Sefer Devarim
Parshat Re’eh: On Healthy Skepticism
In Parshat Re’eh, which means “see,” Moses tells the people:
See, this day I set before you a blessing and a curse: The blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the path that I enjoin upon you this day and follow other gods, whom you have not experienced. 1
This seems simple enough, to follow only the God we know. But Moshe is aware that, as the Israelites enter the Promised Land, they are going to be living in uncertainty; they’re going to be in a new and unfamiliar place, and they will be at war and living an entirely different reality—all without the only leader they’ve ever had and surrounded by all means of idolatry. 2 Therefore, Moses needs to prepare them spiritually to move into this new world.
Knowing that in this tumultuous time, there will be instances when it is appealing to go down false paths, Moses tells us:
If there appears among you a prophet or a dream-diviner, who gives you a sign or wonder, saying, “Let us follow and worship another god” whom you have not experienced—even if the sign or wonder named to you comes true, do not heed the words of that prophet or that dream-diviner. 3
Here we are warned of the dangers of the navi sheker, the false prophet.
In the religious realm, the meaning of a false prophet is simple: If someone wants to lead us away from the one God, even if they are capable of wonders, we cannot join them. Another simple way to identify a navi sheker, the tradition teaches, is that they try to erase the Torah commandments.
Moses Maimonides writes in his Mishneh Torah:
It is a clear and manifest principle concerning the Torah that as a law it is permanently established forever…[that] should a man rise up… saying that God has sent him to add a commandment, or to diminish, a commandment… he is a false prophet, seeing that he came to deny the prophecy of Moses. 4
The quintessential examples of a navi sheker are Shabbatai Tzvi, the 17th-century failed messiah, and the later messianic claimant Jacob Frank, both of whom believed one should not merely ignore the commandments, but go out of their way to break them.
And so, we have these straightforward ways of discerning false prophets in the purest sense. But what about the “false prophets” we encounter in politics and in social-change work? Often, we run into charismatic personalities who want us to believe that they’ve been, so to speak, sent by God—when in reality, they are there for self-serving purposes.
These are people who lead us astray from rational thought in critical analysis. They remind us of our problems and fears, and tell us, “I alone can fix it,” 5 stoking religious fervor in settings such as political conventions, where we must recognize the fallibility of all human beings and be cognizant of even the bad inclinations and intentions of some.
It is precisely because, in politics and activism, we don’t easily see the standard markers of the false prophet— other gods and preaching against the commandments—that we are tasked with scrutinizing these leaders, and ourselves, more closely.
We must ask: Are these prophets serving more subtle idols, such as money and power? Are they teaching, in more indirect ways, against Torah principles, such as taking care of the vulnerable and loving the stranger? Are they trying to fundamentally change the rules of the game regarding how we ensure justice, for instance, trying to remove the bedrock of democracy or challenging fundamental human rights?
This is one of our great Torah tensions: learning to be skeptical while also moving forward confidently to carry out our mission in the world. And that’s why we need to do the consistent Torah work of staying rooted to, and relating deeply with, our values, so that we have strong intuition when red flags come up. We cannot make decisions on issues based on the charisma of leaders, whether they seem to be on our side or not. We need to be rooted in wisdom.
Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) teaches:
There are four types [of individuals] among those who sit before the sages: a sponge, a funnel, a strainer and a sieve. A sponge soaks up everything; a funnel takes in at one end and lets out at the other; a strainer lets out the wine and retains the lees; and a sieve lets out the coarse meal and retains the choice flour. 6
Whether we’re sitting before sages, politicians, or community leaders who say they want to fix the world’s injustices, we must strive to be the sieve, to know when we’re being told the truth and when we’re being asked to participate in a lie, and to weed out that which is detrimental to social awareness and justice.
Some may say that, even though a charismatic leader is known to be untruthful, the navi sheker might have a good point every now and then. The Renaissance-era Italian commentator Ovadia Seforno, however, warns of the danger of dealing charitably with those known to be deceitful. He says of the false prophet:
Do not even turn to listen to find out if his words have even partial substance, for there can be no question that the man is full of lies and tells you things he has made up, all for an evil purpose. 7
There might be good points on the opposing side of an issue, but a person who is not truthful cannot be trusted to use that “partial substance” in good faith.
It is true that, when we look at all of the injustice in the world, we must recognize that things often need a change. But we need to be absolutely sure that the changes we make in bringing us closer to truth and to acts of justice are rooted in the larger good and not in the demands of a navi sheker.
Sources
- Deuteronomy 11:26-28
- It is precisely because of this new and unknown reality that the Israelites were instructed to destroy all altars and other objects used for false worship.
- Deuteronomy 13:2-4
- Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Torah 9:1
- Yoni Appelbaum, The Atlantic, “‘I Alone Can Fix It,’” (2016)
- Pirkei Avot 5:15
- Seforno on Deuteronomy 13:4:1