Truthfulness or community?

Jews do not believe that communities are founded on truthfulness alone. In the Biblical story, a family, a family of families, a people, springs from Rebekah’s lie. As I have described the Hebrew Bible, it shows us how communities can grow out of moral imperfections.

Shaffer, I think, believes that communities do require truthfulness. I often teach one of his finest essays, The Legal Ethics of Radical Individualism, which he organizes around a husband-and-wife estate-planning dilemma. In it, a lawyer learns that Mary, the wife, has concealed from her husband John her true wishes about what bequests their will should make.^[612] She conceals them because she wants to avoid conflict with John.^[613] Now that the lawyer has brought the problem to the surface, a messy conflict of interest arises; but Shaffer argues that the lawyer’s probing inquiry into deep family issues is a morally good act, not a mistake. “The estate planning issue... is whether this family is equal to the truth of what it is. The legal ethics issue is whether this lawyer, employed by this family... is to continue to have anything to do with the truth of what this family is.”⁶⁷

But what if the family is not equal to the truth of what it is? When I teach Shaffer’s essay, I hypothesize some additional facts to my students: before John and Mary knew each other, Mary had a child out of wedlock and placed it for adoption. She never told John. Now, she would like the child to receive a bequest, but she fears that raising the issue after so many years would destroy her marriage.

She may well be right. Friends who are family therapists tell me that family secrets pervade their practice, and the families do not always survive disclosure. That is a hard truth, but an even harder truth is that families whose members do not disclose secrets sometimes thrive.

Like my therapist friends, I have my doubts. In the best of all possible worlds, Mary tells John about her child, and, after the shock has subsided, they work out of the crisis with their marriage stronger and more truthful. But people have weaknesses, and sometimes good people have terrible weak­nesses, and love does not conquer all. The best of all possible worlds may not be available to these two people. That leaves two possible futures. In one, Mary tells John about the baby, and he cannot deal with the truth. After two tumultuous years they divorce. It shouldn’t be that way. John and Mary should be able to rise to the truth of what their family is. But that is the way it is.

In the alternative future, the lawyer agrees with Mary to let the matter drop without telling John. He draws up a will that includes no bequest to Mary’s child, and she signs the will. John and Mary go to their graves after fifty years of marriage in which Mary never tells John about the baby. Their lives and deaths are flawed: John dies deceived, and Mary dies without leaving money to her child. But they live and love together, and they do not die alone.

It is far from obvious which of these is least bad. Therapists and lawyers must reflect deeply on whether they will place their faith in truthfulness, like Shaffer and Mrs. Orme; or whether, like Mr. Furnival, they will try to practice the art of the possible (knowing that what is possible may be morally disappointing). If I read Shaffer aright, he thinks professionals should take the first course. The lawyer should have faith in John and Mary, faith that they can rise to the truth.

In both cases, I incline the other way. My reason for inclining the other way is that lawyers, like therapists, have a responsibility to abjure wishful thinking, and when hope flies in the face of evidence it becomes practically indistinguishable from wishful thinking. Shaffer denies this: he writes that “the virtue of hope can come to terms with and deal truthfully with the certainty that the moral life will cause others to suffer.”^[614] But if the suffering of others is a certainty, where is the hope? Shaffer’s answer is one we have seen before: “Hope... says that the Ruler of the Universe is in charge, that fate is finally benign.”^[615] Hope is extra-worldly.

Judaism is a this-worldly religion. A few years ago, a Christian friend asked me what Jews believe about the afterlife, and I had to admit that I didn’t know. I called my father and asked him whether we (officially) believe in an afterlife. He didn’t know either. He called a friend who is deeply immersed in Jewish study, but his friend was unsure. Officially, Jews believe in the resurrection of the dead when the Messiah comes, and recite a state­ment of that belief near the beginning of the Eighteen Blessings; and the rabbinic literature is filled with folk-tales about paradise and hell, Eden and Gehinnom. But these folk-beliefs are quite peripheral to the religion. “Whatever may be the doctrine of heaven and hell, the central emphasis of Judaism has remained on this world, from the beginning.”^[616] Abraham’s great act of faith, the sacrifice of Isaac, was redeemed in this world rather than the next; so was the faith of Job.

Furnival, Chaffanbrass, and Aram are unattractive instruments of salva­tion, but it seems to me that Rabbi Trollope leaves us with the possibility that God works through unattractive instruments. As usual, there is a Jewish joke on the subject.

After many days of hard, continuous rain, the river is in danger of flooding, and word goes out that people may have to abandon their homes. When the river crests, water pours through the town, inundating houses, and it continues to rise. Firemen are sent in a small motorboat to go through the streets to make sure everyone is leaving. When they come to the house of the rabbi, they find him standing knee-deep in water on his front porch.

“Come on, Rabbi,” say the firemen. “The river will go much higher, and you should leave with us.”

“No,” says the rabbi. “God will protect me.” And he sends them away. The river rises higher, the rabbi is forced to go up to the second floor of his house, and now the police come in a motor launch.

“Come on, Rabbi,” say the police, “there isn’t much time.”

“No,” insists the rabbi. “I will stay right here. God will look after me.” And he sends them away.

Now the river rises so high that the rabbi is forced to stand on the roof of his house. When the National Guard arrive in a large boat, telling him that the river is sure to go even higher, the rabbi says, “All my life I have been a man of faith, and I will stay now, and trust in God,” and sends them away.

The river rises, the rabbi is swept away, and the rabbi drowns.

Forthwith the rabbi appears in heaven, where he angrily approaches the throne of God, demanding, “How can You have let this happen to me? For all my life I have kept Your mitzvot. I have done what You asked, and trusted in You. Why?”

A voice sounds from the throne: “You shmuck. I sent three boats.”^[618]

Sometimes, perhaps, God sends three lawyers.

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