Judaism discovered

Deceit and Dissimulation in Judaism, Part II

Judaism is a palimpsest of disinformation and deceit; the world's black hole of trickery. Anyone who approaches the subject without that awareness is going to be terminally misled. As the neo-cons' delirious bash-the-Muslims hate-fest escalates on talk radio and the establishment media fuel the Crescent-burners by characterizing Islam as hateful, suppressive and mind-controlling, Judaism —which is all of those things— has generally been protected from exposure and denunciation.

Overt Forms of Deception

Lying to the gentiles is an axiom. Lying to each other is part of a rabbinic story-telling tradition that cannot distinguish between fact and fantasy: the tradition of telling made-up stories on the pretext that this fiction engenders "yirat shamyim" ("reverence or fear of God"). The rabbis rule that "if the teacher is telling stories which are not true, but is doing so leshem shamyim, so long as he doesn't make a habit out of it, there is a place to be lenient in this matter, however, one should try to minimize this." ⁷⁰⁰

Judaism is permeated by a culture of dishonesty and deceit. Researchers have puzzled over the alternate birth dates given for the rosh yeshiva Rabbi Abraham Aaron Price who was born in Stashev, Poland on Dec. 10 in either 1897 or 1900. The puzzle is solved when one recalls that, "It was common practice then to register a son's birth falsely in order to avoid later conscription into the Tsarist army. Either a 16-year old was rejected as a weakling when he posed as an 18-year old for the draft, or the notification of a son's birth was delayed until he could be registered as a twin with his next sibling. Exemption was granted to twins because of a belief that they were weaker." ⁷⁰¹

The Talmud at Bezah 20a cites a passage that relates that Hillel the famous "wise" Pharisee lied to prevent a debate within the Temple. This lying by Hillel is presented in a positive light, on behalf of a good cause. Lies are often attributed to Biblical patriarchs such as Aaron and Job. An example of lying on the prextext of a good cause is found in Avot d'Rabbi Natan 12:3

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(also cf. Yalkut Shimoni on Hukat), "the Rabbis attribute to Aaron a lie which was uttered to restore peace in a situation where there was a pre-existing problem." The Gemara at Babylonian Talmud tractate Baba Batra 16a, on no evidence, and with the wild fantasy that is typical of the rabbinic traditions, calumniates Job by attributing to him lying and stealing "and presents such actions in a positive light." Raba expounded: What is meant by the verse, "The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy⁵ (Job 29:13). 'The blessing of him...came upon me.' — this shows that Job used to rob orphans of a field and improve it and then restore it to them." The Talmud goes on to say that Job told lies to the public about various widows for the sake of finding them a mate.

The Mishah, in Nedarim 27b, rules that "one may falsely vow to robbers and publicans." ⁷⁰² Lying to robbers might be understandable, but lying to a whole generic category of "publicans" establishes a benchmark for "permissible dissimulation." In attempting to explain Judaism's penchant for lying, Judaic scholar Ari Zivotofsky states that truthfulness is not an absolute imperative in Judaism, and that while the "value of truth permeates the fabric of Judaism...there are other ethical imperatives which are, in fact, often side by side with truth...The problems arise when two or more of these principles come into conflict...As is often the case with a legal/philosophical issue, the black and white answer is not to be found..."⁷⁰³

According to Zivotofsky, "avoiding great embarrassment or financial loss at the hands of the unscrupulous may be legitimate motives for lying. The Talmudic sages were serious about lying in order to recover (or keep) property from illegitimate hands" (Yoma 83b). "The Gemara seems to give room for even outright lies and deception. In a case where a woman was under obligation to marry her husband's unworthy brother in a Levirate marriage, the rabbis, to save her and all her money, ordered the levir to permit her to be freed from her bond to him (halizah) on the condition that she pay him some money: 'After (the levir) had submitted to halizah at her hand, (Abaya the sage) said to her, 'Go and give him (the stipulated sum).' Rabbi Papa (her brother-in-law) replied, 'She was merely fooling him' ...From this is evident that the one can say to the other (to deceive the unworthy), T

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was merely fooling you;' so here also (the woman may say), 'I was merely fooling you.' (Yevamot 106A).

