“To Tell The Truth”

Kol Nidre 5765 (2004)

We all know the old joke: Why do Jews always answer a question with question? The answer is, “Why not?” Well, there’s another answer, and that is that questions lead us to wisdom, to understanding, to truth. If we want to know something, we have to ask questions. In particular, if we want to learn about ourselves we have to ask some very personal questions.

Sometimes, we ask these questions spontaneously. At a certain point in our lives—for some it’s early in life, for others it may not come until our twilight years—we find ourselves asking ourselves, “Where am I? What’s my life all about?” These are good questions. Our society values people who seem to know what they’re doing, who seem to be well directed, who seem to have worked everything out. In contrast, the Jewish tradition values these kinds of questions. They can lead us to re-think our lives, to alter well-laid plans. In order for them to do that, though, it is necessary to answer them openly and honestly.

The very first question in the Bible wasn’t handled that way. The very first question in the Bible was answered with evasion.

After Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, after being told not to, God comes down to the Garden of Eden and asks Adam, “Ayeka? Where are you?”

Where, indeed, was Adam? He was not in a very good place. He had violated the one rule God had given him. And now God was coming to pay him a visit.

Unfortunately, Adam doesn’t answer the question very well. Adam could have answered the question, “Ayeka?”—“Where are you?” with the answer, “Hineini”—“Here I am!” but instead, he replies, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” (Gen. 3:9-10) Hmm. Needless to say, that’s hardly a direct answer to the question, “Where are you?” It’s also somewhat deceptive. Was Adam really afraid because he was naked? Or was he afraid because he had disobeyed, and he was concerned about the consequences that might follow from confessing what he had done?

One thing is clear: In the presence of God, Adam was afraid. And his fear prevented him from being fully open and honest with God.

We can sympathize with Adam, can’t we? How often do we ask ourselves, “Where are we?” And how honestly do we answer that question? How willing are we to admit—to ourselves, much less to others—where we are at in our lives?

That human beings have a tendency to deceive was known even before Adam ate that fruit.

There’s a wonderful midrash that dramatizes the moment when God decided to create human beings. The Biblical text tells us that God said, “Na’aseh adam”—“Let us make a human being.” The Midrash asks [Bereshit Rabbah 8:5]: What does this mean? For God to say, ‘Let us make a human being,’ must mean that he consulted with others. And who might those be? Obviously, the ministering angels, the “malachei ha-sharet.”

The story goes that these angels were fiercely divided. Some believed it would be a good idea for God to create human beings. The angel called “Love,” for example, said, “Let him be created, because he will perform acts of lovingkindness.” The angel called “Righteousness” agreed. It said, “Let him be created, because he will do righteous deeds.”

The angel called Truth disagreed. “No,” he said. “Let him not be created, she-kulo sheker—he’s just going to lie all the time! He’ll be deceptive, he’ll be dishonest. All of him will be falsehood.”

Deception, then, is part of human nature. Many of us, if we hadn’t realized it previously, came to understand this when we saw Jim Carrey in the well-known movie, “Liar, Liar.” Jim Carrey plays a lawyer who, because he has disappointed his son one too many times, is forced to tell only the truth for twenty-four hours. A panhandler asks Carrey’s character if he can spare any change, and he responds, “Absolutely!” At a partnership committee meeting at his law firm, he’s asked what he thinks of the senior partner. Unable to censor himself, he calls him a “pedantic, pontificating, pretentious” so-and-so. Even if that role had been played by a less manic actor, the film would have been worth seeing. It reminds us how extraordinary it is to hear someone speak only the truth—even for just one full day.

On the other hand, we know how deception can poison life and destroy reality. About six years ago, a distinguished American ambassador died and was buried with full pomp and ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. This individual was entitled to the honor because he had a long and distinguished resume. He was a war veteran. He had almost lost his life at sea when his ship had been hit by a torpedo. Shortly after the funeral, a gravestone was erected which paid tribute to the man and to his contributions to our nation.

Then, a few months later, word got out that the deceased had misrepresented himself. An investigation revealed that, although he had stated on many occasions that he had served in the Merchant Marine during World War II and had been wounded during his service, in fact he had been in Chicago during those years. Before long, his body was exhumed and quietly reburied in a private cemetery in California.

The message of that story was powerfully conveyed by two pictures in the paper: one was of the beautiful granite gravestone at Arlington, engraved with one lie after another—taken a day earlier. The other picture showed the area of the grave as it appeared on the day of the article. The stone had been removed and sod had already been placed upon the grave so that you couldn’t tell that it had ever been used. One official commented sadly that, ironically, the man had done a good job as an ambassador. “He [hadn’t needed] to invent parts of his past in order to be respected in the present,” he said. His family lamented the fact that the man would “be remembered more for the lies he told than the things he did.” Deception had erased his honor and, in a sense, his life as well. [New York Times, Friday, December 12, 1997, A1]

The damage that deception can bring doesn’t just begin after one’s death. Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, a medieval Jewish scholar who wrote the ethical treatise entitled, “Mesillat Yesharim,” “The Path of the Just,” considered lying to be an illness, and he diagnosed three distinct manifestations.

