'You Had to Lie to Save His Life — Why Are You Happy?'

This isn't just another story about great rabbis who lived hundreds of years ago, people we can’t possibly relate to. This happened just a few decades ago, to people just like us... and yet not just like us, because there are some people who retain their ethical standards despite the general decline in morality we see in the world today.

Lying to save a life?

Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach ztz”l was one of the greatest halachic authorities of the post-war period. One day, he summoned a certain young man, a yeshivah student, and told him about an elderly man who had been hospitalized for a serious and complicated condition. At first, the doctors treated him but after a few days, they claimed they could no longer do anything for him and so he was discharged.

“This man is now back at home, receiving no medical treatment whatsoever,” Rabbi Shlomo Zalman told the young man. “I need you to get him readmitted to the hospital somehow. It’s pikuach nefesh—a matter of life and death.”

The young man accepted the task and began thinking of ways to persuade the hospital to relent. Finally, he hit on a plan. Enlisting the help of a friend, the two of them placed the elderly man in a taxi and drove to the hospital. When they arrived, the young man told the medical staff that he had found the man unconscious on Jaffa Street in downtown Jerusalem, and that he had no idea who he was but he looked very ill indeed.

Unsuspecting, the doctors admitted the patient and began treating him. Meanwhile, the young man, happy that things had worked out and that he had succeeded in his mission, went to tell Rabbi Shlomo Zalman what he had done.

As he stood there smiling, he realized that the rabbi appeared anything but pleased.

“Although I’m grateful for what you did, I don’t understand why you are so happy about the way you did it,” Rabbi Shlomo Zalman said. “You lied several times in order to get this elderly man admitted, and even though that was justified in the circumstances, as his life was in danger, you should be devastated that you had to resort to lying.”

Run away from lies!

Lying is a Torah prohibition. The Torah not only forbids us to lie but also warns us to “distance yourself from falsehood.” There are numerous other statements throughout the Torah referring to the gravity of lying and we are told that Hashem “hates and abhors falsehood.”

In Sefer Mishlei (the Book of Proverbs), it states: “Lying lips are an abomination to Hashem.” The Malbim, one of the primary Torah commentators, explains:

“If someone promises to do something (whether a mitzvah or an act of kindness or a favor) for someone else, and he fulfills his promise, then he is considered to have spoken truthfully and to be a reliable person.

“However, if he does not fulfill [his promise] then he has lied, and someone who makes a habit of promising and then breaking his promises is considered an ‘abomination to Hashem.’”

A liar is despised

The Chofetz Chaim, famous for his books on the laws of lashon hara (forbidden speech), also wrote a book called Sfat Tamim (Perfect Speech). There he writes:

“The only sin for which the Torah uses the wording ‘distance yourself from it’ is the sin of lying. One must flee from falsehood, and even from the suspicion of falsehood — that is, one doesn’t actually lie but there is some element of falsehood in what one is doing.

“A person who has this bad trait [of lying] is a disgrace among men and despised by everyone, for lies tend to be discovered. Such a person earns himself a bad reputation as a liar, while those who speak truth earn themselves a good name...”

Truth brings blessing and peace to the world

“We are also commanded to warn even our young children to distance themselves from lies and lying. And our Sages (in the Talmud) have already warned us not to ever promise something to a child if we have no intention of keeping the promise, so that they do not learn [from our example] to lie...

“Truth is one of the foundations upon which the world rests, and the person who adheres to truth brings benefit to the world and increases goodness...

“And when there is truth upon earth, Hashem saves us from calamities...”