"A mishnah in B.M. 75b gives the upper hand to an employer who wishes to defraud his workers: 'If a man engages artisans...and they (the workers) break their engagement, if it is a place where no others are available at the same wage, he may hire (workers) against them or deceive them. The Gemara (B.M. 76b), in elaborating on this mishnah, explains: 'How does he deceive them? He says to them: 'I have promised you a sela (a coin), come and receive two,' and after they complete their work he may give them only one sela originally promised.' This Gemara is cited in the Shulchan Aruch as the halakha' (Hoshen Mishpat 333:5)."⁷⁰⁴

Permission for lying is also granted in BT Nedarim 62b; also cf. Yoreh De'ah 157:3.

"The Gemara gives three instances where rabbinic scholars (and presumably others as well) are permitted to lie, and it does not detract from their credibility." ⁷⁰⁵ According to Rashi, a rabbinic scholar may lie 1) in matters involving a Talmud tractate; 2) in sexual matters; and 3) a guest may lie about those who have hosted the guest in their homes, by reporting that mistreatment by the host was worse than it actually was.

A number of pretexts are given for why it is permissible to lie in these three cases, the principal one being the most far-fetched: for the sake of kavod ha'briot (to avoid hurting the feelings of other people). Another claim, this one given in the Tosafot by the rabbinic authorities who succeeded Rashi, contradicts the kavod ha'briot rationale. In the Tosafot it is claimed, "where the questioner is an unscrupulous person, there is no need to give him the correct answer."

The lie about the guest's treatment by the host in case no. 3 involves a more convoluted web of deceit. This case establishes a precedent for injuring the reputation of another based on a falsehood. How can any religion justify such injustice? The justification proffered is as clever as the most crafty lawyer's stratagem: the guest lies about the hospitality of the host "so his hosts will not be overburdened with guests." The legal point conveyed is not intended to hinge literally on a situation in which one is a guest in the home

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of another, but rather to emphasize the right to lie when necessary, if a sufficiently clever pretext for the lie can be invented. The clever pretext protects the dignity of the liar. This is the authentic meaning of kavod ha'briot. The liar can be exonerated if his lie is put forth with an airtight alibi for its necessity. In this instance, the host is libeled for his own good. To contest the intention is to become entangled in the threads of a spider's web. The very act of mounting a defense may represent more aggravation than the libel itself, similar to why the pursuit of a lawsuit in the US courts is sometimes avoided, because of the complexity and cost to the wronged party who is seeking justice by this means.

We observe that Judaism does not just fool the goyim. It fools itself as well, or rather its adherents. Yoreh De'ah 344:1 rules that at the funeral of a Judaic, the good attributes of the deceased should be mentioned and then added to a little. It is explained that this is not a lie, but rather an extension of the known actions of the deceased which we can assume to be true as well. (Shulchan Aruch 334:5; also Shakh, s.k.4). This small dose of dishonesty (what Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz calls a "white lie") is dismissed with a lawyer's argument: that it represents merely extending or stretching the truth, rather than any sort of dishonesty. Steinsaltz, the head of the Sanhedrin, says, "...in general it is permissible to tell a white lie..." ⁷⁰⁶

Where the rabbinic permission to lie clashes with Biblical injunctions to tell the truth, the Biblical injunctions are always discarded in favor of the rabbinic ruling. BT Ketubot 17a considers when it is ethical to lie, citing the case of praising a bride who is lame or otherwise defective. As in the case of the host and the guest, the particular situation is not the central focus of the instruction, but rather the underlying lesson is the suitability of telling lies where circumstances arise that require them, even if such lies violate the law of God. Here the law of the Talmudic rabbis take precedence over the Bible. This is expressed in blatant terms in BT Ketubot 17a: "We treat every bride as if she is beautiful, and sing before her, 'A beautiful and graceful bride/ Bet Shammai said to Bet Hillel: How do we act in a case where the bride is lame or blind? Do we sing of her as: 'A beautiful and graceful bride'? But surely we cannot act in this way, because the Torah forbids us to lie, as the verse (Exodus 23:7) states: 'Keep far from a false matter'!

