Pearls of Wisdom from the Parshah
He shall do just as it came out of his mouth. (Bemidbar 30:3)
Simply speaking, this verse is talking about oaths and vows. When a person swears, or takes a vow, he must fulfill his words and not act differently than he said. However, Chazal and Baalei Hamussar spoke at length in many places about how great it is to guard one’s mouth from speaking falsely even when no oath or vow is involved. A person should train himself to speak only the truth, and whatever he says, he should make sure to do it.
Habituating oneself to always speak the truth is one of the greatest and loftiest virtues a person can acquire. It is a level of personal perfection that is actually very hard to attain. This is because people naturally deviate quite a bit from the truth.
Chazal say that when Hakadosh Baruch Hu wished to create man, the trait of truth argued that man should not be created, because he speaks falsely so much. People naturally tell lies. Both big lies and little insignificant lies. And even when they are not telling an outright lie, they often speak inaccurately. People say lies that are damaging to others, and they tell tall tales that are harmless. It is hard to recount even a short, simple story without exaggerating something or adding something.
This is all for a simple reason. We know that when we are in a tough spot, we can very often get out of it by saying a false word, thus saving ourselves a lot of loss and a lot of unpleasantness. And we have been in tough spots like this over and over again during the course of our lives, so we have grown accustomed to this kind of maneuvering.
The habit begins with small matters. Children naturally behave rambunctiously and rollick around. They often do things they should not. With a little lie, a child can save himself from punishment. And since he is a small, weak child, falsehood is the only means of defense he has. This habit of speaking falsely thus becomes second nature. A person knows as long as he lives that he can maneuver a lot of problems in life by telling a little lie, and this is why so many people don’t stick to the truth.
However, speaking non-truths is one of the main causes of spiritual decline. It distances a person from Hashem, and from the Torah, which are the very source of truth.
We might think that words are just a matter of pushing a little air out of our mouth; it’s no big deal. But we are seriously deluding ourselves if we think this way. A word is a tremendously important and significant matter. It is not by chance that speech has the ability to build worlds and destroy worlds, to break hearts and to re-empower the downtrodden. We know this is true.
We need to realize that even if we don’t immediately see it, our words exert a great influence. Speaking falsely even about paltry things that don’t seem to matter to anyone is a harmful and destructive act. It disconnects us from Hashem, Whose Name is Emes.
Fortunate is the person who accustoms himself to speaking only the truth, because he is thereby attached to the Source of truth. As Chazal say, “The seal of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is truth.”
1 Shabbos 55a.
