07 Sep 2010 - 28 Elul 5770
Weekly Dvar Torah
As part of the community's education programme, members are invited to deliver a Dvar Torah after the Kiddush each Shabbat morning. If you are not on the list and would like to give a Dvar Torah, please contact the Synagogue office.
On this page can be found some of the many Divrei Torah given by members of the community. If you would like one of yours to appear please send it as a Word document to the Synagogue office.
Mishpatim
My devar is about part of verse 7 of chapter 23 . It reads
‘midbar shaykayr teer-hak’ “keep far away from a lying word’.
This mitzvah about telling the truth is endorsed again in
Leviticus chapter 19 v11 “You shall not steal, nor deal falsely nor lie to
one another’ which together with today’s list provides a compendium of
social and ethical mitzvoth. And in the Mishnah (Avot 1.18) ‘the world rests on
three pillars – on justice, on truth and on peace’.
You will almost certainly be familiar
with the teaching of the Talmud in Bava Metzia (23b – 24a) which states ‘in
three things rabbis may deviate from the truth’ – regarding their knowledge (so
as not to boast), regarding the sexual relationship with their wives - (out of
modesty) [note the plural as this was
written many years before Rabbenu Gershon’s ruling that men may only marry one
wife at a time] and about their host’s hospitality ( so he is not inundated by
people seeking a free meal!)’.
We are expressly forbidden to lie. Does this mean we can
never lie? Do we always have to tell the truth?
The answer, as I am sure you already
know, is that we don’t ALWAYS have to tell the truth. However the situations
where we do not have to do so are limited and we should always tell as much of
the truth as we can.
Rabbi Pliskin in his book ‘Love Your Neighbour’ lists 10
examples when it is permissible to tell an untruth. This follows a set of 22
examples of other situations when we may NOT tell a lie – two examples cheating
in buying and selling and making promises to children that are not kept.
I recommend you to read Rabbi Pliskin’s comments on today’s
sedrah, the chapter in Rabbi Telushkin’s ‘Jewish Wisdom’ entitled ‘Truth, Lies
and Permissible Lies’ and the Chief Rabbi’s Covenant and Conversation piece for
sedrah Vayechi recently which discussed
two Torah situations when a White Lie was appropriate.
These give some deeper insights which are needed as this
whole topic is as difficult and complex. It connects with the prohibitions of
lashon hara.
[Pillow story about impossibility of retracting a lie]
Let me come back to verse 7!
As most of you know I visit patients in UCLH – having taken
over as the Jewish Chaplain at the one-time Middlesex Hospital after Donald
Lewis z’l died some eight years ago.
What does one say to a patient who may be dying or has been
diagnosed with a terminal condition?
What Torah guidance and halachic ‘ground rules’ exist to
help?
Some current medical approaches often place priority on
‘patient dignity’ and ‘patient autonomy’ – to make sure the person concerned is
part of the decision-making process relating to their future treatment.
These factors seem to take precedence for Reform Jewish
commentators.
The key Orthodox principle is that whatever is said and
however it is communicated should never – even possibly – hasten someone’s
death by causing the loss of any vestige of hope or by getting the person so
worried it takes away their will to fight their condition in whatever way they
want to.
One should do nothing
which might hasten a person’s death under any circumstance.
This means that Doctors, family members, visitors and
Chaplains have to be very sensitive. The better you know someone the less
likely you are to say the wrong thing.
In Rabbi Frand’s tape on sedrah Vayechi he mentions that some
people said to him that the victims of
the Lockerbie air disaster were fortunate because they died instantly and
didn’t have time to suffer.
He comments that this is not the Jewish view. Jacob
traditionally was the first person in the Torah to ask HaShem to make him
unwell before he died so that he could put his affairs in order and say his
goodbyes to his family – which he did in his blessings to his sons – before he
died.
Midrash says that until this time people went on as usual and
one day they sneezed and died.
Some people – but not all – really do want to be told that
they are unlikely to recover. Others do not.
Similarly some want to be told and be given detailed
technical information so they can make an informed choice whether to give or
withhold their consent to treatment proposed. Yet others prefer NOT to be
worried – and perhaps frightened - by – what is to them – a lot of technical
medical ‘stuff’.
Oliver Samuel story about NPH visit – patient very worried by
information concerning his treatment but relaxed when told ‘he was looking
better today’
Of course, only HaShem knows when each of us will die.
Doctors – who are human (even if some don’t seem to accept
such a lowly status!) – do their best. However they can and do get things
wrong. I came across a case quoted the British Medical Journal where a doctor
told a patient they were going to die – only to discover afterwards that he had
been talking to the wrong patient!
Doctors do their best but they are not prophets. There are
quite a lot of people still walking around today in spite of having been told
that they wouldn’t survive! As the Rabbi mentioned in his sermon last week.
Even when someone is in what the doctors refer to as ‘a
persistent vegetative state’ no-one really knows what mental activity or what
level of conscious thought, is going on’ inside. As you may know there is
evidence that the last sense one loses is the ability to hear.
If someone can talk they can still perform a few mitzvoth.
For example did you know that just wishing someone ‘gut shabbos’ constitutes
fulfillment of the mitzvah of ‘zachor et Yom HaShabbot le’kadsho’?
As you know our physical body is not our property – we are
only the custodian of it on HaShem’s behalf. We have a duty to look after it as
best we can. While we are able to refuse proposed treatment, we need to bear
this in mind. In this connection it seems to me – and no doubt the Rabbi would
correct me if he was here if I have got this wrong – that we should be able to
make a halachically acceptable ‘living will’. However one needs to appoint a
halachically knowledgeable agent to take decisions if one is unable to take
them for oneself.
When it comes to giving patients ‘news’ about their condition
their feelings about wanting or not wanting to know must be considered. They
need to retain hope without being unrealistically optimistic and one needs to
tailor the way news is communicated to the individual concerned.
‘It isn’t only what you do but the way that you do it!’
What is clear to me – and I hope now to you too - is that
what one says to someone depends on knowing the person well enough to apply
sensitivity in not only what one says but more importantly perhaps in how you
say it.
Robin Woolf 21st February 2009
Remember ‘that a smile adds to your face value’ and may help
to give hope and may make receiving bad news a little less bitter. But be aware
that people do see through lack of sincerity very, very easily!
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