This week, we begin the Book of Leviticus with Parshat Vayikra, or “And he called.” It begins, “The Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting.” ¹

God quickly goes into extensive instructions for our main subject of the book: korbanot, sacrifices or offerings. The end of the parshah names various mistakes for which one had to bring a korban, such as withholding testimony, touching an unclean carcass, and the one we’ll focus on today, breaking a spoken oath.   

Leviticus 5 teaches: 

Or if a person utters with his lips an oath for bad or good purpose—whatever a person may utter in an oath—and, though he has known it, the fact has escaped him, but later he realizes his guilt in any of these matters—when he realizes his guilt in any of these matters, he shall confess that wherein he has sinned. ²

The meaning of this passage is a little unclear: What is inherently wrong with taking an oath? Rashi clarifies that the offense here occurs when one forgets they’ve taken an oath and as a result goes on to violate it. ³

While we generally don’t go around taking actual formal oaths today, there’s a clear connection between this concept and the way we tend to make so many promises to others; it would be impossible to remember them all, let alone keep them all.

The Jewish laws around oaths are highly complex and detailed, and there are two entire talmudic tractates, called Nedarim and Shevuot, Vows and Oaths, respectively, on this matter. 

Moses Maimonides simplified these laws in his halachic work Mishneh Torah. There he identifies four kinds of oaths: “the futile oath, the false oath, the oath concerning a deposit, and the oath of testimony.” ⁴

An oath concerning a deposit is tied to dealing honestly with others in business, and an oath of testimony relates to a court case. ⁵

The futile oath is the most complicated to define, as that category itself breaks down into numerous smaller subsets. ⁶ However, it’s also the type that is perhaps most applicable to our daily lives. The Rambam first divides futile oaths into four groups: “positive and negative assertions about things past” (for example, I ate that sandwich or I didn’t eat that sandwich) and “positive and negative assertions about the future.”  ⁷

Maimonides states that all of these formulations can lead to false oaths. He writes: 

If anyone took one of these four classes of oaths and did the reverse, if, for example, he swore not to eat and ate, or to eat and did not eat; or if he swore “I ate” when in fact he did not eat; or “I did not eat” when in fact he did eat; it is a false oath. Of this and similar oaths it is written ⁸: “You shall not swear falsely by My Name.” ⁹

In short, there are many ways to lie. 

Rambam additionally names four other ways of categorizing futile oaths: 

1. Swearing that a known fact is not a fact, e.g., up is down, black is white. 
2. Swearing about something that is obvious, e.g., 1 + 1 = 2. ¹⁰
3. Swearing to break a commandment.
4. Swearing about something one can’t possibly do. For this, Maimonides gives the examples of swearing to stay awake for three days straight, or to go a week without eating. 

Rambam continues, “Anyone who swears a vain oath belonging to one of these four classes transgresses a prohibitive law, as it is written: ¹¹ “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” ¹²

Despite the abstract manner in which our talmudic sages and later commentators presented this issue, the heart of what they were saying could not be more relevant. 

In our current “post-truth society,” in which terms like “fake news,” “alternative facts,” and “gaslighting” are frequently used to describe our public discourse, Maimonides’ condemnation of blatant lies should be taken seriously—both in our public lives and our personal ones. 

So too, we ought to heed Maimonides’ instruction to avoid making promises we’re unable to follow through with. We see the most visible instances of this offense in political campaigns. And while politicians are certainly at fault, we’ve also collectively allowed for a culture that embraces sloganeering and enormous promises. As the public, we not only tolerate bombastic politics, but we often encourage it, demanding those very statements by politicians promising things they know they can’t deliver on. 

But on a personal level, we should view the category of impossible promises with even more self-scrutiny. First, we should see it as a call to have the integrity to meet our spoken commitments. Also, we should take it as an obligation to exhibit caution around making commitments, orally or otherwise, that we’re uncertain we can meet. 

A key takeaway from all of these types of vain, futile oaths, though, is that the Torah derides meaningless words. Meaningless words were a problem to be stamped out thousands of years ago, and they are still a detriment to our world today. 

Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of our Ancestors, teaches: 

Shimon, [Rabbi Gamliel’s] son, used to say: All my days I grew up among the sages, and I have found nothing better for a person than silence. Study is not the most important thing, but actions; whoever indulges in too many words brings about sin. ¹³

In a society that rewards much talking and little listening, the Torah tasks us with saying only the things we truly mean and learning to practice a lot of refinement and restraint on the occasions when we must speak.

Sources

1.  Leviticus 1:1
2.  Leviticus 5:4-5
3.  Rashi on Leviticus 5:4:5
4.  Mishneh Torah, Laws of Oaths 1:1
5.  ibid. 1:8-12
6.  This is due to the fact that the biblical Hebrew word used for “futile” in this context is shav, a term which has several connotations and meanings.
7.  ibid. 1:2
8.  Leviticus 19:12
9.  Mishneh Torah, Laws of Oaths 1:3
10.  Categories 1 and 2 in this list are based on the Babylonian Talmud, Shevuot 19a.
11.  Exodus 20:7
12.  Mishneh Torah, Oaths 1:7
13.  Pirkei Avot 1:17