is allowed to mutar, allowed to alter the facts, alter the truth for the sake of peace. And the Talmud provides an example. Here's the example the Talmud gives. We know that when Joseph's brothers realized that their father had passed away, they were terrified that Joseph might still bear a grudge against them because the brothers had sold Joseph as a slave to Egypt. They also did many other things to him as a kid. But they were terrified that the brothers were terrified that Joseph still held a grudge against them even though years earlier Joseph forgave them. Joseph said, don't worry, I forgive you. But maybe they were afraid he's only being nice because our father's still alive. Maybe he's afraid of taking revenge when our father's still alive. But once Jacob passed away, the brothers were very scared that maybe Joseph's going to seek revenge. So the brother said to Joseph, your father commanded us before his death telling us to ask you to forgive the sin. Jacob never told them to do this. They were making this up. But the Talmud gives this as an example of basically telling a white lie for the sake of peace. This is the example the Talmud gives. The problem is that all we know from this example is that the Talmud says it's permissible. Meaning you can do it. But do we know that from God's point of view it's the preferable thing to do? Meaning that maybe if you do it, it's not the worst thing in the world. But how do we know that it may be the preferable option? So the Talmud here continues and goes on. Revan Nussan says it's actually not just permissible to alter the truth for the sake of peace. The Talmud Revan Nussan says it's a mitzvah. It's actually a mitzvah, it's a commandment to alter fact for the sake of peace. As it says, and now the Talmud gives another example. This is when God asked Samuel the prophet to anoint David as the king. Now Samuel was a bit afraid because Samuel knew that if the reigning king who was Saul, if Saul found out that he, Samuel, was coming to anoint David, Saul would probably kill Samuel. So he was afraid. How could I go and anoint David as the king? If Saul finds out, he's going to kill me. So God says to Samuel the prophet, take a calf and say that you're going to sacrifice this calf. Meaning don't say that you're coming to anoint David. Say you're coming for another purpose. So you see here that it's God that's giving Samuel the advice to not tell the entire truth. Meaning it could be that he was going to offer an animal. But that's not the only reason he was going. But God is telling him you don't have to tell the whole truth. Just say you're going to offer a sacrifice. But finally the Talmud continues to give the strongest proof possible, much stronger than the one we just gave, about the priority of peace over truth. From what God himself did, the Talmud says as follows, in the house of Rabbi Ishmael learned, peace is so important that even God himself altered the facts in order to achieve peace. When did this happen? So the Talmud story goes back to when Abraham and Sarah, who were very, very old and didn't have children, were promised, Sarah was promised by an angel, next year you're going to have a baby. Now here she's a very, very old woman and she is incredulous. She basically laughs and she says, what? She says, I'm basically all worn out. I'm all worn out already. How am I ever going to have pleasure of having a child? And my husband, he's an old man. That's what Sarah said. When God reports this incident to Abraham, God doesn't say to Abraham that Sarah's reaction was, Sarah felt it was never going to happen and she couldn't have a child because she said that you're an old man. God basically said to Abraham, Sarah was incredulous because she said, I'm so old. That's how God reported this story. God didn't want Abraham to hear that his wife thought he was an old geezer. So God basically either altered what she said or he basically didn't tell the whole story. You can't get a better proof than that. There's another famous passage in the Talmud that deals with this subject. It's from the tractate Kasubot 17A. The rabbis ask, when you're at a wedding and you're celebrating your dancing in front of the bride, what are you supposed to say as you're dancing in front of the bride? So the school of Shamai says, when you're dancing in front of the bride, you should praise her according to how she is. Describe her accurately how she is. Tosvos, the commentary says, pick out a good part of her, a good feature. Like you have very symmetrical earlobes. And that's what her praise is. That's what Beishamai said. Beishilal said, no. Beishilal said, when you're dancing in front of the bride, you sing kala noa kala khasuda. What a beautiful bride. What a righteous bride. So Beishamai was... They couldn't believe it. Beishamai said, how could you sing like that in front of the bride? What if it's not true? What if she's not of any beauty? She might be objectively not attractive. And doesn't the Torah tell us, keep far away from a falsehood? Beishamai says, the Torah itself warns us, keep far away from falsehood. So Beishilal, how can you praise her with words that are objectively not true? So Beishilal answers in a bit of a strange way. Beishilal says, look, if someone purchase something of poor quality, let's say your friend buys, I don't know, new shoes. And they're really disgusting. And if it's before they buy the shoes and they say, what do you think? You know what? Try something else. But they've bought the shoes already and they have a big smile. What do you think about my shoes? So Beishilal says, what are you going to tell them that it's disgusting looking? Maybe a better example is, your friend gives you a gift. They get you a nice gift. They think it's nice. And you think it's hideous. And they come to you and say, do you like the painting I got for you? So Beishilal is saying, what are you going to say? The painting is hideous? Or you'll say, it's very interesting looking. Or, you know, it has a good personality. So Beishilal says, look, you have to be able to give an appropriate response. And