Facets of Truth

This year’s High Holyday sermons all touch on some aspect of truth. Today we will focus on how to deal with the fact that we all have truths that often don’t agree.

           Remember Rashomon? It was a 1950 film by Akira Kurasawa that essentially opened up the genius of Japanese cinema to American audiences.

The film depicts the rape of a woman and the apparent murder of her husband through the widely differing accounts of four witnesses, including the rapist and, through a medium, the dead man. The stories are mutually contradictory, leaving the viewer to determine which, if any, is the truth. The story unfolds in flashback as the four characters—the bandit, the murdered samurai, his wife and the nameless woodcutter recount the events of one afternoon in a grove. But it is also a flashback within a flashback, because the accounts of the witnesses are being retold by a woodcutter and a priest to a ribald commoner as they wait out a rainstorm in a ruined gatehouse. [Wikipedia]

           All saw the same thing. Each had a different version they were sure was the truth.
Sometimes we joke about it:

A local priest and rabbi were standing on the side of the road.

They thoughtfully made a sign saying, “The End is Near! Turn yourself around now before it’s too late!” and showed it to each passing car.

One driver that drove by didn’t appreciate the sign and shouted at them: “Leave us alone, you religious nuts!”
All of a sudden they heard a big splash. They looked at each other and the priest said to the rabbi, “You think we should just put up a sign that says ‘Bridge Out’ instead?”

           Sometimes we purposely create an untruth, often with tragic consequences:

On a Saturday night in 1899, four newspaper reporters from Denver, Colorado, happened to meet at the Denver railway depot. All four were on assignment from four different newspapers to dig up a story for the Sunday edition. Each reporter had come to the railroad station hoping to snag a visiting celebrity should one happen to arrive that evening by train.

No celebrity arrived. There was no news. One reporter, Al Stevens, of the Denver Post, said he was going to make up a story and turn it in. The others laughed. One of them suggested they walk over to the Oxford Hotel and have a beer. Jack Tournay said he liked the idea of faking a story, but if they were going to do it, it would have to be a whopper because half-baked fakes wouldn’t cut it.

Another round of beers.

A domestic story would be too easy to verify. A faked foreign story about some distant place would be difficult to verify. John Lewis said, “Try this one on: ‘Group of American engineers stopping over in Denver enroute to China. The Chinese government is making plans to demolish the Great Wall ... our engineers are bidding on the job.’” Another reporter asks, “Why would the Chinese want to destroy the Great Wall of China?” John replied, “They are tearing it down to symbolize international goodwill, to welcome foreign trade.”

Another round of beers.

By 11:00 p.m., the reporters had worked out the details of their preposterous story. They left the Oxford Hotel Bar, went over to the Windsor Hotel and signed in as four New Yorkers who would be leaving early the next morning for California.

All four Denver newspapers carried the stories on the front page. The Denver Times said, “Great Wall Doomed. China seeks world trade.” The story was picked up by Eastern newspapers. The Chinese heard that the Americans were sending a demolition crew to destroy their Great Wall. They were enraged.

A secret society of militant Chinese patriots, wary of foreign intervention, fanned the flames and began killing missionaries, burning churches, and attacking foreign embassies in Peking. Within two months, 12,000 troops from six nations joined forces and invaded China for the stated purpose of protecting their own citizens. The brutal war that followed, with the incredible bloodshed, is remembered as the Boxer Rebellion. The scars of that tragedy has affected Chinese-Western relations for decades. (Paul Harvey, “The Rest of the Story,” related by Joe Harding, in his sermon: “Converted and Creative Imagination”) [LectionAid, Jan/Feb/Mar 1997.]

           Aren’t we in the same boat? It’s no accident that now that we have the technology it’s being used more and more in things like baseball and football games. What we’re sure is the truth is often created by what we want to be the truth. It’s not lying. It’s not purposeful. It’s just the way we are.

So what are we supposed to do in a world where some people agree, others don’t, some create it out of whole cloth and all think their version of the truth is true?

Jewish tradition has created a system of dealing with this that doesn’t involve truth, but involves law instead. Does the spot on the chicken’s lung render it non-kosher? Our people have looked not to what a Rabbi, even a famous and respected one, thinks, but rather to what the law says. Whether the chicken is kosher becomes not a matter of opinion, but a matter of what the law says and how it is to be applied. If the Rabbi is unsure, another, usually more prominent one, is called in.

For people not versed in this system, which is most obvious in regard to the Sabbath, it can seem incredibly confusing. For example, walking a mile and a half up a steep hill on a 95 degree day to attend shul is not considered work, and is therefore permitted, but a five minute ride in an air-conditioned car is prohibited as work. It’s because of the sparks of the internal combustion engine, by the way.

Perhaps stranger still, you can push your piano around inside your house on the Sabbath, but carrying a purse more than four paces from your home into the public sphere is considered work and is prohibited.

Where does this come from?

The Rabbis noted that the Book of Exodus provides detailed instructions for the construction of the Tabernacle and is immediately followed by a reminder to Moses about the importance of the Jewish Sabbath. The Rabbis decided that whatever was being done to build the Tabernacle was, therefore, prohibited on the Sabbath. They came up with 39 Av Melacha, Major Categories of Work. Whatever is permitted or prohibited is derived from them.

           As we saw with cars, pianos, and purses, the system can be counter-intuitive, to say the least. But that’s not the point. If you believe, as traditional Jews do, that only God knows what’s true or false, all we can do is try and figure out what is legal or illegal, permitted or prohibited. They live entirely within a legal system that impacts on every aspect of life from how you use the rest room to your obligations to your business associates, to whether the chicken you bought from the kosher butcher is acceptable to eat. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is outside the purview of this system.

Obviously, if I wanted to act this way, I wouldn’t be here, at a Reform service. Neither would you. Even so, I recommend to you and to all Reform Jews a far greater familiarity with Jewish sources, legal minutiae and all. Why? Because to me, to be a Reform Jew, is to make informed choices based on knowledge. Our Reform tradition says, very beautifully: We give the past a vote, but not a veto. If you don’t know, what does such a vote entail other than pure whim?

Our people’s legal system can be a quagmire of contentious argument, and a clear pool of wonderful reasoning. For example: Question: How early can you begin the morning prayers? Answer: When it is light enough to make out the face of your friend.

Our legal system is difficult, but far less difficult, I suggest, than trying to base our lives on slivers of truth, fragments of truth, like the characters in Rashomon. Come, be a Reform Jew. Learn and then decide.