Parashat Vay’chi: The Problem of White Lies
(delivered by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on January 6, 2023)
For me, among the more amusing commercials running on television are those by GEICO. Do you know them? One series of ads began with the question, “Would switching to GEICO save you money on car insurance?” My favorite in this series addresses the potential consumer with yet another question: “Was Abe Lincoln honest?!” What followed was grainy footage of Abe Lincoln’s wife asking him if the dress she just tried on looks flattering on her; we then see Honest Abe struggling, trying to suppress his opinion ultimately without success. He tells Mrs. L. the bad news and she walks away from him in displeasure, frustration, and, one would imagine, anger. Abe Lincoln was so honest that he would not even compromise his truth-telling in order to protect his wife’s feelings. The message of the ad was: Of course Abe Lincoln was honest–and of course, GEICO can save you money on car insurance.
To be clear: This was not documentary footage of a private moment between Abe Lincoln and his wife. These were actors! Nonetheless, what’s interesting to me is that Abe didn’t make the decision that most of us would have made: He doesn’t offer the small, white lie for what we might consider to be the greater good of protecting his wife’s feelings.
A well-known reading of our Torah portion for this Shabbat, Vay’chi, finds a source from the story of Joseph’s interactions with his brothers for the idea that the small fib—the white lie—is religiously justified in certain circumstances. After Jacob’s death, the brothers keep their promise to their father and take his body back to Canaan to bury him in the cave of Makhpelah, the burial site of his ancestors. At the conclusion of the mourning period, the family returns to Egypt. As the brothers settle back into their lives in Egypt, a familiar anxiety begins to blossom. They express their fear: “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and, without our father around, decides to pay us back for all the wrong that we did to him!”[1]
In truth, this worry seems well-placed. Behind their words lies an unspoken incredulity perhaps complicated by lingering guilt. In the terseness of the text, I imagine the brothers’ conversation held behind closed doors: “Is it possible that Joseph really forgave us for taking him from his family, throwing him into a pit, and selling him into slavery? We have not spoken of the incident in the seventeen years since our reconciliation with him. In fact, we have never asked for his forgiveness for the terrible wrong we perpetrated against him.[2] Perhaps Joseph has patiently waited for our father’s passing before he moved to settle old scores?”
Given these well-placed fears, the brothers send a message to Joseph: “Before his death, your father left instruction: So shall you say to Joseph, ‘Forgive, I urge you, the offense and guilt of your brothers who treated you so harshly.’”[3] Jacob speaks from beyond the grave and instructs Joseph to pardon his brothers. But, of course, this message is painfully contrived. There is no record of this statement in the Torah. If this was indeed Jacob’s instruction, why had he not shared it directly with Joseph as he was offering to his sons his last will and testament before he died? Indeed, by juxtaposing this new deathbed wish with their concern that Joseph would now seek his revenge,[4] the Torah intimates that this is a desperate fabrication created by the brothers in response to their fears. Joseph’s reaction to hearing this lie is that he cries. He reassures his brothers that he intends them no harm.
Basing themselves on this very incident, Rabbi Il’a and Rabbi Elazar, two Sages from the Talmud, conclude: מוּתָּר לוֹ לָאָדָם לְשַׁנּוֹת בִּדְבַר הַשָּׁלוֹם, “It is permitted to change the truth for the sake of peace.”[5] Rabbi Natan goes further and declares such behavior as an outright mitzvah! This rabbinic reading of VaY’chi is popular because, I think, it intuitively makes sense and resonates with our life experience. Many of us have lied for the sake of a perceived greater good. Generally, we don’t even call such an act a “lie.” We have a special phrase for it: a “white lie.”
Nonetheless, it seems to me that by accepting this rabbinic reading we let the brothers off the hook too easily and, in so doing, deprive ourselves of an important conversation. The brothers go too quickly to the white lie. Instead of speaking with courage, acknowledging their lingering guilt and their fear, they make up this story. In the seventeen years since their reunion with Joseph, they have not once expressed shame for their behavior. They have never offered regret. Rather, they seek to avoid recrimination through contrived words put into the mouth of Jacob. Instead of finding the strength to have a difficult conversation, they keep their feelings buried, and Joseph must intuit their true feelings behind the lies spoken.
When we choose silence or a small fib told presumably in the name of peace, often something more than truth is compromised. Only when we challenge ourselves to find the courage and the gentle words to say difficult things can we expect intimacy to grow.
The brothers may believe they have reason to fear Joseph, particularly if they see Joseph not for the person he is, but as a person like they have been. Yet, if they cannot sense Joseph’s core of goodness and the sweetness of his neshamah, his soul, it is probably because they have not located their own.
Moreover, their integrity lies in their trying to clean up their side of the street no matter how Joseph might respond. In making the choice not to have this conversation, we have no reason to hope that the distance between Jacob’s sons will ever be meaningfully healed. Their relationship will not deepen as it might have through an honest exchange. Instead of justifying the brothers’ behavior, we would have been better served had the Rabbis of the Talmud used this incident in our parashah this week as an opportunity to challenge the ways we too easily permit ourselves to avoid conversations, bury our fears and feelings, and justify our actions by claiming the primacy of a competing good.
The brother’s concerted action is quite understandable. But let us not hold it up as a model for us. Let us not claim a competing good when integrity and honor will be set aside and when our dearest relationships are at stake. Let us be above that, and let us honor our loved ones, and our own ability to maintain intimate relationships, by lovingly offering honesty, truth, and remorse. That is the true path of love, and of honor.
Shabbat shalom!
[1] Genesis 50:15.
[2] See chapter 45.
[3] Genesis 50:16-17.
[4] Genesis 50:15-16.
[5] BT Yevamot 65b.