Cling to Emmes Uncompromisingly

רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר על שלשה דברים העולם עומד על הדין ועל האמת ועל השלום.

Rabbeinu Yonah comments here in Avos,

רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר על שלשה דברים העולם קיים על הדין שידונו דין אמת לאמיתו ועל האמת שיש לו לאדם ללכת בדרכי התשובה שהוא אמת ותורתו אמת והולך בדרכי הקדוש ברוך הוא אמת גם כן ילך באותו הדרך שנאמר והלכת בדרכיו ואמרו חז"ל שאפילו סיפור דברים בעלמא אין לו לאדם לשקר כההוא עובדא דבריה דרב אמר ליה מאי לא אמך אמר ליה אנא הוא דאפכנא לה אמר ליה היינו דאמרי אינשי דנפיק מינך טעמא ילף ואת לא תעביד משום שנאמר למדו לשונם דבר שקר.

Rabbeinu Yonah here identifies at least two distinct mechayvim for why a person has to cling to midas ha'emes in an uncompromising way. One is that it's mandated by the mitzvah of vehalachta bidrachav. Hakadosh baruch hu is emes. His Torah is emes. Everything about Hakadosh baruch hu is emes, is real, is true, is genuine, is authentic. And mimeila the mitzvah of vehalachta bidrachav is mechayev that we have to be real and authentic and emesdik in what we do, in what we say. That's one mechayev of emes. But then Rabbeinu Yonah quotes from the Gemara in Yevamos, which in turn quotes the pasuk in Yirmeyahu Hanavi, Yirmeyahu, of למדו לשונם דבר שקר. They trained themselves, literally they trained their tongue to speak falsehood. The Gemara tells a story that whatever Rav's wife used to be metza'er him. Whatever Rav would ask, she'd ask him what he wants for dinner and then she'd serve the opposite. If he'd say milchigs, she'd serve fleishigs. He'd say fleishigs, she'd serve milchigs. And then one day he made his request via his son as usual and much to his astonishment he got what he asked for. So he inquired, and his son told him, no, what happened was I told Mommy the opposite of what you said so then mimeila when she did reverse psychology, right, and then mimeila when she did the opposite of what I told her, so you got what you wanted. And basically Rav answers him, a gutta chochma, but you're not allowed to do that. You're not allowed to say that I said milchigs if in fact I said fleishigs because למדו לשונם דבר שקר. Rabbeinu Yonah explains what this behavioral yesod is,

כי האדם המרגיל לשונו לדבר שקר בדבר שאין בו לא הפסד ולא תועלת.

If a person allows himself to speak falsehood even if the subject matter is inconsequential,

יבוא לדבר גם כשיבוא לדבר דברים של עיקר לא יוכל לומר האמת.

If a person habitually is not makpid. 100% to every kutzo shel yud in terms of emes, even if that habit develops in inconsequential matters, the maiseh it carries over to and spills over to other areas including דברים העומדים ברומו של עולם. To sort of give a parallel phenomenon to help us understand this again behavioral yesod of the posuk in Yirmiyahu, the Gemara, of Rabbeinu Yonah, let’s say in the military the obedience that soldiers have to the commanding officers is absolute. You have to follow what the commanding officer says to the T. The respect that the soldiers have for the officers, again, is something which has to be evident at all times. Ken hamefaked, lo hamefaked, everything has to be... In addition, in the military, everything has to be done precisely. You make your bed, so your bed can’t have a wrinkle in it. Why, if your bed has a wrinkle in it, so that affects national security? If you don't greet your commanding officer with absolute respect, that affects national security? So the answer is yes, it actually does. If a person allows himself in inconsequential contexts to be imprecise when he’s in the military, so then that habit of imprecision can rachmana litzlan surface on the battlefield when hamoves vehachayim hang in the balance. If there isn’t this sense of total hachna’ah before the commanding officer, if it’s habitual to challenge the commanding officer, maybe to challenge him on דברים של מה בכך, on things which are inconsequential, so then maybe a person is going to hesitate for a split moment in carrying out an order in the midst of a battle rachmana litzlan, and that could make the difference between life and death. So military discipline is built on this yesod that habits which are developed even in inconsequential contexts will inevitably surface in consequential contexts. The Baalei Mussar emphasized this very much. They were very makpid on seder in how you put your shoes down. What’s the how is that a דבר עומד ברומו של עולם? It was the same yesod. Habits are become rooted in and shape character, and the character is present and will manifest itself in significant and consequential contexts and ways as well. And that’s what this yesod of למדו לשונם דבר שקר is. If a person’s not makpid on every kutzo shel yud in emes in every context. If if he doesn't hold himself to an uncompromising standard of emes, so then when it comes to consequential contexts, he just doesn't have that habit and discipline of precision, of hakpoda on emes. And then think of the military analogy: then the consequences can can really be very, very serious. Let's add perhaps one other perspective on emes. Dovid Hamelech says in Tehillim Kuf Tes, Sheker Soneisi Vaasa'eivah. I hate, I I hate falsehood. I find it something despicable. Torascha Ohavti. Literally, again, I love your Torah. Says the Malbim, the peshat in the pasuk is as follows: the pasuk is explaining cause and effect. Dovid Hamelech says, as we know earlier, Mah Ohavti Torasecha. I love your Torah. It's my passion, it's my raison d'être. It's a love that that knows no no boundaries. Kol Hayom Sichasi. Says the Malbim,

אחרי שתורתך אהבתי שהיא כולה אמת, משה אמת ותורתו אמת, צדקתך צדק לעולם ותורתך אמת. אחרי שתורתך אהבתי שהיא כולה אמת, אי אפשר עוד שאוהב את השקר.

