Truth or Preference?

One of the great masters, Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Koktsk, taught that when God crafted the world and was about to create people, He first threw away “truth.” 

Centuries and millennia passed when the Mishna declared that the world stands on three principles, “Torah, worship, and acts of generosity.”  What is noteworthy is that “truth” once again is missing from the list.  How could the world possibly be created, much less survive, without this critical element?

Rabbi Larry Kushner observed that if everyone held on to his or her own “truth” and was unwilling to let go of it there would never be peace.  Peace is only possible when every person is willing to forgo some measure of what they hold as their personal “truth” for the sake of something greater.  Those who grow righteously indignant and scream their vehemence cannot find common ground with anyone but the few who agree to go along with them.  For the rest of us there are few areas of commonality. 

For certain there are some inviolate truths.  Yet, it is informative to think that our faith does not permit us to foist our beliefs  (truths) on others.  We know we are the “chosen” people but only because we have chosen not because we are superior.

I will often ask students to name some “truth.”  Without much hesitation I get answers like not stealing, being honest, not hurting, being kind, respecting elders, and a host of other agreeable ideas.  In each instance we can raise problems, which question the foundation of their “truth.”  For example, is stealing still wrong if you or someone else will die if you do not?  I bring up the Holocaust as an example.  Is being honest always the correct thing to do?  I suspect people who are too honest have injured us all.  Does respecting elders extend to pedophiles? 

Truth is neither a constant nor an absolute. 

Another colleague, Rabbi Jack Reimer, once wrote that at the end of the Amida (and Kaddish) you take three steps back when saying Oseh Shalom (the One who makes peace) because peace is only realized when we back up, leaving room for other ideas, other truths.  In much the same way I have taught that we place the mezzuzas on our doorframes on the right hand side, in a slanted position – not horizontally or vertically – to demonstrate that every home must harbor compromise if there is to be shalom bayit (peace in the house).

Everyone wants peace but the critical idea conveyed by Torah is that being rigid with our “truths” will not lead to that destination.  Rabbi Shimon said two thousand years ago, “Be pliable like a reed, not rigid like a cedar.”