Take a snapshot from everyday life. You make a phone call and the person you're calling isn't available to pick up the phone, so you get a recording. Very often the recording is a very friendly, welcoming, accommodating message. Hi, this is Ploni Almoni. Thank you so much for calling. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a great day. וואס קאן זיין שלעכט? What's wrong with that, such a beautiful message? Right? We hear them almost literally maise bechol yom. At the risk of sounding or seeming petty and nitpicking, there's something very troubling about such messages. Itochen that the person take is happy to receive the call and there's no need, there's no reason to question the sincerity of the bracha of have a great day. But does the person really intend to call back as soon as they possibly can? How many of us generally, I think the policy is usually as follows. If the person calling is a nudnik, so you don't call them back at all, mind as soon as you possibly can, you don't call them back at all if there's any way to avoid it. Im timtsei lomar that he's not a nudnik, okay, so when it's convenient you're going to call back. As soon as I possibly can, I don't know. As soon as I possibly can means that, you know, it's top priority and I'm really going to call back as soon as I can. So is that an important he'ara or is it nitpicking? So the Mishnah says, the last Mishnah in Pirkei Avos, with which we're all familiar, רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר על שלשה דברים העולם עומד על הדין על האמת ועל השלום שנאמר אמת ומשפט שלום שפטו בשעריכם.
So Rabbeinu Yonah comments on the Mishnah, על הדין שידון דין אמת לאמיתו ועל האמת שיש לאדם ללכת בדרכי התשובה שהוא אמת ותורתו אמת והולך בדרכי הקדוש ברוך הוא אמת גם כן ילך באותו הדרך שנאמר והלכת בדרכיו. ואמרו חזל שאפילו סיפור דברים בעלמא אין לו לאדם לשקר.
And then Rabbeinu Yonah proceeds to refer to a Gemara in the sixth perek in Yevamos. Gemara tells the story that Rav's wife used to cause him tzoros and one of the manifestations was that whatever he would ask her for supper, so she'd prepare punk farkert. He'd say let's have fleishigs, so she'd prepare milchigs. He'd say let's have milchigs, she'd prepare fleishigs. Okay. So the Gemara tells the story that kigdal Chiya brei, so when Rav's son Chiya grew up and he realized what was going on. So if his father would send a message to the mother what to prepare for supper, so he would invert it and then he inverted it, so then she reinverted it and much to his shock Rav got what he actually asked for. So he says to Chiya what's going on here? So Chiya tells him what he did. So Rav in effect tells him the chochma. That's a good one, in fact a very sharp piece, he says. However, את לא תעביד הכי but you shouldn't do it, shenemar למדו לשונם דבר שקר havei nileh. I think it's from the haftarah of Tisha B'Av. That's the Gemara that Rabbeinu Yonah quotes. Right, on a certain level, right Chiya is just trying to get a truthful result on a certain level, right, he's trying to maneuver that Rav should get what what what he wants. And Rav tells him, no, למדו לשונם דבר שקר. Right, Rabbeinu Yonah makes two points. The first one is again שנאמר והלכת בדרכיו ואמרו חז"ל שאפילו סיפור דברים בעלמא אין לו לאדם לשקר כההוא עובדא דברי דרב.
And then he also says כי אדם האדם המרגיל לשונו לדבר שקר בדבר שאין בו לא הפסד ולא תועלת גם כי יבא לדבר דברים של עיקר לא יוכל לומר האמת כי פיהו המדבר וההרגל שולט עליו.
