Vayera פָּרָשַׁת וַיֵּרָא

Genesis 18 gives us the story of three angels visiting Abraham. One of them says “I will return to you next year, and your wife Sarah will have a son.” Sarah overhears the conversation. She “laughs to herself, saying, ‘Now that I am withered, am I to have enjoyment – with my husband so old?’”

Gen 18:13. In the very next verse, God reports her laughter to Abraham. But he tells Abraham that when Sarah laughed, she said: "Shall l in truth bear a child, old as I am?"

This story is familiar to many. It establishes the line of Abraham as coming from a miracle by God. It resolves the dramatic tension in the story of how Abraham can still be the father of nations when he is already an aged man with only a son from a concubine, not by his wife, Sarah. But I want to focus on one detail of the story. Let’s look carefully at the last two quotations.

In verse 13, Sarah laughs at the idea of being a mother. She says “with my husband so old,” implying that Abraham is too old for sex. But when God reports this to Abraham, God doesn’t say that. He says she laughed at the impossibility, saying “old as I am.” God tells Abraham that Sarah laughed because she thought she was too old to conceive.  Why did God change the story?  Did God lie? 
That’s the question.
Jewish tradition says that God acted this way to teach that peace in the home is more important than telling the truth. Why should God tell Abraham that Sarah thinks he is too old? That would embarrass him. Better to tell a little white lie. Peace in the home is a principal virtue, Shalom HaBayit. A little deviation from the truth is a small price to pay.

The Bible teaches that white lies are OK to maintain peace in the family.

The Talmud derives a stronger principle. The rabbis assert there is a strong prohibition against “hurting with words.” It prohibits embarrassing anyone in public, even if the words are true. The ancient rabbis noted that when someone is seriously shamed, the blood drains from their face. They equate this with murder, the shedding of blood, in its severity.