Pt.2 of Sacred Subterfuge: Stories of Deception in the Talmud
Reviewing the dozens of narratives related to deception present in the Talmud
Part of a series. Based on my previous research. Full draft of my research is available at my Academia.edu page, here (requires registration): “A Preliminary analysis of stories of deception in the Talmud”. Pt. 1 is here: “Sacred Subterfuge: Stories of Deception in the Talmud”
Categorizing permitted untruths in Talmud
I finalized a list of 64 sources in the Talmud based on the previous scholarship of Shu”t Torah Lishmah (1976), Dratch (1988), Zivotovsky (1993), Resnicoff (2002), March Shapiro, Changing the Immutable (2015), Yosef (2016).[1] The total came out to be 59 proof texts in Babylonian Talmud, and 5 in Jerusalem Talmud.
I systematically categorize these Talmudic sources by type of untruths.[2] For white lies, I found the taxonomy proposed by Camden et. al. (1984) to be most useful for my purposes here.[3]
Categorizing lies can be done on a few different axes. Here are the main axes that would seem to be most relevant for our purposes here:
Motivation of the liar. For our purposes, the major options are Emotional (such as saving face), Halachic (promulgating correct halacha, from the liar’s perspective), and Financial (gaining money, or not losing it).
Harm on the deceived. Same options as previous, but the converse: Emotional (losing face), Halachic (incorrect halacha potentially being promulgated, from the deceived’s perspective), and Financial (losing money, or not gaining it).
Beneficiary of the lie: Self (=the liar, e.g., a face-saving lie), the Other (=the deceived, e.g., a noble / paternalistic lie), or a Third party not present (generally a friend, business partner, or spouse of the liar).
Does the lie potentially affect halachic decision-making?
For the first three axes, the various options are not mutually exclusive. For example, regarding primary motivation, a lie can have the motivation both of saving face, as well as promulgating correct halacha (see below, based on Chullin 111b).
Sissela Bok in her classic book Lying (1978/2011), stresses the dichotomy between benefits to the liar, vs. harm to the deceived. As mentioned, in the context of untruths in the Talmud, the harms to the deceived can broadly be categorized into three: halachic, emotional, and financial. Due to the nature of the Talmud, harm to determination of the correct halacha is especially common. Financial harm is the least common. “Emotional” includes such benefits as preventing embarrassment and preventing conflict.
Of the above four major possible axes of categorizing Talmudic sources, I have chosen to use the first - Benefit to liar - as the major axis of categorizing. This is for a number of reasons:
The Talmud, and commentators, generally focus more explicitly on the motivation of the liar, as opposed to the harm to the deceived. For example, the following phrases are used by the Talmud or by interpreters when explaining the liar’s motivation: “כי היכי דליקבלה מיניה” ; “לאשתמוטי נפשיה הוא דעבד”.
As mentioned, Talmudic sage are quite willing to lie to save face even where there is harm done to the halachic process. To put it in slightly other terms, the fact that there is harm done to the halachic process does not seem to greatly factor in to the decision to lie.
The taxonomies of types of lies are generally for motivation of liar. (Admittedly, a major reason for this is because the angle of that research is often to understand the psychology of the liar, which is less relevant in our context.)
Categorizing based on motivation of liar allows for a more granular breakdown, and seems to be the most enlightening.
However, when coding it, I also coded for the other axes.
Deceptions that potentially affect halachic decision-making
One would assume that establishment of correct halacha would have overriding importance for the rabbis of the Talmud, and that any potential emotional benefits accrued to the liar (i.e. the motivation) would be overridden by the harmful effects of the lie.
See Shapiro, p. 268, regarding the story of R’ Papa deceiving in Berakhot 43b:
"In the case of R. Papa, however, in addition to lying to spare himself embarrassment (according to Rashi), there is also the problem that his action ended up affirming an incorrect halakha. Is that also permissible in order to spare oneself embarrassment? It is because of this problem that some commentators understand R. Papa's lie to include only the false attribution of the statement to Rava, but not that R. Papa knowingly stated an incorrect halacha."
