שפת תמים- פרק ב

We will discuss the עונש גדול of שקר. שקר shortens your life, as the פסוק says, "אנשי דמים ומרמה לא יחצו ימיהם". If we value life so much that we would do anything to live longer, we should be more careful regarding אמת.

What happens to a שקרן?
1. He will die earlier.
2. ה' will show his מרמה to the world, so what he is hiding will become known- "הלוך בתום ילך בטח ומעקש דרכיו יודע". This is talking about someone who puts bad in his heart, but he doesn’t tell anyone, so that his friend doesn’t know. ה' will make it so that they know. "אין הקב''ה גובה מן האדם עד שהוא מפרסם מעשיו". Sometimes you think that you will get away with something, but you won’t. It’s like the פסוק that says, "סוף דבר הכל נשמע את האלקים ירא ואת מצותיו שמור"- in the end it will be known what you did.
3. The bad thing that he wanted to do to the other person (cheat, steal) will be done to him, as the פסוק says, "שוחר טוב יבקש רצון ודורש רעה תבואנו".
4. This חטא has the כח to make someone lose his פרנסה. Maybe today’s bad economy is because of this. It can punish him in many ways, in both this world and the next. Why?
a. Because מרמה is compromised of many different חטאים- גזל, אונאה, שקר. So he gets such a great punishment because he did so many חטאים.
b. If you are מורגל in this, it’s terrible. And this is the kind of חטא that you are מורגל in- you don’t just do it once.

חז''ל say in the מדרש in דרך ארץ זוטא that ה' created everything except שקר and עולה. Mankind has brought it into the world. ה' never made it, as the פסוק says, "הצור תמים פעלו... קל אמונה ואין אול". So if it exists, it’s because of the people. "ה' צדיק בקרבה לא עושה עולה". Also, "חלילה לקל מרשע שקי מעול".

Also, "פעל האדם ישלם לו"- ה' created an upright world and your actions will be returned to you. This means that no one has צער if it’s not proceeded by שמחה. ה' gives a שבועה that the יצה''ר tempts people to do bad and say שקר so they can have כבוד and שמחה, and this leads someone to suffering. So don’t listen to theיצה''ר who wants to “keep up with the Joneses”. Do not steal so you can have שמחה because it will end up bringing צער.

ה'’s world is a world of שמחה, so why is there צער? He really created it in a way that it should only have good. But mankind brought suffering into the world because of their corruption. When you don’t act with אמת, you break the foundation of the world because the world leans on אמת. So שקר causes the world to crumble and not operate correctly- people die, there is suffering, fruits rot, there is no פרנסה… פרנסה only goes bad because mankind has done bad.

In פרשת בחוקתי it says, "ועץ השדה יתן פרי'"- if we listen to ה', even the fruits which don’t usually bear fruit will bear fruit. This is the way the world is really supposed to run. "ואכלתם יושן נושן"- you will eat very old things. Really, food isn’t supposed to rot and spoil.

People wouldn’t feel בושה if not for this, people’s eyes wouldn’t get blind in the middle of their lives if not for this. Really, the way of the world shouldn’t be like this. But because we corrupted the world, it is like this. Of course ה' created teeth and eyes that could last a whole lifetime, but we ruined the way of the world.

What does it mean that no one dies if not for food, drink and שמחה? Death and צער come about by dishonesty. Dishonesty stems from the fact that I want to be able to eat like you, drink like you and have what you have.

There is a משל in the מדרש: שקר and פחתא (loss, damage) mated so that everything שקר earns, פחתא takes away. It is the deal they have between themselves. So if we think that by lying we will gain, it’s the opposite. We are actually going to lose.

מהר''ל asks two questions on this מדרש:
1. Why is this a husband- wife relationship?
2. Why is the story with the תבה of נח important for us to know?