based upon this argument between Beishilal and Beishamai, the sages said that we see from this argument that a person therefore should always be concerned about the feelings of others and we should always try and live in harmony with other people. We've got to take that factor into consideration. And to be blunt and brutally honest all the time is just not Seicheldik. The rabbis discussed, for example, what should a doctor do with a terminally ill patient? Do you walk in and say, I'm sorry, Mr. Goldberg, you know, your time is up. You'll be finished by tomorrow. That's not what a doctor is supposed to do according to Judaism. A doctor should never say anything that will cause a patient to give up hope. The doctor can explain, look, you are very ill, but don't make it seem as if it's definitive and the hope is gone. So you don't have to be brutally honest and tell the exact truth all the time. There are sometimes mitigating circumstances that will say, you know what, use your intelligence and sometimes don't tell the entire truth. Bate Hillel basically believes here, the School of Hillel basically believes that if you do what Shamai says, if you focus on one of her good qualities, like you describe how she has very symmetrical eyes, what it does is it calls attention to her unflattering characteristics and it's basically an indirect way of insulting both the bride and her husband. So it's not a wise thing to say. We know that in Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, chapter 1, mission 12, it says we should be like the disciples of Aaron, Hakohane, Aaron the priest, who loved peace and pursued peace. Aaron loved peace and pursued peace and the rabbinic work called Avot the Ravnasan explains what did Aaron do in the pursuit of peace? It says that Aaron would tell white lies to people to make peace between those who were quarreling. So if Aaron knew that two people were having a fight and were quarreling, Aaron would go over to one of them and Aaron would sit with this fellow and Aaron would say, you know what? Your friend is so Tsabrachan. Your friend is so upset. He is so upset with the way he treated you. He feels so horrible. He doesn't even know how he's ever going to be able to apologize. And then Aaron would go to the other fellow and tell him the same thing. Oh, your friend, he's ripping his shirt apart. He can't even sit. He's so upset. He's so broken. And then these two people would meet thinking that the other one is so upset about the way they treated them. They would embrace and they'd make up and they would be at peace with each other. Now, warning. Don't try this at home because this could very easily backfire and you'll cause more harm than good because if they find out that the other one wasn't upset, not only will their quarrel be renewed and reinvigorated, both of them will hate you. So Aaron obviously had the smarts and the presence of mind to know when to try this. But what we learned from this teaching about Aaron was that he felt that in order to bring peace between people, you can bend the truth. Now, how do we know that peace has priority over truth? How do we know this? So if you go back to the creation of the world, the book of Genesis, when God was about to create human beings, the Bible says something a little bit peculiar. Everything else that God created, he did unilaterally. God said, let there be light. Let there be trees. Let there be bugs. Let there be animals. When it came to the human being, God said, let us make man. So the $64,000 question is, who is God speaking to? Let us make man. And one of the classical answers is that God consulted with the angels. And the rabbis teach us that God was actually giving us a very, very important ethical lesson here, that a superior shouldn't just make unilateral decisions and not consult their subordinates. The boss should take into consideration their subordinates. So God consults the angels before the creation of the human being. And the Midrash Barashid Rabbah 8.5 tells us that a huge debate broke out between the angels when they were thinking about whether or not man should be created. It wasn't simple. Rabbi Shimon said, when God was going to create man, the ministering angels argued about whether man should be created. And the Midrash quotes Psalm 85 verse 11, where the Psalm says, love and truth fought together, righteousness and peace contended with each other. What happened? Love, the angel of love said, create man. Let man be created. Because he'll do acts of love. But truth said, don't create human beings. They're full of lies. Human beings are full of lies. Righteousness said, no, create people. Why? Because people will do acts of righteousness. And peace came along. And peace said, no, don't create man because he's full of strife. People are always fighting. So you basically had a tie. Two angels are saying, create man. Two angels are saying, no, it's a big mistake. What do you do? How did God break the tie? So the Midrash says that God took truth and threw it down to the ground. Now there wasn't truth anymore in the equation. You had love and righteousness saying create man and you had peace. Only one angel left saying don't create man and peace lost. And the world and man was created. The Midrash goes on to say, the angel said to God, Master of the universe, why do you despise? Why do you treat improperly your seal? We learned before that the seal of God is truth. And what did God do? He took truth and he threw it to the ground. So the angels say, why do you treat truth so poorly? And God said, quoting the next verse in the book of Psalms, Psalm 85 verse 12, God quotes that Psalm and said, let truth arise from the earth. Now the obvious question here is that if God wanted to break the tie and if God wanted to make sure there were more angels advocating for the creation of man than angels that were opposing the creation of man, why did God take truth and throw it to the ground? God could have chosen peace and throw peace to the ground. That would have also broken the tie. And the commentaries point out it's to show that peace is of a