First, there are those who make it their business to tell lies. They go about inventing stories without any foundation in truth, in order to have material for gossip, or in order to impress other people.

Then there are those who don’t “go around inventing stories and manufacturing incidents which never occurred, but, when they give an account of something, they embellish it with falsehoods as their fancy strikes them.” This becomes so much of a habit with them that it becomes part of their nature.

Finally, there are those “whose illness,” according to Luzzato, “is milder than that of the first two types.” “The members of this third group, while not in the habit of telling lies, are not scrupulous to avoid them, and if the occasion arises, they may, not necessarily with any evil intent, tell an untruth.” We can see ourselves in one or another of these categories. This is hardly a rare illness.

How easy it is to slip into mild deceptions, especially when they don’t seem to harm anyone. But mild ones can escalate into larger falsehoods. And before we know it, however inadvertently, we may start deceiving ourselves.

The Torah teaches us that every day we have an affirmative duty “midvar sheker tirkhak”—to distance ourselves from anything false. (Exodus 23:7) That’s a noble goal, but, given our natures, it’s easier said than done.

That’s what Yom Kippur is for. The full name of Yom Kippur is Yom Ha-Kippurim. Within the Hasidic tradition, this is understood to be a play on words: Yom Kippur is a Yom k’Purim—a day just like Purim. How so? Just like in the Book of Esther, in which, at the climax of the story the heroine unmasks herself and reveals who she is, with marvelously redemptive consequences, today we seek to become conscious of the masks we usually wear and we seek the courage to reveal our true natures to ourselves and those around us. As the Kotzker Rebbe once addressed his flock: “I see masks before me! Where are your faces?” This day is designed to help us strip away all pretense and to face the facts of our lives with courage and determination.

“Hanistarot la-shem elokeinu, v’haniglot lanu u’lvaneinu ad olam.”

The hidden things belong to God; the revealed things are for us and our children forever. (Deuteronomy 29:28).

Only if we reveal the concealed, if we admit the truth as we know it in our hearts, can we learn from it and grow from it. Only the revealed can be the basis for teshuvah, for redirecting our lives. That’s why Rambam, Maimonides, tells us that the essence of teshuvah (repentance) is vidui peh (verbal acknowledgment). We have to verbalize in order fully to reveal.

As difficult as it is, Yom Kippur is here to help us ask ourselves the tough questions:

What’s my life really all about?

What are my priorities?

How well—or how badly—am I treating those around me?

Who have I ignored lately?

With whom have I been phony?

What kind of a relationship do I have with my children, or with my parents? What can I do to improve those relationships?

Whatever happened to that pure, sincere, kind-hearted soul I knew I once had? Where is that soul? Why is it hidden?

These are not easy questions to ask.

I mentioned to someone that I was going to be giving a sermon on truth telling. “Gee,” he asked, “Are there any exceptions?”

It isn’t easy to be fully honest. As the rabbis teach us:

The letters that form the word emet (truth) are far apart (alef is at the beginning of the alphabet, mem is in the middle, and the letter tav comes at the end of the alphabet) while the letters that form the word sheker, (falsehood) closely follow one another, in order to suggest that it is difficult to act in truth, while falsehood is as close as one’s ear.

(Yalkut, Bereshit 3, based on B.Shabbat 104a)

That midrash I quoted earlier about the angels continues. We’re told that the elder Rav Huna of Tsipori said that while the ministering angels were disagreeing and fighting with one another concerning whether or not it would be a good thing for God to create human beings, the Holy One went ahead and created Adam anyhow and then said, “What are you fighting about? Ne-esah adam! Human beings have already been created!”

God went ahead and created us, even though he knew how difficult it would be for us to be fully honest. How could this be? Only because, even before he created human beings, he had already, according to rabbinic tradition, created teshuvah; he’d already created the means by which we could overcome our nature through introspection, reflection, and resolution. Only if he had faith that we could and would strive for truth.

In our tradition, we associate absolute truth with God. And when do we do so most strikingly? When we witness a death. That’s when we say a brachah, we say a blessing, in which we refer to God as Dayan Ha-Emet—the Judge of Truth. It is when we die that, according to our tradition, the full record of our lives will lie open and revealed before God.

We don’t have to wait until then.

Let’s not wait even until tomorrow to ask ourselves the questions we know we should. Let’s ask them today. Let’s not wait for God to ask us, “Ayeka?” “Where are you?” Let’s ask ourselves that question. Let’s do it today. And then let’s take the time, during this long and contemplative day free from our usual distractions, to answer it fully and honestly.

May this day inspire us to live lives of truth and integrity. May it inspire us to live up to the best expectations of those contentious angels present at our creation. May we strive to be men and women of peace, righteousness, love ... and also truth.

Amen.