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Why did Yehuda lie about Binyamin's brother being dead when he could have simply said "he's not here"? The shiur explores how people inadvertently reveal truth even when lying, and connects this to why Yaakov couldn't initially believe his sons when they said Yosef was alive. The Gemara (גמרא)'s principle that "words of truth can be sensed" explains both episodes and teaches that self-deception blinds us to contradictions in our own behavior.
This shiur examines the dialogue between Yosef and Yehuda in Parshas Vayigash, focusing on a puzzling aspect of Yehuda's defense of Binyamin. When Yehuda recounts their previous conversation with Yosef, he tells him that Binyamin's brother is dead. Rashi (רש"י) notes that Yehuda lied out of fear, concerned that if he said the brother was alive, Yosef would demand to see him. Rabbi Zweig raises a fundamental question: Why did Yehuda need to lie at all? In earlier conversations, the brothers had simply said the brother "wasn't here"—which was truthful enough without specifying death. By explicitly saying the brother was dead, Yehuda created an obvious contradiction with his previous statement and opened himself up to being caught in a lie. The more strategic approach would have been to maintain the same ambiguous language ("he's not here"), and only clarify that "not here" meant "dead" if pressed. By stating an outright falsehood, Yehuda unnecessarily exposed himself to accusations of perjury.
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Bereishis 44:20, 45:26
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