[Avodah] When is exaggeration proper and improper?

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

In an Areivim thread titled "Asifa - Lose Olam Haba", RMB wrote:

> Anyone who was firmly within the target audience
> realized it was guzma.

I don't read Areivim, nor did I attend the Asifa, but the context of this statement doesn't really matter too much. But it is a good opening to a question which has long bothered me. Namely: Do Chazal or Poskim discuss when guzma is appropriate, and when it is not?

Are they at all worried about people who will take their words too seriously? For example, if a recognized gadol attempts to dramatize how awful a certain act is, he might say that it is Yehareg v'Al Yaavor. My fear is that there may be some people who will take that as a psak halacha -- after all, he said it, right? -- and might actually allow themselves to die rather than do that terrible thing. Alternatively, the person might succumb to temptation, and then suffer much worse guilt pangs than are actually appropriate.

I have always been something of a literalist, and when I hear people saying things which are clear exaggerations, they tend to lose credibility in my eyes. But as I have matured, I have come to understand that guzma CAN be a legitimate rhetorical device, not unlike poetry, where the speaker can expect the audience (or most of the audience) to interpret the speech properly.

Where is that line between truth and guzma?  Once it gets blurred, to what extent can people be held responsible for their disbelief? If I am told, "The rabbi said that, but he did not really expect us to go that far," what will prevent me from applying it to *other* things that the rabbi said? And pretty soon, I might sincerely believe that Jewish "law" is not binding on all Jews, but only on the "target audience".

The sticking point, in my mind, is where to draw the line. I'd love to know whether -- and to what extent -- public speakers wrestle with this as they prepare their speeches.

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