תבה is a symbolic word, a משל to קיום. שקר wanted קיום. A זכר and נקבה are only able to be מתקיים if they have each other. Logically, שקר can’t be מתקיים because it is out of the balance of the world. All of the world must have a balance. If someone takes what they aren’t supposed to, they are disturbing the balance of the world. If פחתא comes and takes what שקר got, it balances out. So you can’t have שקר alone, it must be balanced out. So the זכר- פועל does, and the נקבה- מקבלת accepts. This is the relationship of שקר and פחתא. There if no קיום if they aren’t a pair. This should really take away the נסיון, because whatever you get through שקר, it is guaranteed that פחתא is going to take it.

There is a different explanation to this story, ע''פ פשט- until נח, ה' was מאריך אף regarding the חטא of חמס, which comes from מרמה and שקר. So it could be 600 years before someone got punished. This was מצד רחמנות ה' so that people could do תשובה. But instead, people said that nothing ever happens if they steal, ה' doesn’t punish them. So they allowed themselves to steal because they thought they could get away with it. So ה' started all over again. He brought a מבול and wiped out the world and started again. But this time, שקר was followed by פחתא quicker so that everyone should learn their lesson. So now, people started dying early. People now clearly understood that שקר’s mate is פחתא- so it was as if they married at this point. Now you could see the relationship between the two clearly, as the פסוק says, "עושה עושר ולא במשפט בחצי ימין יעזבנו יראו רבים וייראו". So the more שקר you do, the closer you bring yourself to punishment.

Dishonest money will put a disease into your פרנסה and affect your כשר money, so you will lose even that money. "אם נטלת את שאינו שלך יטלו ממך ולא נשאר בידו". Don’t do שקר for the sake of gaining, because you will only lose.

People think that you could be dishonest in business. This isn’t true. People think that if they aren’t dishonest, they won’t have a פרנסה. When we act this way, it causes the גויים to say that it’s a known thing that Yidden cheat. We aren’t innocent of this accusation and they know when we cheat. There is a verb- to Jew= to cheat.

R’ Shimon Schwab- we will be a ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש when it comes to a point where it will make no sense that to Jew means to cheat, rather it means to be scrupulously honest.

Dishonesty causes the world to get smaller. Maybe this means that it causes earthquakes and tsunamis.

The wheel of עניות turns in the word- you might be at the top now, but it probably won’t stay as such. In the earlier years, it used to last for a very long time (ex. the Rothschild family). Now, richness doesn’t really last. Why? Because ה' is bringing שקר and פחתא close together. A person can be rich for a few minutes and then lose it all, for example with stocks. This is all being caused by גזל, חמס, שקר and מרמה. Even though you yourself might not be a שקרן, כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה so we all suffer the consequences.

We must understand that it is a relationship- whenever you do שקר, פחתא follows close behind. Now we see the consequences immediately. It was for our sake that ה' took away the מדת הרחמים of ארך אפים. Now, the גלגל העניות turns faster.

What about dishonest people who seem to never lose their wealth? You can be sure that the money is being kept to his detriment, as the פסוק says, "משלם לשונאיו על פניו להאבידו". ה' uses the money in order to prevent them from having good in the next world. It’s not a good sign for this person that he isn’t being paid back in עוה''ז- this means that he is ה'’s enemy and therefore ה' doesn’t want him to have good in עוה''ב. In עוה''ב, this person will grind his teeth on sand.

Additionally, although he had money in עוה''ז, his descendants will lose it. They will lose all of the money because even a bit of dishonest money contaminates all of it, so they lose even the כשר money. The daughter of נקדימון בן גוריון- she was so poor that she had to search through animal dung for food because her father didn’t use his vast riches for good things. So we see how it can affect the next generation.

One should realize that there is no reason to lie- you will have whatever you’re meant to have either way. So why throw in a lie and contaminate all of the money? If a person is selling an item, they should make sure not to say “in Bloomingdales they sell it for double the price” (unless it’s true), because this will contaminate the whole sale.

By saying שקר, you end up losing more than you gain, as the פסוק says, "מי האיש החפץ חיים אוהב ימים". חפץ חיים refers to עוה''ז and אוהב ימים refers to עוה''ב. We see from here that אמת is also good in this world- you live longer. Maybe at first you will look successful if you say שקר, but you will end up losing. Remember that פחתא always comes along with שקר. So don’t say שקר and you will have good in both עוה''ז and עוה''ב.