[Avodah] Even veAven

[Simon Montagu]

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 9:51 AM, Eli Turkel <eliturkel at gmail.com> wrote:
> According to this story what could not lie and say a meeting was earlier
> than scheduled so the person would show up on time.

I thought of that story when I read LL's original message, but I don't
think the two cases are parallel: in the story Rav's wife wilfully
always made him the opposite of what he wanted, so their son was lying
to her so that his lie and her davkaness cancelled each other out.

People who are always late for appointments (in general) don't do it
in order to thwart the other person, but because they are just bad at
planning their time. By telling them an earlier time one is giving
them a safety margin, not deceiving them. One might even go further
and say that telling them the exact time is like a michshol lifnei
iver.