G-d's Seal of Truth

By Moshe Feiglin

"And when a person makes a promise to G-d or vows a vow to bind a prohibition on his soul, he shall not break his word, all that comes out of his mouth he shall do." (From this week's Torah portion, Matot, Numbers 30:3)

Judaism's approach to what comes out of a Jew's mouth is disproportionate to what is accepted in other cultures, certainly to what is accepted in the cultures of our times.

"You are children of Hashem, your G-d" declares the King of the world. In other words, you are princes and princesses. Your word is not meaningless; it is the word of the prince. When a prince is not faithful to what comes out of his mouth, he misrepresents the king, for the root of truth is the existence of G-d. When the truth is distorted, it is actually a declaration of war on the sovereignty of the Creator.

Cultures in which the truth is not significant cannot develop. That is why the "middle-eastern imagination" culture of the Arab nations cannot develop a productive economy.

When the president of the USA attempts to rehabilitate the economy by printing more money, he is actually declaring that there is no truth - in other words, that there is no G-d. At the foundation of this foolishness is an economic system that assumes that reality is actually an illusion and that everything is a fleeting deception. If that is the case, all that needs to be done is to create the illusion of economic growth. Like every falsehood, this can work for a certain length of time. But due to the fact that there is a G-d and there is absolute truth, the falsehood will eventually boomerang.

We can say that the essence of the economic/philosophical difference between the Republicans and the Democrats or between capitalism and socialism is expressed in how they view the truth: as objective or subjective. In other words, is reality absolute or relative? The philosophy that views reality as absolute/objective truth generally dovetails with a G-d based approach to life, while the philosophy that views reality as relative/subjective truth is more accepted among those who reject a G-d based approach to life. (Yes, there are definitely exceptions to this rule).

The amazing existence of the Jewish Nation is testimony to the existence of G-d in the world. Is it even possible to think that the main witness would lie?

Shabbat Shalom