more priority. Peace has more priority than truth and that truth can be altered for the sake of peace. Now some commentaries explain that another reason why it's permissible to keep, to bend the truth, to promote peace is because when the Bible told us in Exodus 23.7, Medvar Sheker Tirchak, keep far away from a false matter, that's not the entire verse in Exodus. The verse continues and don't kill an innocent person. So the verse in context is speaking about keeping far away from a falsehood when that falsehood is going to cause harm to someone. But the commentaries point out that in a situation where no harm is going to be caused and when you're bending the truth to help people, then it's certainly okay. Now it's very important to remember that the Talmud didn't say it's Mutur Lashakher Mipne Hashalom. Talmud never said it's permissible to lie for the sake of peace. All the Talmud said was Mutur Lashanot. You can actually just change the, alter the facts a little bit, meaning you can use a little bit of deception or not fully report something or change a little bit. You can use language which is ambiguous. Use language that can be understood in more than one way. Be obscure, be evasive. But the Talmud never says that it's okay just to lie straight out. For example, one of the things that Talmud says that people can be deceptive about is rabbis can distort how much they know in the interest of modesty and humility. For example, if a scholar is asked about the extent of their knowledge, someone asks him, do you know tractate yuvamot? A very difficult tractate. So he could actually say, no, I don't know it. He could actually just deny knowing it. Talmud says that for the sake of humility, you don't have to tell the truth. But the commentaries say it's far better once you're doing something to preserve your humility and modesty. Don't just say you don't know it. Say it in a way that can be understood in two ways or a way, say it in a way which is not clear. For example, the rabbi might say, throw the question back at the asker and even ask humorously, do I know yuvamot? Maybe yes, maybe no. Or the rabbi might say, you think I know yuvamot? Meaning that the rabbis teach us, this is such an important thing I want you to remember, that even when deception is permissible, we have to go to the extent possible to minimize the deceptive language that we use. Saffer Hasidim says, even when it's permissible to alter the truth, it's best not to because it has a negative impact on your soul. When you say anything that's not totally true, it really has a negative impact on your soul. And therefore this Saffer Hasidim urges us, if possible, just don't say anything. Change the subject, walk away, keep silent. Now if you have to, you have to. But there are many situations where you don't have to actually answer people or volunteer information. It's best to keep silent if possible. Many commentaries maintain that we should be especially careful when teaching children about honesty. For example, children should never tell who calls, my mommy is not home. The children should say, my mother is not available. Often that's what parents tell their children to say. Tell the person that called, I'm not home. The Talmud says, never teach your children to tell something that's not true. And even when, even when, changing the truth for a higher value might be permissible, children should not be encouraged to do this. Because number one, they may not be mature enough to always know what is a higher value. And number two, it gets them in the habit of speaking untruths. The Talmud in Yavamot 63A tells us sort of a funny and sad story. Rav had a wife that would always torment him. His wife always tortured him. And that would happen whenever he asked her to prepare beans for dinner, she prepared lentils. And if he ever asked her to prepare lentils for dinner, she'd prepare beans. He never got what he was hoping to get for dinner. Anyway, a lot of this communication took place through their son, Chia. He would ask his son, Chia, to ask your mom to prepare lentils. Chia finally caught on what's happening. So what Chia began doing was just switching his father's order. So if the father asked for lentils, he would tell his mother, Dad wants beans. And then she inadvertently served her husband the right food. So after a while, Rav said to his son, Chia, you know your mother is getting better. And Chia said, not really, I've been changing the orders. So at first, Rav was even a little bit impressed that his son came up with this clever idea. But Rav said to his son, Chia, don't continue to do this. Don't continue to switch the orders. And he quoted a verse in Jeremiah chapter 9, verse 4, which says you're training your tongue to speak falsehood. Because this is an ongoing thing. This is an ongoing thing with his wife. And he felt it would be very negative to his son's spiritual life to just routinely engage in deception. Just to wrap up and to conclude. The Talmud says, intractate sota, 49b, that prior to the coming of the messianic utopia, truth will be very hard to find. Ha-emet ne-aderet. It's going to be very rare commodity in the world, truth. And that's the world we're living in today. We're living today in the days prior to the coming of the Messiah. And there's tremendous amounts of falsehood in our world. Truth is very hard to find. The Talmud teaches us in Chagigah, tractate Chagigah 14a, that one of the causes, one of the causes of the destruction of our temple and the destruction of Jerusalem was the lack of honesty. A lack of honesty. And so rectifying this problem is one of the things that can help bring about the ghoul of the redemption. Our prophet, the holy prophet Saphanya in chapter 3 verse 13 says that one of the characteristics of the righteous remnant of Israel, Saphanya tells us is that they will tell no lies and there'll be no deceit on their tongues. Let's all hope and pray that the Almighty will help his people. God will help Israel become people of truth, people of honesty, so that the soon coming of the messianic utopia will be here very, very soon.