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"Bet Hillel said to Bet Shammai in reply: According to your argument, if a person makes a bad purchase in the marketplace, should someone who sees him after the purchase praise it to him or criticize it to him? Clearly even you would agree that he should praise it to him, rather than distress the buyer unnecessarily by pointing out the unfortunate truth. Similarly, if you pointedly avoid referring to a bride's defects, you will remind her of them and cause the couple distress. In such cases it is better to praise the bride greatly."

Permission to lie is also granted in BT Yevamot 65b "in the interests of peace," a category so broad it is capable of serving as an alibi for countless situations in which scoundrels wish to conjure excuses for their falsehoods. In addition to lying for the sake of "peace," one may also lie as a common courtesy: "...there are things about which anyone, including a Torah scholar, may tell untruths for reasons of common courtesy..." ⁷⁰⁷

"Rabbis are liable to alter their words, and the accuracy of their statements is not to be relied upon"

— The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition, Vol. II, pp. 48-49

All of these excuses for lying end up infiltrating the very marrow of Judaism itself, so that for example, when the Babylonian Talmud in Bava Metzia 23b is about to give rabbis permission to lie, it precedes the permission with the statement: "A rabbi always tells the truth." No doubt this statement is made as a "common courtesy." The tangled web they weave gets more tangled:

"In the following three matters alone rabbis are liable to alter their words, and the accuracy of their statements is not to be relied upon...A Rabbinic scholar is permitted to speak untruthfully about which tractate he is learning, so as to avoid being questioned on particular subject...If a Torah scholar was absent from the House of Study because he was with his wife (for purposes of sexual intercourse) and had to immerse himself in a ritual bath afterwards, and therefore could not come to the House of Study on time, it would not be fitting for him to give the real reason, and he is permitted to invent some other explanation..." The third instance, an expansion of the

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host/guest case, as elaborated by Maimonides in Hilkhot Gezelah Va'Avedah 14:13, permits the Talmud scholar to lie about the identity of his host, "... the scholar is permitted to claim that he had lodged with a person other than his real host." ⁷⁰⁸

The Three Permissible Categories of Lying

The rabbis of the Talmud must tell themselves lies, too. A religion that has lying so deeply ingrained in it signifies that in many instances its adherents are so accustomed to lying, even to themselves, that they cannot distinguish the truth even when it is staring them in the face. To cover up the obvious negative ethical implications of granting permission to lie about one's scholarship, one's sex acts and the actions and identity of one's host, the Talmud places these lies in the context of the return of a lost object: "If we know that the Rabbinic scholar claiming a lost article does not alter the truth except in these three matters, while in all other matters he scrupulously avoids uttering a falsehood, we return the lost object to him if he claims to recognize it by sight alone, without recourse to formal means of identification." ⁷⁰⁹

Here the rabbis are making an appearance of imposing a stringency upon the act of lying. Lying is supposedly limited to just three permissible categories: scholarship, sexuality and hospitality. Any lie told beyond those categories renders the rabbinic scholar untrustworthy. We witness here a clever maneuver; the tangled web becomes ever more entangled. The first anomaly the keen observer will notice is that the three categories, and in particular the first, are so broad they can be used as justification for telling lies in hundreds of sub-categories. For example, under the heading of scholarship, one can lie in the course of one's teaching and writing; as well as about knowledge, information and data, including that huge compendium of data known as the Talmud. The sub-rosa point the rabbis of the Talmud are making to the astute student of the Talmud, is this: we too are lying to you (for a good cause), since the Talmud itself falls under one of the three permissible categories of prevarication, the category of scholarship.

