Parashat HaShavua - Vayera

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה אֶל־אַבְרָהָם לָמָּה זֶּה צָחֲקָה שָׂרָה לֵאמֹר הַאַף אֻמְנָם אֵלֵד וַאֲנִי זָקַנְתִּי׃ (י״ח:י״ג)

Then Adonai said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I in truth bear a child, old as I am?’”

At the beginning of this week’s parasha, God overhears Sarah doubting the veracity of the message she and Avraham have just received from the angels that they will have a child at their very advanced age.  She muses, “Now that I am withered, am I to have enjoyment—with my husband so old?”  God seems perplexed (or possibly even peeved) by this observation and turns to Avraham for explanation.  But the way God represents Sarah’s words to her aged husband is worth noting.  God says, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I in truth bear a child, old as I am?’ 

Rashi explains that God changed Sarah’s words in reporting them to Avraham for the sake of peace, meaning, so as not to cause upset between the couple.  In that moment, God decided that nothing constructive would come from Avraham knowing that Sarah had called him old.  So God instead makes some editorial choices in repeating Sarah’s words, thus probably avoiding a marital argument (“I can’t believe you called ME old!  That is really the pot calling the kettle black! And so on...).  The implication being that in some situations, honesty is not always the best policy.  It depends on context.

In a recent New York Times article, a Dr. Danielle J. Lamas writes poignantly about her experience with a dying man.  A year earlier, the man had refused effective treatment for colon cancer.  Now he had returned to the hospital, gaunt and scared, very close to death.  She told him that he would probably not live through the night.  The man became extremely agitated and angry.  Dr. Lamas reflected on that moment: “As a doctor and purveyor of science, it can be difficult to accept that sometimes the ‘truth’ is not what a patient needs. Denial was my patient’s only defense mechanism. And as soon as the words left my mouth, I realized how cruel it was to try to take this defense from him in the final hours of his life.”

I can still remember my high school philosophy class where we discussed Kant’s categorical imperatives and debated whether a commitment to truth necessitates that when an attacker asks you “are you hiding my victim,” you have to say “yes.”   God’s words in the parasha and Dr. Lamas’s realization of the impact of her truthful but angry words on her patient point to a much more complex relationship between truth and making ethical, compassionate choices with our words.  

And yet even as I write those words, I am also thinking about how critical it is at this moment in time for us to ensure that the truth is clearly and unequivocally stated and taught, especially to our children.   A group of elementary school teachers in Southlake, Texas were recently told -- in compliance with Texas House Bill 3979, which prohibits educators from discussing controversial historical, social or political issues --  that if their classroom libraries included books about the Holocaust, students should also be steered toward books with “opposing views.”  This effort to relativize devastating historical truths about the Jewish people, truths that it is critical our world continue to learn from, is both stunning and terrifying.

I am also thinking about the ways in which we have recently seen truthful words become powerful forces for change.  A close friend of mine is a reporter who over the last three years has written major exposes of both the restaurant industry and the sommelier industry.  The women who had the courage to speak with her for these articles have materially changed those industries, hopefully permanently, and have caused a reckoning that led to needed consequences for men (and some women) who abused their power as bosses.  I am also thinking about the courage it took for Simone Biles this summer to speak her truth and the impact it had for others struggling with invisible emotional and mental challenges and/or disabilities.

When I studied this parasha with a bat mitzvah student recently and discussed this pasuk, she looked at me plaintively and asked, “So which is it, Rabbi Anne?”  How should I be thinking about telling the truth?”  I wish I had an easy answer to her excellent question.  All I know for sure is that we must continue to discuss and interrogate our relationship to truth with a fierce commitment to the call of both justice and compassion.

Rabbi Anne Ebersman
Director of Jewish Programming N-5 and Director of Hesed (Community Engagement) and Tzedek (Social Responsibility)