[Avodah] Keeping Well Away From Sheker

[Jay F. Shachter]

> 
> ... So this may be more related to His report to Avraham about why
> Sarah laughed than a usual case of midevar sheqer.
> 

Can people please stop misusing this example, once and for all?  I am
sick of the way liars always trot this one out, whenever they want to
justify one of their lies.  Here's what's wrong with it:

1. God didn't lie.  Genesis 18:12 tells us that Sarah laughed
   inwardly, to say "axarey blothiy haitha liy `edna, vadoniy zaqen".
   Clearly the Torah is reporting Sarah's thoughts, not her words --
   the only reasonable way to understand the verse is that, just as
   her laughter was inner laughter, not expressed out loud, so too
   were the words that accompanied it.  And the first words given were
   "axarey blothiy haitha liy `edna", before the "vadoniy zaqen".  In
   Genesis 18:13, God reports Sarah's thoughts to Avraham, reporting
   that Sarah thought, "I've gotten old".  The Torah tells us that
   Sarah thought, "I'm all used up and worn out", and God paraphrased
   that as "I've gotten old".  That's not a lie!  It's exactly what
   she thought, and it's the first thing she thought.  It's not a
   direct quote, but you can't quote thoughts directly anyway.  It is
   a correct statement of what Sarah thought, and it is contemptible
   of liars to be always trotting that one out, to justify their lies.

2. God does a lot of things that we're not allowed to do.  God sends
   earthquakes to Turkey that kill fifty thousand people.  He
   furnishes children with scarlet fever and ushers them into their
   teens deaf, dumb, and blind for life.  We all know about
   Deuteronomy 28:9 and its interpretation in midrash halakha (which
   is, parenthetically, not its pshat); but imitatio Dei does not mean
   that we're allowed to pick anything that God does, and do likewise.

So please put that one to rest, once and for all.


>
> .... Midevar sheqer tirchaq has loopholes for ... milaiyhu (saying
> you don't know something you do, for anavah), bepuriah (because
> tashmish hamitah is private) and be'ushpiza (to protect a host from
> being inundated).  (C.f. Yeavmos 63b, BM 23b-24a)
> 

Where do you find this brought down as halakha?  They are opinions in
the Talmud.  I can find you an opinion in the Talmud that we're
supposed to light eight candles on the first night of Xannukka.  I can
find you an opinion in the Talmud that no one nowadays is fit to
perform the mitzvah of tokhaxa.  We don't pasqn according to those
opinions.  Nor am I aware (and please correct me if I am mistaken)
of any place in our codes of law that permit us to lie about those
three things.  What I am aware of is a halakha in Xoshen Mishpat
262:21 that says that someone who does lie about those three things
can be believed when he says that he owns an object that you found.
So what?  That doesn't mean that you're allowed to lie about those
things, all it means is that so many people do lie about those things,
thinking that it's okay to do so, that you can't assume that someone
who does lie about those things is likely to lie about owning a lost
object.  There's also a halakha that someone who habitually wears
sha`atnez is believed when he or she says that he or she slaughtered
an animal correctly.  In fact, someone who habitually eats meat from
animals that were not correctly slaughtered, is believed when he or
she says that he or she slaughtered an animal correctly, you're just
obliged in that case to check the knife.  Those halakhoth don't mean
that wearing sha`atnez and eating nveloth are permissible acts;
they're halakhoth about whether someone who performs those
impermissible acts is believed regarding some different matter.


>
> ... bepuriah (because tashmish hamitah is private)
>

This is peripheral to your main point, but since you brought it up, I
believe (and please correct me if I am wrong) that you have the wrong
case.  The case is lying about having slept alone in a bed where a
seminal emission was found, because that's embarrassing.  The case
does not involve tashmish hammitta, as you incorrectly stated.  People
are not embarrassed when evidence is found that they engaged in lawful
marital relations between husband and wife, like a bloodstain from a
ruptured hymen, or if they forgot to put away their fur-lined handcuffs.
The emotion is tzni`uth, modesty, privacy.  It's no one else's
business; it's a thing that only goyim and proste yidden are
comfortable talking about in public; but it's not a thing about which
we are embarrassed.

This is more than a pedantic distinction (even though we are Jews and
we love pedantic distinctions), because it has implications in
halakha.  Every Rabbinic obligation and every Rabbinic prohibition is
waived in the face of embarrassment, but it is not waived in the face
of modesty.  Of course, the level of embarrassment has to be high
enough to trigger the rule, and "high enough" is, of course, not
anywhere defined; nevertheless the rule, and the distinction, exist.
I don't have an example that illustrates the distinction, but I'm sure
I could contrive one.

And as long as we're on the subject (and you are the one who brought
it up, not I), everyone is always talking about harxaqoth from gilluy
`arayoth, and every week they come up with a new one, even though the
Torah never uses r-x-q when talking about about gilluy `arayoth.  The
Torah says (Leviticus 18:6) "lo thiqrvu lgalloth `erva" -- don't do
it, and don't even come close to doing it -- but the Torah doesn't use
r-x-q to say that we have to actively run away from it, which is what
the Torah says about falsehood.  Instead of living in a society where
everyone is concerned about harxaqoth from gilluy `arayoth, and
every week they come up with a new one, I wish I lived in a society
where people were concerned about harxaqoth from falsehood.

               Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
               6424 North Whipple Street
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               When Martin Buber was a schoolboy, it must have been
               no fun at all playing tag with him during recess.