Sexuality falls under the sub-categories of marriage, adultery, fornication, molestation, predation and seduction, sodomy, abortion and

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contraception, to name but a few. To say that a rabbi can be trusted and will be considered honest if he only lies within the confines of these three categories, while in everything else "he scrupulously avoids uttering a falsehood," is a mockery. We know it is a mockery because the many other categories of rabbinically permissible lying have not been mentioned.

Two Additional Categories of Permissible Lying

There are more than three varieties of permissible lies. There are at least two more. There is also the permission to lie to a gentile (Baba Kamma 113a) and to lie for the sake of "peace" (Yevamot 65b). We now have not three, but five classifications of permissible lying; headings so broad that a rationale for thousands of lies in hundreds of different situations can easily be envisioned. The notion of this lying being circumscribed in some manner or confined only to three categories, is itself a lie and an enormous one at that, indicating the extent to which lying is second nature in Judaism.

Tedious word games and absurd semantics are employed to justify lies, as in BT Bekhorot 36a, wherein Rabbi Yehoshua (also spelled, for example in the Soncino edition, Rabbi Joshua), lied about an answer he had already given to an inquirer. When confronted with his lie, he replied: "How shall I act? If indeed I were alive and he were dead, the living can contradict the dead. But since both he and I are alive, how can the living contradict the living?" ⁷¹° It gets worse. According to the Tosafot, in Rabbi Yehoshua's (Joshua's) final statement on the subject, he says that "he indeed intended to lie, but is now unable to, since there is a witness to his previous statement who is there to testify." ^7U

Rabbi Yehoshua b. Hananiah tells a permissible lie in BT Eruvin 53b. Meanwhile BT Sanhedrin 11a features "virtuous" lying by Rabbi Gamliel for the sake of saving face for a distinguished personage, in this case that of a rabbi, Shmuel HaKatan, a member of the Sanhedrin, who is present — or is he? This first portion of Sanhedrin 11a turns on the feigned misidentification of a rabbi as part of the lie that had to be told to save him from embarrassment. We have two gross deceptions foisted in the name of sparing a colleague shame in just the first opening passage of this section: Gamliel

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pretends he did not specify which members of the judges of the Sanhedrin to invite, and then plays along with the masquerade of the uninvited rabbi who pretends to be Shmuel HaKatan: "The eighth, uninvited judge was not really Shmuel HaKatan, but another man among them."

Now the question arises, was Shmuel HaKatan impersonated by the uninvited judge because he was so prestigious that a breach in protocol falsely attributed to him would be dismissed without any diminution of his honor, or was it done in order to score a point against him by a rival? The answer depends on knowing the curriculum vitae of Rabbi Shmuel HaKatan: "...because of his great piety and modesty he was chosen to compose the blessing about heretics, actually a curse against heretics and informers that is included in the Shmoneh Esreh prayer to this day." ⁷¹² HaKatan is too great a figure to be diminished in this situation, hence the false invocation of his name acted as a safe harbor for the uninvited rabbi.

This tedious recital, reminiscent of almost any courtroom in America when the judge and the various lawyers are batting procedural minutiae back and forth like a ragged tennis ball, is raised here to establish the all-important diversionary nature of the Talmud lesson being imparted, to wit: permissible dissimulation. To impart this lesson without making it too obvious, the duplicity is embedded within an engaging tale of mistaken identity, with all the ramifications thereof. As the focus shifts from the deceit itself to the personalities and circumstances that surround it, the lesson is then imparted by a kind of osmosis that we often encounter in the pages of the Gemara as part of its hermeneutic of concealment.

Proceeding further into BT Sanhedrin 11a, the authorized deceit in a second case we encounter is almost whimsical in its seemingly quaint antagonism: someone is stinking up the yeshiva with his halitosis. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi orders the offender, whomever he may be, to leave the room, and the saintly Rabbi Hiyya pretends he is the one with the offending garlic breath and makes his exit, selflessly taking the blame for the bad odor. This is of interest, in that, of all the cases of rabbinic lying that we have surveyed thus far, this is the first case which, when taken exclusively on its own merits, seems fairly harmless, perhaps even genuinely noble. But as is frequently the case in the rabbinic world, appearances can be deceiving.

