But It’s True - Rabbi Daniel Z Feldman

but it's true we hear this so often when we discuss la shanhara and the speaker is always astonished how could be a problem to say something that's true the topic of la shanhara is important all year round the reason we haven't been brought back together is because of sinashinam is because of baseless hatred and the introduction to his safer rama tells us that that essentially is blush and heart is what's referred to here when we talk about baseless hatred and it's la shanhara that's keeping us in exile that's keeping the redemption from taking place and it makes it all the more urgent to understand what could be so terrible if i'm saying something that's true if that's what we're taught the lesson horror refers to bad information that's true so what's so terrible about saying it and what makes it even harder to understand is that there's a prohibition not only of speaking lash and harm but of being mecabo of receiving of accepting russian heart and if indeed blessed her is true that makes it even harder to understand it's one thing to tell me i'm not allowed to say things that are bad even if they're true but if somebody else says it i can't believe it you're telling me not to believe the truth i should be willfully ignorant how do we understand this crucial prohibition which is so central in our lives that it's keeping us regardless and we can't even relate to what it's asking of us so it's a problem for me to say something even though it's true and it's even worse to be on the receiving end and let's add one more question the talmud tells us that the prohibition to receive lash is based on a verse in the torah in parashat has its own source separate and aside from the prohibition of speaking lash and that verse tells us lo sisa shemashov that we should not accept we should not give support we should not uphold a report that is shove what does shove mean according to rashi and uncles shav means false don't accept a false report so wait a minute i thought you told me that lash means something that's true and yet when the torah tells us we're not allowed to accept the language is don't accept a false report so which is true false i'm not allowed to accept it i'm not allowed to believe it if it's true why shouldn't they be allowed to and this is what's keeping me in exile this is our biggest problem how do we make sense out of this to try just to use a few minutes some principles of psychology to understand what exactly is at the core of this mysterious prohibition so let's go back to that puzzle do not accept a false report one possible approach to this is that of rabiniona who adds in a word essentially and tells us that it means don't accept as true something that might be false we don't necessarily know that it's false because if we did then we wouldn't have to be told not to believe something we know is false we're obviously not going to believe something if we know it to be false so when the torah tells us not to accept a false report perhaps what it really means is if it might be true or might be false we shouldn't rush to conclude that it's true but rather put in the effort to consider that maybe it's not true hold out that benefit of the doubt give it that extra mental effort which sometimes we're not so quick to do and we're not so ready to do to consider the fact that it might be indeed false but perhaps there's more here when considering the mental effort that may actually explain the central prohibition of speaking lush and higher in the first place indeed the question we started with if it's true what's so terrible about saying something that's true why should we be allowed to say something that is correct perhaps points to the fact that we're not always sure that what we think is true actually is true and perhaps we're honest people we would never knowingly lie but so often we say things that aren't actually correct