Distance From Falsehoods

 Parshat Mishpatim

by Rabbi Avi Billet

There is a passage in the Talmud Shavuos 30b-31a. which asks the question – how do we know…. (there are many fillings for that blank). And the answer, in each case, is מדבר שקר תרחק – because we are commanded to distance ourselves from falsehoods (23:7) 

 These are the questions the Gemara asks – and the answer is always the same (translation is from Sefaria, with a slight expansion to explain the words of the Talmud):

 • The Sages taught: From where is it derived that a judge should not engage in advocacy [saneigeron] for his own statements and devise various pretexts to justify his erroneous rulings?

 • And from where is it derived with regard to a judge that a student who is an ignoramus should not sit before him to discuss the proceedings?

 • From where is it derived that a judge who knows that another judge is a robber and is disqualified from serving as a judge; and likewise, a witness who knows that another witness is a robber and is disqualified from serving as a witness; from where is it derived that he should not join him in judgment or testimony?

 • From where is it derived that in a case where a judge who knows that the witnesses testifying before him are lying even though he is unable to prove it through their cross-examination and with regard to the verdict the result will be that it is fraudulent, that he should not say: Since the witnesses are testifying and I cannot prove their deceit, I will decide the case based on their testimony, and let (31a) the chain [kolar] of culpability for the miscarriage of justice be placed around the neck of the false witnesses?

 • From where is it derived with regard to a student who is sitting before his teacher and sees a claim that provides advantage for a poor person and disadvantage for a wealthy person that he shall not remain silent?

 • From where is it derived with regard to a student who sees his teacher who is erring in judgment that he shall not say: I will wait for my teacher until he concludes the trial and then I will contradict him and construct a ruling of my own so that the verdict will be attributed to my name?

 • From where is it derived with regard to a student whose teacher said to him: You know concerning me that even if one were to give me one hundred times one hundred dinars, I would not fabricate a claim. Now, I have one hundred dinars in the possession of so-and-so, to whom I lent money, but I have only one witness of the two required to testify about the loan and enable me to collect payment; from where is it derived that the student shall not join with the other witness and testify?

 • Rather, the reference is to a case where the teacher said to him: It is certain that I have one witness, and you come and stand there beside him and do not say anything, as in that manner you do not express a lie from your mouth. Your silent presence will create the impression that I have two witnesses and lead the debtor to admit his debt. Even so, it is prohibited to do this…

 • There are three halakhot with regard to a creditor: From where is it derived with regard to one who is seeking repayment from another of a debt of one hundred dinars, and there are no witnesses to that effect, that he shall not say: I will claim that he owes me two hundred dinars so that he will admit that he owes me one hundred dinars, and he will become liable to take an oath to me, the oath of one who admits to part of a claim, and on that basis I will extend the oath and compel him to take an oath with regard to a debt that he owes me from another place?

 • From where is it derived with regard to one who is seeking repayment from another of a debt of one hundred dinars and claims that the debtor owes him two hundred dinars, that the debtor shall not say: I will completely deny his claim in court, and I will admit to him outside court so that I will not become liable to take an oath to him and he will not extend the oath and compel me to take an oath with regard to a debt that I owe him from another place?

 • From where is it derived with regard to three who are seeking repayment from one individual for a total of one hundred dinars, that one of the three should not assume the role of a sole litigant and claim one hundred dinars, and the other two will assume the role of witnesses so that they will exact payment of one hundred dinars from the debtor and divide it among them?

 • There are three halakhot with regard to a judge: From where is it derived with regard to two individuals who came to judgment, one dressed in rags and one dressed in a garment worth one hundred times one hundred dinars, that the judges say to the wealthy person: Dress like the poor person or dress the poor person in a garment like yours?

 • From where is it derived that a judge should not hear the statement of one litigant before the other litigant comes to court?

 • From where is it derived that a litigant shall not explain the rationale behind his statements to the judge before the other litigant comes to court? 

 The questions speak for themselves. Distancing from falsehood is clearly an important value in the character or the life of an observant Jew. 

 The Midrash and some commentaries expand upon this with other examples of what is being instructed with the distancing from falsehood. 

 Midrash Aggadah: This refers to sexual perversions, which of course can destroy the lives of all those involved. 

 

 Other Midrashim and virtually all commentators pick examples from the Talmudic passage noted above to illustrate their interpretations of this phrase. 

 B’chor Shor utilizes the verse at the beginning of the chapter (23:1 “Not to bear or accept a false report” as reminder to distance oneself from those who speak falsehoods, and those who are talebearers. As a result, one will fulfill the rest of the verse, which is to avoid killing (whether literally or metaphorically) the innocent and righteous. Seforno invokes Avos 1:9 to make the same point. Hanging around those who tell and spread falsehoods is only destructive to a society.

 HaKtav V’Hakabbalah writes that the verse doesn’t say “Don’t speak falsehoods.” That should be obvious. The point the Torah is emphasizing is to run away from falsehood! One must be able to discern that a perspective which is untrue is only destructive – and so one must go the other way to avoid getting sucked into it.

 R Yaakov Kaminetsky shared the story of the town Kushta (which means “Truth”) in which no one ever told a lie. And once when someone told a white lie about his wife not being home, when he was merely protecting her because her hair was uncovered, his two sons died on account of his lie. (Sanhedrin 97a) While some stories are meant to be taken at face value, one can certainly wonder about this particular story. In a way it sounds like Mark Twain’s story “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” in which the pretense that everyone in town is a truthteller and above board in their honesty is exposed by a man who sees through these “holier than thou” people to prove that their sacred truths are built on a pack of lies. 

 Our takeaway is twofold. On a local scale, it is time for what I’ll simply call the pool conversations to come to an end. We who do not have the full picture of any situation need to stop talking about our neighbors, need to find a way past the taking of sides, and need to help those who are having difficulty with our neighbors find a path through to a place of balanced equilibrium. There are few values greater than Shalom in our own ranks. And if we don’t have that, why would God give us Shalom from the outside. 

 On the more global scale, there is a war going on in the realm of media, propaganda, and truth. Everyone can lay claim to their own version of truth. But the truth about the Jewish people, versus the enemies of the Jewish people, is that at our core we value everyone’s life. We don’t have fondness for our enemies, but were they to leave us alone, we would leave them alone. Not so our enemies, who may claim to value life, but in truth celebrate as much death and carnage as they can create and unleash. 

 Who beheads Christians in the Congo (do a Google search to see the media is silent about this atrocity!)? Who is in the middle of a civil war in Syria and Yemen – in which hundreds of thousands have died? Who commits terror attacks in almost every land around the globe, taking advantage of the tolerance of a civil society to unleash their own aims to destroy those societies that grant freedoms? Who has incited the worst levels of anti-Semitism in the UK and in the US in the last 100 years? The biggest liars of them all, those who claim “peace” and who claim the Jews control the world, while they celebrate “holy war” and are infiltrating every society that doesn’t share their values in order to upend and slowly takeover those societies so they can control the world. 

 

 Those who don’t agree with this cancerous ideology have to wake up to see how the lies are spreading. As the verse says, if we don’t distance from lies, the innocent and the righteous suffer. We need look no further than the release of every hostage – particularly the live ones, but even the dead ones, to see how lies are winning and the world is suffering.

 מדבר שקר תרחק – so there can be peace amongst the ranks of civil human beings who have learned to tolerate differences and who wish to live in peace with one another, without forcing one way on everyone else.