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Rabbi Hiyya's humble assumption of responsibility for the bad breath is not a stand-alone incident. This case immediately follows the masquerade about Shmuel HaKatan and the uninvited Sanhedrin member, and should be considered in that context. In other words, as window dressing for it, to soften the harsh lesson of the necessity of lying, by linking it to a lovable rabbi's willingness to mortify himself to protect a fellow rabbi, thus adding to the ethical murkiness.

BT Sanhedrin 11a concludes with one more inter-connected account of a "virtuous" deception. Here the masquerade descends to the realm of the sexual. Unlike the cute story about the garlic breath, this one is downright sinister and that is why it is saved for the end of the tractate. The Talmud student is being processed: first he is introduced to a confusing account of rabbis perpetrating a masquerade; then the mood is lightened with a case of a saintly rabbi taking upon himself a bit of cuisine-related opprobrium for rotten breath. But having traversed those two cases, now the real sales pitch begins, for a thoroughly rotten coverup a coverup for the purpose of protecting someone who is guilty — not of being uninvited, or malodorous— but guilty of fornication and sexual predation:

"There was once an incident involving a certain woman who came to the Academy of Rabbi Meir and said to him, 'Master, one of you in this academy betrothed me last night through an act of intercourse, and then disappeared. I ask that he who betrothed me either conclude the marriage or grant me a divorce so that I may marry another man.' Wishing not to embarrass anyone who may have engaged in the unseemly practice of betrothal through intercourse, Rabbi Meir rose and wrote out for the woman a bill of divorce, and gave it to her. Recognizing the signal, all the other members of the Academy rose and wrote out a bill of divorce for her as well, and gave it to her. As a result, the identity of the wrong-doer was never revealed." ⁷¹³

Like disciplined members of a crime cartel, the Talmidei chachamim at the academy all participated in the protection of the guilty party. This cover-up is justified in the next section of BT Sanhedrin 11a, by a falsification of the text of Joshua 7:10-11, in which words are put into God's mouth and a completely asinine interpretation is spun from whole cloth. (The Talmud and Midrash are infamous for inventing Biblical passages).

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Couerup confidential: the rabbinic gloss on Joshua 7:10-11

Here the tractate has the Old Testament Joshua ask God, "Master of the Universe, who in actuality are the ones that sinned?' God says to him in return: 'Am I an informer for you, that you ask me to reveal the identity of wrongdoer!" These words attributed to God are not in Joshua chapter 7. BT Sanhedrin 11a deduces from its own simulacra of Joshua 7 that, "Since God wanted to spare wrongdoers public humiliation, it is certainly proper for humans to act likewise." The lesson being that the rabbis, by not becoming "informers," were right to deceive the girl who had been sexually wronged by one of their brotherhood.

But according to the actual text of the Biblical book of Joshua, chapter 7, God said nothing of the kind. He left it up to Israel to reveal the guilty individual (Achan). Observe the delusional quality of the Babylonian Talmud in this portion of Sanhedrin 11a. All of the Talmidei chachamim at the academy implicated themselves in the sex act perpetrated against the woman, in order to conceal the identity of the individual who was the actual perpetrator. But in the Bible, in the verses cited by the rabbis to justify this act, Joshua 7 (19-20), it is written, "Joshua then said to Achan, 'My son, give glory to Yahweh, God of Israel and confess: tell me what you have done and hide nothing from me." Achan proceeds to make a full confession and is rather emphatically humiliated in public by being stoned to death by "all Israel." Nothing remotely close to this occurs to the guilty party who wronged the woman in the Talmudic account in BT Sanhedrin 11a. Quite the reverse. Based on what can only be called a hallucinogenic reading of the Biblical Book of Joshua, the protection of the guilty party in Sanhedrin 11a is justified by the citation of a passage in Joshua chapter 7 in which the guilty party is revealed, publicly shamed and executed by the community, and not in any way protected by the community.

