“Thou shalt not bear false witness” (Exodus 20:16). “Bear” in this verse is traditionally understood to mean carry or convey, so that essentially the meaning is thou shalt not deliver a false witness, or, to put it in even simpler terms, thou shalt not lie. But another common meaning of the word bear is to endure or manage to tolerate or to support the weight of. In this case, we could render the commandment as “thou shalt not abide false witness” or “thou shalt not tolerate or endure false witness.” Bearing false witness in this sense is a much more subtle and insidious violation of the commandment. How often do we recognize the falsehood of a situation but out of politeness or fear of recrimination, we fail to stand up to the lies and tell the truth? Like the crowd in the story, “The Emperor's New Clothes”, who can clearly see that the emperor is wearing not a stitch but are afraid of looking foolish or rebellious and so loudly admire the imaginary clothing, we too find ourselves bearing false witness or tolerating the lies abounding on every side because we tell ourselves that the truth can't be worth all of the costs that we might assume if we go against the collective choice of everyone around us buying into and accepting the lies. But just like in the story, it just takes one voice standing up for truth, one person who refuses to abide the lies or bear the false witnesses for everyone to realize that the lies only have any power for as long as the people participating in them choose to give weight to them or bear them up. If we believe strongly enough in the power of truth that we would never utter a falsehood, then let us also believe strongly enough that we will not tolerate or abide a lie to be spoken or acted out in our presence. Only then can we truly say that we will not bear false witness in every sense of the word.
