Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

Naked truths?

Wednesday last, I had the benefit of sitting in on The HICES Debating Preliminary Final – Opens Division. Our students argued the positive side of the contention: ‘That in a Post-Truth world, the Truth still matters’. In their opening statement our students confidently asserted not only does Truth still matter but it is the only thing that matters. I was eager to hear, then, what Truth is.

I soon learned that Truth is what we all agree upon so we can cohere as a community or society. Indeed, it was the only thing that matters because without it, (or really without us determining what it is) ‘we’ could not exist (and, surely then, no longer would Truth).

With this in mind, that evening I attended our Year 12 HSC Visual Arts Exhibition where I encountered the exhibit ‘Nude and Naked’. ‘Naked’, it was explained, indicated that unlike ‘Nude’ there was no choice in the matter. The ‘Naked Truth’ one might then say is Truth that is absolute not dependent on convention, a stark reality without accretions that cannot be the ‘comfortable’ dressed-up notion of what we find acceptable and agreeable.

Or could it?

The Hasidic master, the Maggid of Dubnow, was fond of sharing the following story:

Truth set out upon the town, naked as the day he was born. Being naked, no one would invite him for talk and tea. All the people who saw him turned on their heels and ran. He was quite lonely and felt terribly unappreciated.

One day he came across Story, surrounded by an eager and admiring crowd. Story was dressed splendidly with fine cloth and colors, telling an elaborate tale. Truth walked up and the people ran, leaving Story and Truth alone in the middle of the square. Truth started to wail, “How is that everyone gathers around you to listen to your tales. What I have to say is at least as important as what you say, but people treat me like the plague”.

Story replied, “For someone so smart, you sure are stupid. Look at you, naked as the day you were born!

“Of course no one wants to see you! Here, take some of my clothes. Once people see you dressed up with Story, you will be the talk of the town”.

Truth took the advice and put on the Story’s splendid clothes. From that time on, Truth and Story went hand in hand.

Can Truth be so without being naked, or is it only so in not being naked (if it is what we can accept as constituting Truth)?

On the other hand, we find another Hasidic leader, the Kotsker Rebbe (author of Truth and Faith) who could countenance no Truth that was not the bare Truth. One must see the Truth for what it is, not for what others would accept it to be. His dictum is as equally well-known as the Maggid’s story:

If I am I because I am I, and you are you because you are you,

then I am I and you are you.

But, if I am I because you are you and you are you because I am I,

then I am not I and you are not you.

For this Rebbe, Truth is the only thing that does matter. Yet, I sense he would not be of one mind with our students in arguing this shared proposition. Truth, he contends, could only be uncompromising, stripped of all pretence. Indeed, this Truth did not enable his community to cohere, with the Kotsker Rebbe spending the last 20 years of his life in solitude, with ‘nothing but the Truth’ and leaving no followers.

So how much does Truth matter? The following midrash (Rabbinic teaching) brings us back to our beginning:

“And God said: ‘Let us make the human being”…Rabbi Simon explained: “The ministering angels divided into differing camps…Lovingkindness and Truth encountered each other, Justice and Peace engaged each other. Lovingkindness said: “Let the human be created for he will practise human kindness”. Truth said: “Let him not be created for he is full of falsehood”. Justice said “Let him be created for he will practise righteousness”. Peace said “Let him not be created for he is full of strife”. What did God do? He took hold of Truth and cast it to the ground.

And, so we are here searching together for Truth in a ‘Post-Truth world’, as we have been all along.