We continue with our translation of the seventh chapter of the Chofetz Chaim’s Sefas Tamim.
“Anyone who was always careful to behave in accordance with this character trait of truth will have his soul and the souls of his sons and daughters saved from death. The Gemorah (Sanhedrin 97A) illustrates this lesson with the following story.
‘A Torah scholar said, “At one time, I thought there was no truth in the world (meaning there was no one who only spoke the truth).” There was another Torah scholar who was very careful in this character trait of truth. Even if they were to give him all the money in the world, he would never lie. He responded back to the first scholar as follows. Once it had happened, that he had to travel to a city whose name is Kushta (which means truth in Aramaic). The residents of that city would never lie and as a consequence, nobody died in that city before reaching an old age and after living a fulfilling life. This scholar married a woman from that city and had two sons with her. Once in the privacy of their home, his wife [uncovered her hair] and was combing it when a neighbor knocked on their door. The scholar said to himself that it was not proper that the neighbor should enter his house while his wife's hair was uncovered. And so he told [lied to] his neighbor that his wife was not home. As a consequence of that lie, his two sons died. The residents of the city came to him and asked him what had happened. What sin did he commit that caused the death of his two sons? He told them what had happened. The residents told him to leave the city and not provoke death upon its residents.’
The point of the story is that anyone who is especially careful in this character trait of truth will bond during his lifetime to The Living G-d who is the source of truth and the Angel of Death will have no power over him. And only when this person grows old after having lived a satisfying life, he will necessarily have to die, not because of his own sins, but because of the sin of the Serpent which brought death upon the world.”
