The Danger in Falsehood

Wisdom, talent, cunning, and ability are no guarantee of goodness. On the contrary, they may become dangerous when the will that drives them is not a will for good and integrity. A person can be very wise, but if he has no inner will for true good, his wisdom will serve deceit, coercion, and exploitation, and the very power of the will becomes an engine of evil. A transgression is not merely a wrongful act, but an expression of a corrupted will. When falsehood succeeds, and we “advance” thanks to it, it reinforces in us a false conception that one can live otherwise, by an easy, short, and crooked path. Rav Kook places theft at the center, because it is not only harm to another, but an entire conception of life in which a thief can subsist off the strength of others, without toil, without inner building, and without true responsibility for himself, and in this he harms in himself the very engine of life, the trait of the will. And the answer to falsehood is one: truth.

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