Weekly Daf
Shavuos 28-34 -- Issue #85
Week of 25 Elul 5755-2 Tishrei 5756 / 20-26 Sept. 1995
Rav Weinbach's insights, explanations and comments for the
7 pages of Talmud studied in the course of the worldwide Daf Yomi cycleTwo Lines of Lying
It is not sufficient to avoid telling an outright lie. The Torah (Shmos 23:7) insists that "you must distance yourself from falsehood." What are the examples of outright lying and only keeping a safe distance?
| A teacher tells his disciple: "You know that
I would never lie even if they gave me a
fortune of a hundred weights of silver.
Reuven owes me some money and I only have one
witness to testify in my behalf. I want you
to testify as a second witness based on your
confidence in me that I am telling the
truth."
If the disciple testifies as requested he is guilty of an outright lie and has transgressed the Torah prohibition against bearing false witness. |
A teacher tells his disciple: "I have
only one witness to prove my claim.
All I ask of you is to stand next to
him in court so that Reuven will assume
that you are also a witness and he will
be intimidated into admitting his
guilt."
If the disciple does as requested, even though he has not uttered one word of untruth, he is guilty of not distancing himself from falsehood. |
Case of the Cane
A case come before the Sage Rava in which the borrower claimed
he had paid the creditor his entire debt and Rava instructed him
to take an oath to verify his claim. Unknown to the court the
borrower put the contested sum of money into a hollow cane which
he used to support himself. When the time came to swear he asked
the creditor to hold his cane for him while he took a Sefer
Torah in his arms for the purpose of taking an oath. The
creditor became so incensed to hear him brazenly swear that he
had given him the money in question that he angrily smashed the
cane. As the money came pouring out it became clear to the court
that this had been a clever subterfuge to lie about repayment
without actually swearing falsely, because he had indeed given
the creditor the contested sum of money.
In truth, however, he was guilty of taking a false oath. When
the court orders a litigant to take an oath he is specifically
informed that the oath is in accordance with the court's understanding
and not what he is thinking at the moment of oath-taking.
Shavuos 29a
General Editor: Rabbi Moshe Newman
Production Design: Lev Seltzer
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