In other words, one might have a priori assumed that untruths in order to save face and to avoid tension and conflict would only be told in cases where it wouldn’t affect halacha. And that the lies affecting halacha would only be of the “noble” variety.
Remarkably, however, this is not the case. Talmudic sages are seen to be quite willing to deceive the listener(s) about halacha to avoid embarrassment and conflict, even if it potentially impacted the correct halacha. In other words, the incidental harm caused to halacha seems to have minimal impact on the willingness to partake in untruths.
And when I say “impact correct halacha”, I don’t mean that the Sage saying the untruth strongly believes that this is in fact the correct halacha, and that it’s important to deceive in order that the other person follows correct halacha. Rather, in cases of saving face, the Sage knowingly says an incorrect halacha, in order to save face.
This is especially remarkable when we notice that the other major motivation for deception, the “noble” one, is in fact to ensure that the correct halacha will be followed!
Besides for the story of R’ Papa in Berakhot 43b, see also the following stories, where a Talmudic sage makes a statement that the halakhah is X, and yet this was a lie:
1) R. Joshua, Bavli, Bekhorot 36a (and parallel story in Berakhot 27b) :
אתא לקמיה דרבי יהושע אמר ליה כלום חילקנו בין חבר לעם הארץ
אמר לו רבי יהושע הן
[...]
Rabbi Tzadok said to him: Didn’t we differentiate between a priest who is a ḥaver, i.e., learned, and a priest who is an ignoramus, with regard to their credibility about blemishes found on a firstborn animal?
Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: Yes, we did. Since you are a learned priest, you are deemed credible to testify that this blemish was caused inadvertently [...]
כיון שנכנסו לבית המדרש עמד השואל ושאל כלום חילקנו בין חבר לעם הארץ
א"ל רבי יהושע לאו
א"ל רבן גמליאל והלא משמך אמרו לי הן
When the Torah scholars entered the study hall, the questioner stood before everyone present and asked: With regard to blemishes found on a firstborn animal, didn’t we differentiate between a priest who is a ḥaver and a priest who is an ignoramus?
Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: No, we did not.
Rabban Gamliel said to him: But they said to me in your name that yes, we did differentiate.
יהושע עמוד על רגליך ויעידו בך
עמד רבי יהושע על רגליו ואמר היאך אעשה אילמלי אני חי והוא מת יכול החי להכחיש את המת עכשיו שאני חי והוא חי היאך חי יכול להכחיש את החי
Rabban Gamliel continued: Yehoshua, stand on your feet and they will testify against you that you did, in fact, say that we differentiated in such a case.
Rabbi Yehoshua stood on his feet and said: How should I act in this situation? If I were alive and Rabbi Tzadok were dead, the living can contradict the dead, and I could deny issuing that ruling. Now that I am alive and he is alive, how can the living contradict the living? I have no choice but to admit that I said it.
2) Rava, Bavli, Avodah Zarah 58a
Avodah Zarah 58a, according to Rashi interpretation. Rashi there:
ומשום כיסופא קאמר הכי אבל איהו כוליה שרי
"And because of embarrassment, he said [that it’s prohibited], but [in fact] he permits it entirely."
Meaning, according to Rashi’s interpretation, Rava said that it’s prohibited, while in fact he permits it, in order to avoid an awkward confrontation.
[1] As well as a few other sources, as they came up.
[2]I was partially inspired by academic research in the field of lying, although I am far from being an expert in that field. For a recent overview of the state of the academic research in the field of lying, see Jörg Meibauer (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Lying (2018).
[3] Camden, C., Motley, M. T., & Wilson, A. (1984). “White lies in interpersonal communication: A taxonomy and preliminary investigation of social motivations”, Western Journal of Speech Communication, 48(4), pp. 309–325. doi:10.1080/10570318409374167.
Cited recently by Terkourafi, M. (2018). “Lying and Politeness”, The Oxford Handbook of Lying, pp. 381–396. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/978019873657