Living Torah Archives

The Torah prohibits speaking falsehood and bearing false witness in court. The codifiers list this as just one of Judaism’s 365 negative commandments. Yet Maimonides singles out the offense as one of the most disgraceful in Torah.

At the first possible opportunity, we begin teaching our young about their precious heritage. And while the obligation to educate our children only begins once they reach the age of five or six, there is much we can teach them even before then.

Maimonides teaches that “genuine” repentance is when the “Knower of Secrets,” G-d himself, can attest that a person will never commit the same sin again. Yet practically, Jewish law judges a person only by his current, observable deeds and not by what he has in his heart, or what the future may hold.