By Rabbi Dovid Markel
This week’s parsha expresses the prohibition against lying. The Torah states (Shemos, 23:17): “Distance yourself from a false matter.” In the directive against falsehood, the Torah urges the individual not only to be honest, but to be far from falsehood.
Indeed, the Mishna (Avot, 1:18) exclaims, that truth is one of the very pillars that the world stands upon.
The Hebrew word for truth, emes (אמת), is made up of the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet (א), the middle letter (מ) and the last letter (ת). This expresses that truth is only something that is never changing, from the beginning until the very end. Truth does not only mean not to lie, but that our entire identity should be true, through and through.
It is for this reason that a great chossid of ninety years old once exclaimed (Sefer HaSichos, 5702, pg. 84): “Master of the Universe! I lied to you for ninety years. Give me at least one day where I am truthful!”
He did not, G-d forbid, intend to say that his service of G-d was ingenuous, but that if it was not completely for G-d, and there was some ulterior motive, it was, in a sense, completely false.
The Talmud (Shabbos, 55a) exclaims, “The seal of the Holy One, blessed be He, is truth.” Chassidus explains, that the reason for this is, since in reality, “There is nothing besides Him.” The feeling of personal existence and ego is the greatest possible lie that there can be. The more that an individual is self-aware, he is all the less in touch with the truth that there is none besides G-d.
Ultimately then, the statement, “Distance yourself from a false matter,” is that man should be completely permeated with the cognizance of G-d.
The critical goal of man is to transform this world, which is called “a world of lies,” to the point that, as the prophet (Isaiah, 11:9) states: “The land shall be full of knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea bed.”
May we merit to do this, through every day coming closer to the truth that there is really nothing besides G-d!
