Parshas Acharei Mos–Kedoshim - Caught in a Lie

Parshas Acharei Mos – Kedoshim

Caught in a Lie

By: Daniel Listhaus

“You shall not steal, and you shall not deny falsely, and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by My Name, thereby desecrating the Name of your G-d – I am Hashem.”

-Kedoshim 19:11-12

The first passuk (verse) of parshas Kedoshim begins, “Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying: Speak to the entire assembly of B'nei Yisroel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, Hashem your G-d, am Holy.”¹

Rashi² comments that this passuk teaches us that this part of the Torah was said b'hakhel – at a gathering of the entire B'nei Yisroel – because the majority of the essentials of the Torah depend on it.³ There is no doubt that this parsha indeed contains the most basic and fundamental parts of the Torah. After all, the Aseres Hadibros are present throughout the parsha in some way or another– some explicitly and some only hinted to. Additionally, the parsha contains the mitzva of v'ahavta l'rayacha ka'mocha (love your fellow as yourself)⁴ which is, as Hillel called it, “zeh klal gadol batorah – this is a tremendous fundamental in the Torah”⁵

Interestingly, a large part of the mitzvos in this vital list of “kedoshim tehiyu (you shall be Holy)” are mitzvos having to do with being honest and staying away from sheker (falsehood). In the aforementioned passuk, the Torah lists a series of warnings: “You shall not steal, and you shall not deny falsely, and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by My Name, thereby desecrating the Name of your G-d – I am Hashem.” Rashi⁶ comments that this juxtaposed series is no coincidence. In fact, the Torah is telling us a lesson in human behavior. Rashi writes as follows, “If you have stolen, your end will be to deny falsely; and then your end will be to lie; and then your end will be to swear falsely.”

There are two questions one could ask on this Rashi. First, what is the difference between denying falsely and lying? If one stole something and then denies doing so, that is itself a lie. So according to this succession of aveiros (sins) which Rashi is setting up, how is lying any different from denying falsely?

The second question one could ask on Rashi is that he seems to be taking this whole theory too far. The Mishear in Bava Metzia⁷ discusses a case where two people walk into Beis Din (Jewish court), each holding half of a tallis and are each claiming that it is entirely his own. The halacha that the Mishna states is that they split the tallis equally and then each swear that they do not own less than half.⁸ The Gemara⁹ then explains that the sh'vuah (oath) was instituted to address an issue which would arise without it. Imagine if the law would be that whatever two people come into court holding is automatically split in half between them. With such a law in place, what would stop people from approaching others and grabbing a part of whatever they please, dragging them to court, and then getting to keep half of it? In order to stop such a thing from possibly happening, this oath was instituted to essentially scare off dishonest people from taking advantage of the halacha.

We see from this Gemara that swearing falsely in Beis Din was no laughing matter. Taking a sh'vuah in Beis Din was something that even the biggest thief would think twice about. If so, how could our Rashi make such a confident inference from the passuk that one who steals will ultimately end up swearing falsely?

Perhaps we could come to understand the lesson that Rashi is teaching us by first understanding an area of human behavior. There are three phases which a person goes through when on route to do any action: before, during, and after. The “before stage” is when we anticipate what to expect with the experience we are about to undergo. The “during stage” is the stage of the experience itself, while the last stage is the “after stage”, which consists of our memories of the experience we had. These three stages are obvious and known to all, however their relationships with each other are things which are often not payed much attention to.

Imagine for a moment that you have decided to take the day off to go to an amusement park with a couple of friends. You arrive at the park at 10am and spend the day playing different games, going on various rides, and having a terrific time with your friends. Finally, at about 3pm, with only one hour left to spend at the park, you and your friends decide to take a break amongst the excitement. So, you sit down together for a late, but wonderful, picnic lunch. After lunch, you decide to go on the new super-duper-upside-down-roller-coaster. This starts off as a wonderful ride until you realize that your lunch is there as well, is not too happy with you at the moment, and will be waiting to take revenge the moment you get off the ride. Then, as you begin to get sicker and sicker, your strong-prescription glasses go flying off without any warning, and will just as much never be seen again as you will not be able to see for the rest of the day. You get off the roller-coaster and are forced to watch your friends go off and continue enjoying themselves, as you remain behind for the remaining hour of your stay sitting at a bench sick to you stomach, and barely able to see.