In the rabbinic text, God is made a party to the Talmud's prideful falsification by being accused of seeking to "spare wrongdoers public humiliation." When in fact, Yahweh's wrath in Joshua chapter 7 is not sated until the wrongdoer is made to confess his shame in public and is subsequently executed and buried under a mound of stones, as a perpetual memorial to his treachery. Yet according to BT Sanhedrin 11a, "the identity of the wrongdoer was never revealed."

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Next, in a particularly ominous turn, lying is permitted to the judges of the Judaic law. Lies may be used to bolster's one's legal (halakhic) opinion. This is expressed somewhat cryptically in the opening passage of BT Shabbat 115a, which involves a fake letter that exculpates the halakhic position of a rabbi who has given the wrong advice. According to the Tanna d'Vie Eliyahu (Seder Eliyahu Rabba of Tanna d'Vie Eliyahu, 4:1), Moses was a flagrant liar, and the rabbinic text celebrates his lying. The rabbis have it that Moses descended from Mount Sinai, saw the Jews worshipping the Golden Calf, and broke the Tablets: "He took the calf which they made and burnt it in the fire...and made the children of Israel drink it...then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, 'Who is on the Lord's side, let him come to me'...and he said to them, 'Thus says the Lord God of Israel...slay every man his brother..,' and the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses..."

The problem with the Tanna d'Vie Eliyahu is that God never commanded Moses to have the Israelites kill one another. How is this lie about God and Moses justified? The rabbis justify lying and then blaming the lie on God himself, on the basis of expediency. Tanna D'Vie Eliyahu: "I cause heaven and earth to testify for me, that the Holy One, Blessed be He, never said to Moses, 'Stand in the gate of the camp and say, Who is for God come to me, and each neighbor should put sword in hand and kill his brother, friend and neighbor.' Yet Moses said just that. Because Moses calculated on his own, 'If I say to them go and kill your brother, friend and neighbor, the Jews will figure and say, Why are you causing the killing of 3,000 in one day?' He therefore went and pinned it on God and said, 'Thus says the Lord."

In the preceding text, we have the rabbinic methodology of deceit and dissimulation in Judaism spelled out for us, verbatim et literatim. Their man-made concoctions and chimeras in the Zohar, Gemara, Mishnah, Midrash etc. are spuriously attributed to God. The words of the rabbis become — as with the rabbinic depiction of Moses — those of God, merely by proclamation, "Thus says the Lord."

One more additional category of permissible lying: the "guzmah"

In Judaism: "...some lies may be permissible...because everyone knows it is a lie. An example of this is an exaggeration — a guzmah...exaggeration is an accepted practice used by everyone and where there is no fear of being

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misunderstood, it is permitted." ⁷¹⁴ This acceptability of exaggerating one's statements is found in tractate BT Hullin 90b.

One of the most famous exaggerations — or tall tales — in the Talmud is said to be found in Megillah 7b where the insinuation that one rabbi murdered and then miraculously healed another is, according to Judaic tradition, a hoax. BT Megillah 7b states: "Rabbah and Rabbi Zera joined together in a Purim feast. They became mellow (drunk), and Rabbah arose and cut Rabbi Zera's throat. On the next day he (Rabbah) prayed on his behalf and revived him." The Soncino editors state in footnote 6 to this passage: "Apparently without actually killing him." The rabbi's throat was slit but he did not die, so there was no one to revive. Rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Eidels (also spelled Edeles), the esteemed posek known in Lublin as the "Maharasha" declares this rabbinic account of throat-slitting to be an exaggeration not intended to be taken literally. No reason or analysis is furnished for the account of the throat-slitting and the subsequent miraculous healing being an exaggeration. Exaggeration is so all-pervasive, so steeped in the Talmudic mentality, that no opprobrium is attached to exaggeration. The rabbis thus engaged do not lose their status or position. Exaggerating is business-as-usual in Judaism.