Death by Deception

Abstract

Death by Deception * Shai Cherry (bio) Judaism permits lying.1 To be precise, there is no blanket prohibition against lying in Rabbinic Judaism. The Torah offers several candidates for verses that inveigh against prevarication, including: "keep far from a lie" (Ex. 23:7) and "do not lie, one against his fellow" (Lev. 19:11).2 The Rabbis, in these instances, chose to read these commandments narrowly, focusing on the specific contexts and language of the verses. The former verse from Exodus is embedded in directions to the judiciary, while the latter verse from Leviticus specifies that the offense is against another person. Rabbinic Judaism, thus, forbids certain kinds of lies, particularly those involved in legal proceedings or slander, but abstains from demanding full and unvarnished truth in all circumstances. Given that the Rabbis were not unaccustomed to reading expansively, why did they choose to leave this loophole unclosed? Truth be told, at least according to the Babylonian Talmud, Shammai did try to read our injunction in Exodus broadly and institute a policy of nothing-but-the-truth, even to the bride on her wedding day.3 As usual, Shammai lost that dispute to Hillel, who championed the kindness of white lies. Perhaps it was the potential cruelty of Shammai's position that dissuaded a single Tanna or Amora from again reading that verse expansively.4 Alternatively, even without Shammai's indiscriminate truth telling, the Rabbis knew that domestic tranquility trumps the unvarnished truth. Just as [End Page 40] God manipulated the truth to spare Abraham's feelings, so too should God's creatures who are created in the divine image.5 The nothing-but-the-truth approach is problematic between friends and colleagues, as well as spouses. Daniel Goleman, a contemporary researcher in social psychology, describes how we are hardwired, as it were, to indulge in "lies of self-presentation: attempts to present ourselves as a little more kind, a little more sensitive, a little more intelligent, and a little more altruistic than in fact we are."6 Problems arise when one zealously disabuses another of her lies of self-presentation in the name of the nothing-but-the-truth approach, or perhaps from less ideologically pure motives. Since most of us are prone to avoid confrontation, and/or to avoid people who are confrontational, "we tacitly encourage one another's lies. . . . Social lies succeed as a lubricant only when received with tactful inattention."7 Although the Rabbinic tradition has no blanket prohibition on deception, the Rabbis did articulate a category of transgression specifically tailored to tactfully bring to our attention, through the halakhah, lies of self presentation: g'neivat da'at.8 Several years ago, the Orthodox Caucus ran a marketing campaign in which they translated this prohibition as "Thou Shall Not Create a False Impression." The issue, as we shall see, is not only about creating a false impression, but about creating a flattering impression.9 Moreover, there is a shift between the Rabbinic scope of this category and how it is later presented in the medieval codes. We turn now to two Rabbinic sources, the Mekhilta d'Rabbi Ishmael and the Talmud Bavli, where we find elucidations of g'neivat da'at. Mekhilta, Mishpatim 13 There are seven types of thieves. First, there are those who steal the minds of people. 1. One who urges his neighbor to be his guest when in his heart he is not so disposed; 2. one who multiplies gifts to his neighbor knowing they won't be accepted; 3. one who opens his wine casks when he has them sold to a merchant. [End Page 41] In the third-century halakhic midrash, Mekhilta, this comment appears as a gloss to the thief (ganav) described in Exodus 22:1. In this context, g'neivat da'at might best be translated as thought thievery. The issue in the Mekhilta is deception that generates a false and flattering impression of the deceiver. The Mekhilta offers three examples of thought theft. The first example is someone who is generous but inauthentically so. One extends an invitation, expecting it to be accepted, but doing so without sincerely wanting the neighbor to be one's guest. The...