There is no doubt that this day will be remembered as one of the worst in your life. However, if you would stop to think about it, that would not be such an accurate analysis. After all, for five out of the six hours spent at the park, you had a great time. Nonetheless, non of those pleasures and fun moments will be recalled later because the memory of you being sick will kill your memory of experiencing the great time you had. In other words, peoples' experiences are tremendously effected on both sides of the actual event. The attitude which you take to anticipate an experience, will have a tremendous impact on the experience itself. However, to even a greater degree, the way we choose to remember an experience, will effect the way we remember it forever.

Our memory has an incredible influence over our experiences. Some times this could be good. As a matter of fact, the Orchos Tzadikkim¹⁰ writes about how great it is to forget and forgive people who have done bad things to you in the past. However, the power of memory is simultaneously extremely dangerous. The reason it is dangerous is because it is easy to manipulate.

The Orchos Tzadikkim¹¹ describes that when someone tells a lie, it generally falls into one of nine categories. One of these categories is when someone hears a story but when he says it over to others, he conveniently leaves some parts out, and adds other parts in to make the story more thrilling. People are wiling to do this even though there is no inherit benefit to be gained by either party. Yet, the Orchos Tzadikkim writes, one who accustoms himself to saying such lies will result in testifying falsely. If one becomes someone who allows sheker to take control of him, and allows his memories to be manipulated, he has breached the geder shel emes – the fence protecting his truths. This leads to actually believing one's own lies; and unless he does something to protect himself, he may easily become someone who testifies falsely about people – not necessarily because he means to do so, but because he is a person who is not careful with emes and therefore such outcomes enter the realm of possibility.

Rashi had told us that one who steals will eventually come to deny falsely; then will come to lie; and will ultimately end up swearing falsely. The Maskil L'Dovid¹² writes that the sequence goes as follows. Someone goes ahead and steals an item from someone else. Then, when asked if he took it, he will deny it defensively with a definite “no”. The next part of the time-line is coming up with lies. The thief starts thinking up a whole story about where he was at the time, what he was doing, and who else was there. He throws so many vivid details into his story that he himself starts confusing them with the real details of what happened. This person who is not careful with protecting his memory ultimately becomes worse than just a regular thief. He ends up as a denier and a liar who will get so caught up in his lies to the point that he will start believing it himself. Once he starts believing the lies that come out of his mouth, he will have no problem with swearing falsely. He will believe his own story to the extent that he will not be scared off by swearing – after all, he is swearing the truth.

We must make sure that we take control of our memories and keep them as accurate as we can in accordance with the experience we experienced. A memory is extremely important because it has the potential to recall the facts that we remember experiencing in the past. However, we must keep in mind the manipulative power that our memory could have, and be careful not to force information into our memories. Doing so opens up to disaster. Once we let our guard down and allow ourselves to manipulate our own memories, there is no end to the aveiros in sheker it could lead to. This is surely a fundamental of becoming kedoshim tehiyu.

1Vayikra 19:1

2Ibid.

3The Sifsei Chochomim asks: What is Rashi saying? The entire Torah was taught to the entire B'nei Yisroel from Moshe! He answers with two possible answers. Either that this parsha was said even in front of all the women and children (which was not necessarily the case by the entire Torah), or that this parsha was said in front of everyone at the same time as opposed to them learning it from Moshe in groups, as they did for other parts of the Torah.

4Vayikra 19:18

5Rashi Vayikra 19:18 brings this from the Toras Kohanim 19:45. The Sifsei Chochomim here adds that in fact Hillel said, “This mitzva encompasses the entire Torah. The rest is just its explanation.”

6Vayikra 19:11

7Bava Metzia 2a

8Bava Metzia 5b describes exactly why the sh'vuah (oath) must be made in this specific way.

9Bava Metzia 3a

10Sha'ar HaShich'cha

11Sha'ar HaSheker

12Vayikra 19:11-12