Yosef reveals himself to his brothers in this week’s parsha and they rush home to tell their father that his son is still alive. The sons of Yaakov share the great news with their father, but he does not believe them. The Midrash explains the reason Yaakov did not believe his sons is because they lied before. They lied when they told their father about Yosef being eaten by a wild beast, so Yaakov assumed they were lying again. Many people think they will help themselves if they lie, but as we see, a person actually hurts himself more by telling a lie.

When a person tells a lie, he needs to be extremely careful because once one lie is told, the person will probably need to tell another lie to make sure the listener does not figure out the story is false. My Rebbe pointed out that a liar needs to have a good memory or else he might say something that contradicts the lies he has told. Although many people think lying will help them, it does not. It is much more work and in the end much more difficult to be a liar than to simply tell the truth.

Mickey Mouse is now over 80 years old, but still is one of the famous characters that exists. How does he keep his popularity? Travel to one of the Disney parks and say to Mickey “Shalom Alecheim”, what does he respond? He does not say a thing! The reason is not because he (or actually, I should probably say she, because the person in the Mickey costume is usually a female) does not understand Hebrew. It is because the Mickey character does not speak to the guests. The reason is really quite simple: the Mickey Mouse that you meet in the parks is fake. He is a lie! He is not the real Mickey Mouse. But Disney is extremely smart – they don’t let anyone know about this lie. If Mickey spoke, any small child would realize this is not the real Mickey Mouse because the voice sounds different. Therefore, Disney realized they should make all of their costumed characters as mutes so the lie is not let out.

We can learn a great lesson from Mickey Mouse: do not tell a lie. Children still run to Mickey because they think it is the real Mickey Mouse. They do not realize it is a lie, because Mickey never attempts to tell a lie. Even if a person cannot be truthful, a person should go as far as they can to distance themselves from being false. The person who gets hurt the most by telling lies is the liar himself. So we should do our best to avoid them.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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