Since I love your Torah, it's impossible that I should love sheker, because on the contrary, כי האוהב דבר ישנא המנגד לו. Right? That's intuitive. If a person genuinely loves goodness, he has to hate evil. If if I look in the mirror and I see that I can tolerate evil, so that's an indication that I don't love good, because the flip side of ahavah is is the ultimate rejection which comes in the form of hatred of its antithesis. If I genuinely love good, that entails a hatred of evil. And to the degree that I'm soveil ra—not that I do it, rachmana litzlan—but to even to the degree that that I tolerate it, even to the degree that it doesn't doesn't offend me, so then there's a self-revelation there for myself that I don't really love good. Emes and sheker are not measured. In terms of again, the commitment to emes, the love of emes, the rejection of sheker. In this context, there's no little emes and big emes. There's no different shades and different colors of sheker. If I love Torah, which is kula emes, and then sheker soneisi va'avaive, it means any sheker, any stiah min haemes, any divergence from emes is intolerable to someone who has ahavas haTorah. To repeat the same truth with a different emphasis, to cultivate ahavas Torah, authentic ahavas Torah, not a superficial ahavas Torah. I think they tell the story of the Satmar Rebbe, that one year Purim, so the Chassidim made a Purim shpiel. So they imitated him, and apparently one of the Chassidim did a very good imitation. And the Rebbe was sitting there crying. So people didn't know what to make of it; was he offended? He was offended that they were making fun of him on Purim, and obviously he was a groisse mentch, obviously he was far above that. And he said, when I saw—so they asked him for pishron shel devarim—and he said, when I saw how well you were able to imitate and how real, how much it resembled what I do, so it made me think that maybe I'm also acting the same way the one doing the shpiel was acting, acting in the shakleh, acting in how the divrei Torah given. So it can be presented that way and just as an act. So maybe that's all I'm doing. Maybe I'm acting also. We always need to know whether what we think is real is real, or maybe it's a very good act. Maybe we're imitating ourselves, imitating the selves that we want to be, but maybe aren't yet. That's a good question that we should ask ourselves on a regular basis. So let's say we pose that question in terms of ahavas Torah: I think I do, but maybe I'm acting. Maybe it's an act, maybe it's like the shpiel. So one be-zos tibacheinu, one be-zos nibachen is, am I emesdik outside of Torah, outside of learning? Am I emesdik? emesdik in little things. I don't know, does my message on my voicemail say, "I'll call you back as soon as possible," and if it does say that, do I really call back as soon as possible? When I go into a store and the proprietor tells me, "You know, well, if you pay cash, so then there's a different price," so do I go along with that? And even if I resist the temptation to go along with it, am I offended by that sheker? Well, no, so I don't. Do I, do I ever misrepresent things even when I tell myself that I'm doing it for the greater good? But in Yahadus the ends don't justify the means. If I do any of those things then, then I should cry doing the Purim shpiel like the Satmar Rebbe cried. Because that means that I'm, I'm imitating the self that I want to be, I'm not being that self. שקר שנאתי ואתעבה ושקר תועבה תורתך אהבתי. Dovid HaMelech had a genuine deep abiding love for Torah and mimmela he hated sheker in any form, in any size, in any color. If we want to be mevakshei Torah so we need to be makpid on emes in every context. Okay, if, if someone puts you into a time tunnel and, and you're sent back to Czarist Russia, she'eino hamin. So, if, if you're, if everything you're dealing with around you is, is shakronim, okay, so one has to find out what the rules of engagement are. But we, we don't, we don't live in, in that world, we don't live in that society and whatever the correct and legitimate rules of engagement were in that society aren't relevant, whatever exceptions were legitimate and, and warranted in that society, we're not living there, we're not living there. And if I'm not emestik, if I don't have this uncompromising commitment to emes which I don't look to consistently adhere to, it taints every Seder. It taints every Seder. And, and because of that there can never be a tradeoff. So I'll look the other way at the lack of emes because I'll get, I think, some spiritual dividend in return, my children will get some spiritual dividend in return. No, the lack of emes means that there's something inauthentic about my Torah. It taints my Torah because Torah is bakashas ha'emes. Torascha ahavti means I love emes. I love Torah, I love emes are equivalent expressions, they're equivalent commitments, they're equivalent credos. And there's no such thing as I can cut the corners, I can look the other way, I can accept a tradeoff. A person can't be eighty percent committed to emes. If I say something which is eighty percent accurate and twenty percent inaccurate, so then I didn't speak the truth. There's, there's no partial credit in truth. A person has to be kullo emes. And, and we have a capacity. It's not so, it's not so difficult. It's not so difficult. It just has to be a number one priority and and and it becomes the way we end up being mezalzel in emes is when we think that we should be prioritizing other things. First I have to ensure A, B, and C, and after doing that if I can be totally emesdig then I'll be totally emesdig. No, the lack of emes taints A, B, and C. So there is no A, B, and C before emes. So we need to understand that a commitment to be emesdik, to be honest in in all in all areas from what seem to us the most inconsequential to to the most consequential, a person needs that commitment to be emesdik and then then then then I can try to learn authentic Torah. Then I can try to cultivate a genuine ahavas Torah. א גוט שבת רבותי. Everyone should be well, be safe, beezras Hashem.