The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Anyone spending all or most of the day in synagogue on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, will have noticed how often the word emet (“truth”) and its derivatives crop up in the extensive liturgy that addresses the issues of confession, repentance and the quest for forgiveness. In short we are to acknowledge the truth of who we are and what we have done, to strip away the sheker(“falsity”) that can so easily insinuate its way into playing a major part in our lives, and to stand before God as our true selves with the sincere aspiration that we will seek to do better, to be better, in the year ahead.

Emet plays a key role in Pirkei Avot. It is one of the three qualities upon which the continuation of civilised life depends (1:18). Acknowledgement of the truth, however inconvenient it may be, is one of the seven signs of a wise person (5:9); setting oneself on the path of truth is listed as one of the 48 steps to acquiring Torah (6:6).

While the Yom Kippur liturgy contrasts emet and sheker, Pirkei Avot makes no mention of sheker at all. This is unsurprising if we remember that Avot is not a philosophical tract on the nature of abstract concepts but a set of practical guidelines for moral Jewish decision-making. Thus, while truth and peace are both shortlisted as values upon which the world’s survival depends, a mishnah in the first perek (1:12) advocates following the path of Aaron in loving peace and pursuing peace. Aaron famously accomplishes this path midrashically by falsely telling each of two adversaries that the other was sad to be in dispute and wanted to make peace.

If truth is accepted as a relative value rather than an absolute, we can accommodate the concept of the partial or incomplete truth, when words that are spoken are literally true but do not tell the whole story. But how far can not-quite-truth be acceptable? There is a countertrend towards promoting the absolute value of truth. This can be seen in the Sefer Chasidim, where Rabbi Yehudah HaChasid disapproves of the practice of improving even a true story by embellishing it—even if the story has didactic value which is enhanced by the embellishment. It can also be seen in the Chafetz Chaim’s important work on lashon hara (improperly telling tales of others, whether true or false). This work covers much of the same ground as Rabbeinu Yonah’s Sha’are Teshuvah, but effectively converting what were previously regarded as middot(discretionary canons of behaviour) into mitzvot (binding commandments).

A related area of truth and falsehood is that of midrashic teachings, many of which are fanciful and, in real-world terms, impossible. Are they emet because the message they convey is true, or sheker because they did not happen, could not happen or clash factually with other midrashim on the same subject? Here the range of opinions is wide, spanning those who accept as a matter of faith that all midrashim are true and those who discount their veracity—however plausible they may be—on the ground that they are midrashim. Many people adopt the position that many midrashim are literally false but metaphorically true, and that the metaphorical truth trumps the literal falsehood. However, this convenient solution is not, so far as I am aware, flagged by their authors except where the tales are described as mashalim (“parables”), such as Rabbi Akiva’s famous citation of a dialogue between a cunning fox and some remarkably self-aware fish (Berachot 61b).

This leaves us on Yom Kippur with a difficult decision: do we repent telling an untruth or half-truth because we have lied and thus introduced more sheker into the world? Or do we decide not to repent, even if by doing so we are effectively judging our own actions and pre-empting the decision of the heavenly court? Readers of this post now have a year to decide before Yom Kippur comes around again.