Bais HaVaad on the Parsha, Parshas Toldos

Forthright Falsehood

November 28, 2024

Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Dayan Yitzhak Grossman 

And Yaakov said to his father: “It is I, Eisav your firstborn…”

Bereishis 27:19

Yaakov Avinu engaged in deception multiple times to obtain what was rightfully his. Is such behavior permitted?

The Gemara (Brachos 5b) indicates that Rav Huna suffered a financial loss because he did not give his sharecropper what he deserved, despite the fact that the sharecropper had acted dishonestly with him. But this would appear to contradict another Gemara (Megillah 13b) that says Yaakov told Rachel he was allowed to engage in deception against those, like Lavan, that attempt to deceive him, in order to get what he is owed.

The Mordechai distinguishes between the cases: One may seize a specific object that was taken from him, but he may not, in response to being cheated, seize anything else. The Ben Ish Chai limits the Mordechai’s license to seizing the item in public; if that is not possible, then surreptitious retrieval is permitted. The Sho’eil Umeishiv agrees, though he is unsure whether seizing money in the amount owed is the equivalent of recovering the stolen object.

The Rashba, by contrast, argues forcefully that lying is absolutely forbidden even to retrieve one’s stolen property. Perhaps he would explain Yaakov’s statement in Megillah as referring to a “white lie,” but an absolute lie would be forbidden.

The Mishpatecha LeYaakov, a contemporary work, discusses the case of an employee who says that after he completed his job, his employer falsely claimed that they had agreed on a lower hourly rate than they had. He rules that if an employee is being swindled by his employer in this manner, he may inflate his hours to receive the payment he is owed. He argues that the Rashba’s stringent approach applies only in bais din, but outside of bais din, one may lie in such a case.