[Avodah] Keeping Well Away From Sheker - And Another Thing

[Zev Sero]

On 5/2/23 18:12, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
> It is also important to consider WHY the boss wants his other workers to 
> proclaim their support

His motives are irrelevant.

But now you have moved the goalposts.  If the employees don't really 
trust their employer and don't really have confidence that whatever he 
says is true, then of course it would be sheker for them to say they do. 
  It might be a permitted form of sheker, in order to preserve their 
good relations with him, but it would be sheker.

Your original scenario did not suggest any such thing.  The presumption 
in your original scenario was that they honestly do trust him; if so, 
there's no reason in the world why they should not say so.  There is not 
even a slight smidgen of sheker in that.  So long as they don't say or 
imply that they have personal knowledge confirming his allegations 
against their colleague, they are telling 100% emes, and are as far away 
from sheker as it is possible to be.

The fact that it will harm their colleague and make his case harder to 
argue should not be their concern at all; they have no more duty to him 
than to the employer.  Since they do trust him, they presumably agree 
that justice is on his side, so not only are they practicing emes they 
are also promoting tzedek.  But even in pursuit of tzedek they must not 
pretend to have personal knowledge that they don't.

-- 
Zev Sero            “Were we directed from Washington when to sow
zev at sero.name       and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”
		    –Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821.