First thing Rabbeinu Yonah says is that the mechayev in emes is vehalachta bidrachav. To be less than truthful, Rabbeinu Yonah says, is is a violation of vehalachta bidrachav. If the mechayev of emes is vehalachta bidrachav, so then one doesn't measure emes according to consequences, one doesn't measure emes according to what's at stake externally. No, what's at stake is emes. It doesn't have to be something external that that's at stake. So to be medakdek on emes is not to be petty or pedantic, because if a principle is absolute, obviously I don't mean absolute lafuqei darkei shalom, but absolute in the sense of a mitzvah of vehalachta bidrachav. If a principle is absolute, so then the upholding, the sustaining of that absolute principle is in situations which keshe'le'atzmam are not necessarily consequential or repercussive. The the world we live in, the the culture we live in, doesn't have this approach to emes. Doesn't have this approach to emes. And and we're influenced. It's not only on a conscious level as as possible. Let's say we get invitations to semachos. Okay, so sometimes a person wants to go and is able to go. Sure. And sometimes, I don't know, maybe all things being equal a person would go, but it's it's very inconvenient. And maybe sometimes he doesn't even really especially want to go, looked on the back of the invitation where they put the little number and sees he's number 1,422, so he wonders how critical his participation in the simcha's going to be. Maybe it's a streak of paranoia, I don't know, but anyway ketzat ma'aseh decides he's not going. So what do we write on the what do we write in the response card? Sorry I can't make it. But it's not true. It's not true that I can't make it. It's true that I'm not going to make it. It's not true that I can't make it. If I wanted to, then I would. So it's not that I can't make it. Remember one of my sons' Bar Mitzvahs, so one of his Rebbeim wrote back a card as follows. He wrote back, Please forgive me, it would be very difficult for me to attend. And then he wasn't coming. I was and ad hayom hazeh remain so impressed, so tremendously impressed by that response. He could have come, he could have come, but it was taka very difficult and understandably, understandably he wasn't gonna come. Sometimes it's a common scenario, often it happens with parents and younger children, but lav davka that it's limited to that setting, but we'll give that illustration. One of the parents is on the phone and a little child wants something, so begins tugging at the sleeve, you know, mamme, tatte. And so what does the parent say? Just one minute, just one minute. What do you mean just one minute? You never ever talk to your sister, your brother, your cousin, your mother for less than 45 minutes and you've only been on the phone for 15 minutes. There's not a hava amina that it's going to be just one minute. But matcheh the children bekash. And maybe one of the most troubling illustrations is if you have in mosdos hachinuch, you have, let's say, some, many, I know of many mosdos hachinuch that do this, that they ask the students, talmidim, talmidos, depending upon, obviously, to sign a certain contract of what's expected of them. Okay, it's not a contract that the mosad necessarily has the manpower to enforce, but the point is... And yet it's known that there are certain things in that contract which are 80 to 90 percent minhag avoseinu beyadeinu from shanim kadmoniyos that are totally, totally disregarded and that no one has a hava amina of upholding. So it's a tzorech iyun gadol whether for the 10 or 20 percent—I don't know, I'm not sure what the answer is—but it certainly requires a tremendous shikul hadaas whether what's gained for the 10 or 20 percent who will honor the commitment, but what does it do to the middas ha'emes of the 80 to 90 percent who are asked to sign something when they know, we know, everyone knows that there isn't a hava amina that they're going to honor what they're saying. And as Rabbeinu Yona explains, it's troubling on two levels. It's troubling because again keshel'atzmo, even when something is, again, in terms of contextually, in terms of fallout, inconsequential, maybe even effective as in the story with Chiya, Rav's son, but אף על פי כן, emes is מדותיו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, it's חותמו של הקדוש ברוך הוא. And second of all, and that line in Rabbeinu Yona could have been written... if Rabbeinu Yona hadn't written it, Rav Yisrael Salanter would have written it a few hundred years later: hahergel sholeit alav. We can't compartmentalize. If we'll be messy and sloppy in millei d'alma, eventually, ultimately, we're going to be messy and sloppy in millei d'shmaya. And that's what Rabbeinu Yonah says, the second level in which it's troubling is that if we're not makpid on middas ha'emes even in sippur devarim b'alma, even in "I'll get back to you as soon as possible", okay, it's not the biggest deal in the world, not the biggest deal in the world. But l'mayseh hahergel sholet alav. When it's a bigger and bigger deal, but our commitment and our attachment and our ability to act with an uncompromising emes has been compromised. On the other hand, if a person is very makpid on middas ha'emes, again, in all the scenarios we gave and in the countless others that exist and that arise, it not only again, not only is he mkayem v'halachta bidrachav? That's enough. Not only does he create hahergel as Rabbeinu Yonah says, which when the stakes are even greater will be sholet alav letova. But we spoke last week from a very different angle and in a very different context about making strides in שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. When a person is medakdek, it's true for any dikduk b'mitzvah, but especially over here, מדקדק במידת האמת בדברים is something that's with us all day. L'mayseh we're talking all day, right? So it's with us all day and the reason one is medakdek bidvarav, the reason one is so nizhar in middas ha'emes is because מידתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא. Inevitably, inevitably, it contributes to one's kiyum, to one's awareness of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד. Again, it's true for all dikduk b'mitzvah. Okay. So how long do we put on tefillin? So while we're wearing tefillin, so we're medakdek that it should be positioned properly and we're memashmesh bahem tamid. Ein hachi nami. So then כל זמן שהתפילין על זרועו ובראשו של אדם etcetera says the Rambam. But when you have a commitment which is really with us all waking hours, that zehirus in middas ha'emes inevitably, inevitably strengthens the awareness of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד.