Distance yourself from a false word (Shemos 23:7)

Imagine you had some item in your home that you very much liked, and due to its fragility you refrained from lending it out to anyone, lest something happen to it. But then your good friend asked if he could borrow it. So now you re-evaluate: For a stranger: No. But for this good friend, not only do you allow him to borrow it, but you even do so with joy!

And then the inevitable happens: The item breaks while in your friend’s possession, and he comes to you asking, “How much was the item? I want to compensate you!” The law in the Shulchan Aruch is clear: A borrower is obligated to pay full damages – even if the item was damaged through an accident. This is not a chok, but a Mishpat which is clearly understandable.

This entire incident actually happened to a friend of mine. In the end, he told me that he felt very uncomfortable taking money from his friend, the borrower. I asked him, “Why?” Not only did he say that he didn’t know why he felt uncomfortable, but he said that he was also uncomfortable that he was feeling uncomfortable, as he knew that the halacha dictates that he be compensated! I suggested to him the following possibility: Though a lender has no obligation and is not involved in the damage that happened, the bottom line is that because the lender lent the item to the borrower, the borrower now had an object that could break and incur a loss. Therefore the lender of this item feels a bit guilty that in a round-about way he was involved in causing the damage to happen, and would like to contribute to the restitution.

There is a similar incident in the gemara (Bava Metzia 83a):

Certain porters broke Rabba bar bar Chanan’s barrel of wine after he had hired them to transport the barrels. He took their cloaks as payment for the lost wine. They came and told Rav. Rav said to Rabba bar bar Ḥanan: Give them their cloaks. Rabba bar bar Ḥanan said to him: Is this the halakha? Rav said to him: Yes, as it is written: “That you may walk in the way of good men” (Proverbs 2:20). Rabba bar bar Ḥanan gave them their cloaks. The porters said to Rav: We are poor people and we toiled all day and we are hungry and we have nothing. Rav said to Rabba bar bar Ḥanan: Go and give them their wages. Rabba bar bar Ḥanan said to him: Is this the halakha? Rav said to him: Yes, as it is written: “And keep the paths of the righteous” (Proverbs 2:20).

The Vilna Gaon in Proverbs 2:20 explains that it is expected of a person who is on a high level and has the means to do chesed and relinquish the obligations of payment for poor people who cause damage, as in the case of Rabba bar bar Ḥanan. The Gaon explains that this is not even extraordinary behavior for this person, as the verse intimates, this is the derech – the way of many people. However, to pay them, that is an orchos – a pathway, meaning of the minority – a special way of the most righteous.

The Toras Gavriel explains, based on this Vilna Gaon, that this gemora demands that a person goes beyond the letter of the law, and one has to take into account, even the judge, whether one of the litigants is rich or poor. This goes so far that when legally possible a judge who doesn’t do so transgresses the prohibition of distancing oneself from falsehood!

In our own lives we are faced many times with such situations and we feel like saying, “but he owes me” or “he damaged me”. For example, one hires a worker and the worker messes up the job and cause you a loss. To be what the Vilna Gaon calls a “good Jew” demands that we don’t charge him for the damage he did. If we wish to strive to be a righteous Jew, we would even teach him how to do it right and pay him for his efforts.

An example of this would be when someone learns of a poor man and he decides to be charitable and give him a job, though he knows that he will do inferior work. To pay him for this inferior work would possibly fit in with the first half of the verse. But to hire him again, help him correct his mistakes, and spend your time and energy training him, may put you into the second half of the verse of being a righteous Jew. In this week of Mishpatim, I believe it is a time to focus on going beyond the letter of the law.