מדבר שקר תרחק
“Keep far from falsehood” (Exodus 23:7)
Keep far not just from external falsehood, but also from internal falsehood.
Core Internal False Beliefs:
We all have certain core beliefs about ourselves that are actually not true, and that hurt us and stop us from being fully ourselves and alive and free. They aren’t usually obvious to us – they tend to hide and masquerade as truth – but they are at the root of a lot of our suffering.
Examples of some common core false beliefs are: I am not (good, smart, . . .) enough; I don’t matter; I don’t deserve compassion or attention or to have my needs met; I am not capable of doing that; I am powerless to change myself or the situation, I have to do everything just right; I need to perform well in order to be valued; I must have the approval of others to have self worth; something is wrong with me, . . .
Distance
The Torah prescribes the antidote to these false beliefs – rihuk, distance. These beliefs usually feel true, but when we put some space between ourselves and their voices, when we disidentify with them and their notion of who we are – standing on a vast plain and casting them out to the wind – gradually, they quiet down, going from a shout in our ear to a faint sound we hear in the distance, as if through a fog.
Byron Katie
One way to put some space around the force of these thoughts is by interrogating them. Byron Katie has four questions she suggests asking about any thought that is troubling you: Is it true? Do i know for sure that it’s true? How does it affect me to believe this thought? and: Who might I be if I didn’t believe it? Such questions work to loosen the grip these thoughts and beliefs have on you, gradually making space around their assertion of truth.
A Rabbinic Teaching about Truth and Falsehood (Part I: Spaciousness)
The gemara in Tractate Shabat (104a) offers an analysis of the difference between the Hebrew words אמת (emet, “truth”) and שקר (sheker,”falsehood”). The gemara notices first that the letters of אמת, truth, are spread out across the Hebrew alphabet, spanning from the first letter, א (aleph) to the last, ת (tav), and in the middle, the mid-alphabet letter, מ (mem). By contrast, the letters of שקר, falsehood, ק (kuf), ש (shin) and ר (resh), are all right next to each other in the alphabet, clumped together. That is the difference between truth and falsehood. You can recognize falsehood by its stuckness, by the feeling of claustrophobia and overwhelm, how its assertions about your limitations keep you locked in a box with no windows and no escape, looping around in circles that go nowhere. When you feel trapped like that, it is likely that underneath that feeling is a false belief of some sort.
Pharaoh and the Enslaving Nature of Falsehood:
The other place in the Torah that we hear the term devar sheker is from Pharaoh who says ul yishu bidivrei sheker (Ex 5:9), that the Isarelites should stop putting their hopes in the divrei sheker, the falsehoods that Moshe is spreading about freedom and redemption. Pharaoh has reversed truth and falsehood here, claiming that the possibility of redemption is false. That is how false beliefs work inside us: they claim that the truth of freedom and wholeness is false. They say – you will never get better. You can’t do this. You can’t change. They keep us stuck by disempowering us. Pharaoh’s statement has the ring of falsehood because it is, like the word sheker, closed and stuck; it is saying – there is no hope for change, for freedom; you will be enslaved forever That is the essence of a dvar sheker, a false belief that confines you, that hinders you from forward movement and transformation and hope.
Emet, on the other hand, the gemara says, has the quality of rihuka, of distance. We get away from falsehood and move towards truth by putting distance between ourselves and these gnawing, belittling voices that try to stop us, like the space between the letters. Picture the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and imagine the first, the middle and the last letters, and see all the space between them. That is what truth looks like. It has space. It has patience and time for things to unfold. The long arc of justice, Martin Luther King, called it. It may take time, but it gets there. Truth is not in a rush. Truth is in it for the long run.
Sheker, falsehood, puts you in a claustrophobic box, but emet, truth, will set you free, will open the doors and the windows for you to step out into infinite possibility.
Rabbinic Teaching, Part II: Truth is Stable
The second point that the gemara makes about these two words, emet and sheker, is that the letters of sheker, ש ק ר , all have at their base a single point (the shin in biblical script would have a pointier bottom), as if they are standing (uneasily) on one leg. By contrast, the letters of emet, א מ ת, are more stable. The א stands in a proud firm stance on two legs, the מ in the center has a broad base at the bottom, and the ת also has two legs, giving the whole word a much more stable feel than the wobbly sheker. The gemara concludes: “truth stands; falsehood does not stand.”
There is something deep here. How do we recognize the falseness of certain thoughts and beliefs inside us? By their destabilizing effect on our system. If it destabilizes you, makes you as wobbly as the letters of the word sheker, if it prevents you from standing tall on your two feet, then it is false. If it brings you stability, makes you feel strong and grounded and powerful, like the letters of emet, then it is true.
It’s ok to have shakiness in you. We all do. And there are of course things to fear in the world and real reasons to be shaky. But the core truth of who we are is not shaky. We can hold shakiness, but our core truth is grounded and firm. Emet veyatziv, we say in davening. True and stable. Truth is stable; your truth is to be stable.
Who Would You Be Without These False Beliefs?
Who would you be without the false beliefs that hold you back in life? Who would you be without worrying about what other people think of you or feeling like you need to perform or earn your existence? Who would you be without the voice that says – you can’t do that, or you don’t deserve to take up that much space? Who would you be without the voice that says you are not enough, that you are less than in some way?
Emet Mah Nehedar: You Would Be Glorious!
Emet mah nehedar, we sing out on Yom Kippur. Truly how glorious was the kohen gadol, the High Priest that day, when he emerged unscathed from the Holy of Holies! Emet – the truth. This is what it looks like to be in truth. Who would you be without those false voices? What would you be like? You would be like the kohen gadol on that day, glorious and radiant in your appearance and bearing, princely, confident, radiating assurance of God’s love and security. Emet – the truth is we were born to be nehedar, as glorious in our pure essence as that kohen gadol in his pure white garb. This is what an emet version of you looks like. Your truth wants to shine.
We inhabit our truth most fully when we are able, like the Kohen Gadol, to align ourselves with the divine, with our highest truth, with the place inside us that is like the aron kodesh in the Holy of Holies, the place inside us where the divine spirit resides, where we are so connected to the divine in us that we know our own truth – know who we really are – and all those false beliefs are like chaff in the wind, barely touching us.
Truth Sprouts From Inside You
Emet me’eretz titzmach (85:11), the Psalms say, truth will sprout from the earth. We have a seed of truth planted inside each of us, right in the middle of us, like the letter mem in the word emet, and it wants to sprout and grow and spread out its branches, all the way out to reach to the alef on one side and to the taf on the other. Truth wants not just to reside in us, but to grow, to help us grow, not to keep us hindered and confined like our false beliefs, but to help us flower into the person we were meant to be.
Photo by Julian Jagtenberg at Pexels
