Are we liars? Most of us will say we are not. We aspire to be truth tellers. But aspirations are different than behaviors. There is an old Hungarian Jewish saying that defines Antisemites: “Antisemites are those that hate Jews more than usual.” Can we say something similar about liars? Liars are those who lie more than usual, those who lie habitually, or perhaps those who do so without remorse. While we aspire to tell the truth, there are all kinds of reasons why we don’t. And all sorts of excuses we make in order for those reasons to seem plausible. That doesn’t make us liars. It makes us aspiring truth tellers who periodically lie. Liars are those who lie more than usual.
Below I examine what happens to the lies of the truth teller, the lies that haunt the truth we aspire to uphold. The lies we tell may be lies of the truth teller, but those lies do not disappear. The fact that they are viewed as truth, by us and those we tell them to, make them even more precarious and, perhaps, more damaging.
I used to daven (pray) regularly in a small Hasidic shul (synagogue) in Boro Park Brooklyn. The shul was near the house where I was living with five other young baalei teshuva (newly religious) like myself. The rabbi was a gentle soul, tall and statuesque. He lived in a small apartment one flight up with his family where he used to invite us occasionally for Shabbat meals.
One unremarkable afternoon after the repetition of the silent prayer we were saying tahanun (supplication prayers) that include, according to Hasidic custom, the confession that begins “ashamu, bagadnu, gazalnu…” (“we are guilty, we have transgressed, we have stolen”) lightly beating our chests as we were taught. The rabbi walked up to my friend from behind and whispered in his ear, “Come on, Mordecai, you never really stole anything.” It was a confusing moment. The rabbi was a pleasant yet serious man not known for frivolity. He never mentioned the incident again and we never worked up the courage to confront him. In our youthful pious fervor we were easily drawn to every small detail of what we heard and what we did. Were we really guilty of the things we were confessing? Were we telling the truth?
Not surprisingly, he didn’t whisper, “Come on, Mordecai, you never really lied.” The reason is obvious. Of course Mordecai lied. We all lie in all kinds of ways (yes, I like your brisket; sure, you look good in that dress; I really enjoyed reading your essay!). We all exaggerate, stretch or bend the truth, or lie by omission. Such ways of speaking have become requisite for our participation in social life, a cultural etiquette of deception. People who say what they think no matter what are considered insufficiently socialized, maladroit. So while we confess “we have lied,” as if to say “and we will lie no more,” we are, in some way, already lying. Such a confession is a type of lie unless, of course, we don’t really mean it when we say it. Then it might be the truth.
When I taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary in NYC I used to attend the morning minyan in the main sanctuary there. The back window looks out onto the 1/9 train as it ascends from underground to travel above ground through Harlem. I used to put my tefillin (phylacteries) on in that spot overlooking the brick wall where the train comes over ground, setting them on the ledge of the window. One day as I was tying my tefillin around my arm I happened to notice some graffiti on the stone wall surrounding the tracks. The graffiti was a simple five word phrase, “the truth is a lie.” Well, I thought as I adjusted my tefillin, that’s a humbling thing to think about as one wears words of Torah on one’s arm and head. For a number of years I made sure that I put my tefillin on in that very spot so I could be reminded of those words, “the truth is a lie.” As one who trained rabbis in a tradition that regularly declares, “Moshe is truth and his Torah is truth,” it was a welcome if somewhat painful reminder for me, at the very least, enough to break any spell of comfort or certainty on my part.
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