Were you ever in a situation where you honestly felt the correct thing to do was lie? Were you ever asked your opinion on something that you knew your honest opinion would offend the inquirer? What would you do if, G-d forbid, your wife or mother cooked a special dish that she believed would be something to talk about for years to come, and you did not like it? Would you tell her that she should write a cookbook around the recipe, or do you take the chance of offending her and being brutally honest? (Author’s note: My last point is strictly theoretical, I cannot relate on a personal level).
Is there ever a time where the right thing to do is lie? If a person does lie for the purpose of avoiding pain to another, is that considered a distortion of the truth? Where does one draw the line between being a liar, and a person who promotes peace?
In this week’s Torah portion (Toldos) Jacob (identified by the Sages as the man of truth) at the behest of his mother, tricked his father Isaac into believing that he was his older brother Esau, in order to receive the special blessing. When Isaac discovered that Jacob deceived him, he did not offer a single word of rebuke towards Jacob. In fact, it seems from the text that Isaac ultimately concurred with the actions of Jacob. Can it be that the Patriarchs of the Jewish nation condoned deception?
We must conclude that the word truth does not necessarily mean an exact description of what has occurred. Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler explains that the Jewish perception of truth is defined by what is the will of G-d in that particular moment. Sometimes the truth (G-d’s will) may demand a white lie in order to save a person from mental anguish or to minimize the potential for an argument. From the fact that Isaac was not upset with Jacob indicates that he ultimately understood that Jacob’s actions were a fulfillment of G-d’s will.
I thought a lot about this concept when I saw previews for the game show ‘Moment of Truth.’ I never actually watched the show, but if you aren’t familiar with it, basically someone is connected to a lie detector and asked a question. If they answer honestly they win some money…and this continues until either they win the jackpot, walk away or answer dishonestly. I was utterly disgusted by the previews I saw for this show. As they progress in the show the questions become more personal such as have you ever thought about your husband’s best friend in an intimate way (and other more vulgar versions). Questions, in short, in which lying would seem apparent to be the right thing to do. Putting the fact aside that people are hurting others with their answers to win money and on top of that putting their personal lives on stage for the world to see, I began to think about what truth really is. I came to my own conclusion that there is a difference between facts and truth. Yes, facts are always true, but truth does not always lie in facts…and may, in fact, distort or hide the truth. Take the question asked above to a married woman. Maybe the fact is that her husband’s best friend is a very handsome and attractive man she did think of him in an inappropriate way once. But the truth is that she loves her husband, finds her husband more handsome and attractive and would never dream of acting on the inappropriate thought. By telling him that she had this thought one time she is not telling him the truth, but rather stating a fact. By stating that fact she is making it much more difficult for her husband to see the truth. Therefore, ironically, sometimes to see the truth and to allow others to see it as well, we must lie. Although this is a rather extreme example instigated by the questions on this show, I think that it can be applied to less extreme examples as well. We just need to be careful not to use this facts vs. truth idea to justify lying.
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