Here lies the truth

There’s a Jewish catechism that runs along the following lines:

Do I have to tell the truth?

Yes.

Why do I have to tell the truth?

Because there is a Torah commandment to avoid falsehood (Shemot 23:7: “midvar sheker tirchak”).

Are we taught a reason for this?

Yes.

What is that reason?

According to the oral Torah (Avot 1:18, per Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel), truth is one of the three things that keeps the world running smoothly.

What are the other things that keep the world running smoothly?

Peace and justice.

Are truth, peace and justice equally important?

No. Peace is most important because both truth and justice must be sacrificed if peace is to prevail.

So I don’t have to tell the truth when it is conflict with peace or justice?

Yes—or is it no?

A good summary of the position can be found in Seymour Rossel’s book on Avot for children, When a Jew Seeks Wisdom: the Sayings of the Fathers:

“Sometimes, the Rabbis said, even when we think that we are right in an argument, we should give in. As long as the argument is not an important one, peace is more important than being right. And very often hatred grows because we are too stubborn. It is better for us to bend a little than to cause disunity and separation”.

This is reflected in various ways: the untruths uttered by Aharon in aggadic literature which led to the making of peace between enemies (see commentaries on Avot 1:12); permitting the telling of a lie in order to save a life, and complimenting a bride on her wedding day.

Truth also gives way to justice. How so? The procedural rules governing the hearing of a din Torah prevent a witness from giving evidence, however true it may be, in the event that he is ineligible to testify or his evidence is not corroborated by another witness.

So truth is capped by the need to make peace and by the need to demonstrate that justice is both done and seen to be done. But not everyone agrees that truth should be suppressed. There is a respectable school of opinion that maintains that every lie increases the damaging values of falsehood in the world. This position has far-reaching consequences: it means, for example, that a true narrative should not be embellished by the addition of extra material in order to enhance its educational or aesthetic value.

According to R’ David Segal (the Taz), in his commentary on the Torah (quoted in MiMa’ayonot Netzach on Avot), falsehoods should not emanate from a person’s mouth even for the sake of peace. He cites the episode in the Torah in which Yaakov leads his father Yitzchak to believe that he, Yaakov, is in fact Eisav by speaking (at Bereshit 27:19) words that were ambiguous, knowing which way Yitzchak would understand them: אָנֹכִי עֵשָׂו בְּכֹרֶךָ (ani Eisav bechorecha, which can be taken as either “I am Eisav your firstborn” or “It’s me. Eisav is your firstborn”). So, says, the Taz, if you can’t tell the whole truth, speak words that can be construed as the truth.

This is a lofty and principled ideal, though it may require great presence of mind to live up to it. When an enraged axeman comes running after your friend, points ahead and asks: “did he go that way?” one’s natural instinct is to say “yes” if he didn’t or “no” if he did—and it’s not easy to buy time in which to think up an ambiguous answer that will satisfy the demands of truth while achieving the results of a falsehood. The masters—or should it be mistresses—of this art were the priestesses who ran the Delphic Oracle in Pythia and whose ambiguous responses to vital questions form a significant and highly entertaining role in Ancient Greek history and mythology.

In secular society we find an endorsement of the Taz in the notion of being “economical with the truth”, i.e. just telling as much of the truth without giving the whole picture. My favourite example, which may well be apocryphal, is the story told of King Edward VII who, when still only Prince of Wales, was presented with a crate of Welsh whisky by his loyal and admiring subjects. On sampling the beverage, His Royal Highness was unimpressed and determined not to let another drop pass his lips. However, he thanked the gift-givers and assured them of his gratitude, adding: “I shall always keep a crate of Welsh whisky in my cellar”.

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Getting someone else's reward

Avot 5:3 is a sort of sequel to the mishnah preceding it (discussed on Avot Today here). Both describe God as being slow to anger, waiting for ten generations before responding to the continuing decline in human behaviour:

There were ten generations from Noah to Abraham, to let it be known how slow God is to anger—because all these generations increasingly angered Him until Abraham came and received the reward of them all.

This mishnah raises many questions, of which one of the most obvious is that of How could Abraham -- or anyone else, for that matter -- receive someone else’s reward?

If we accept that God is good and just and that He would not withhold a reward from anyone who has earned it, we should be able to assume that everyone who lived between the time of the Flood and the death of Abraham did indeed receive a reward or recompense from God for their good deeds, and that Abraham did not receive anything to which he was not personally entitled. Can we accept this is is so and still explain Abraham’s apparently undeserved good fortune in receiving "the reward of them all"? Here are some possible answers:

• Abraham did so many good deeds that he accomplished what it would have been appropriate for all ten generations to have done. It was on this basis that they were all saved in his merit, since he took upon himself the yoke of all the mitzvot in this World. That is why he received a commensurate reward in the World to Come (per Rabbi Ovadyah MiBartenura).
• Since Abraham taught members of his generation to serve God and to keep away from bad deeds, he is associated with their reward “as if he had received it,” and he also received the reward that was appropriate for his own deeds (per Rabbi Menachem Meiri). This explanation distinguishes Abraham from Noah, who was neither a teacher nor a role model: his good qualities did not spread beyond his wife Na’amah and his sons Shem and Japheth.
• The reward Abraham received was one which anyone in any of the earlier generations could have secured for themselves—the reward of being named as the leading Forefather, the Patriarch of what was to become God’s Chosen People. Shem/Malchitzedek nearly secured the same reward several generations before Abraham, but lost the opportunity after he gave a blessing to Abraham before blessing God (Nedarim 32b).
• The names “Noah” and “Abraham” do not refer to Noah and Abraham but are shorthand terms for the generations in which they lived. Thus when we learn that “Abraham” received the rewards of “them all,” we can take it that the generation of Abraham—in which several righteous people lived in addition to Abraham himself—received the aggregate of all the generational bonus rewards that had yet to be conferred (I have yet to find any authoritative source for this explanation).

I suspect that many readers have thought about this themselves and may have reached their own conclusions as to what this mishnah means. Anyone who wishes to share their thoughts on this issue is very welcome to do so.

Truth, justice and peace: which is the "odd man out"?

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel teaches (at Avot 1:18) that the world is sustained by three things -- truth, justice and peace. Which is the odd one out? 

My initial thought was that there was only one "odd man out", and that was peace. Take litigation, for example. When a legal dispute goes to court, the plaintiff and defendant both believe that they are in the right, or they wouldn’t go to the trouble of engaging in court proceedings. However, they know that there can only be one outcome. This outcome can be reached in one of two ways: either the court will rule in favour of one and against the other, or they will agree to settle their differences before the court gives its decision. Either way, one starts with two perspectives as to what is true, which give rise to diverse perceptions of what is justice (“mine” and “yours,” as it were). The dispute concludes with just one result, which both sides have to accept.

With peace, however, we have a different concept. There are not “two peaces”, since peace by definition only begins at the point where there are no opposing positions to synthesize. If what is called “peace” is not universally accepted by those affected by it, it is not true peace.

It occurred to me this morning that there is another possible answer: it is justice that is the odd one out. Truth is vulnerable to distortion and denial (we can infer from Avot 5:9 that it is of no use unless it is acknowledged) and therefore needs to be protected. God is described in Psalms as the eternal guardian of truth (Tehillim 146:6). Peace must also be guarded, hence the term "mishmeret shalom" ("guardianship of peace") that is recited in the text of the Grace After Meals and the congregational response to the blessing of the Kohanim. I am not however aware of any corresponding description of any protection or guardianship for justice. Have I missed anything, and does the fact that truth and peace need to be protected, while justice apparently does not, have any repercussions for our understanding of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel's teaching?