In the evening he began to reflect on his first day of life with the middas ha’emes. He was pained and full of sorrow when he realized what he had done and the untold agmas nefesh he had caused so many sincere individuals. How would he ever be able to repair what he had destroyed that day?

However, when the “Man of Truth” heard this, he said, “If I could only be relieved from having to see you and your despicable face.”

The woman was horrified at her master’s unusual response to her blessing. But then he began to enumerate for her all his complaints. With a heavy heart, the maidservant left the house.

The Ben Ish Chai offers an unbelievable parable of a young man who, on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, began to contemplate the shortcoming of this world which is filled with flattery and deceit. His imagination began to conjure up an ideal world where sheker was completely uprooted. As he became lost in his thought, he drifted off to sleep.

The acts of Hashem are a paradigm for all generations. This particular modification that Hashem made when He repeated His conversation with Sarah to Avraham is to teach us that the quality of peace is even more important than the quality of truth.

The middah of emes has its boundaries. If a person uses it at all times and in all places, without considering the situation at hand, he can harm himself. This would in fact not be a middah chassidus, an extra measure of piety, but rather something that is foolish and forbidden.

Tzedek tzedek tirdof l’maan tichye v’yorashto es ha’aretz … (Devarim 16:20) – Righteousness, righteousness shall you pursue, so that you will live and possess the Land…

The obvious translation of these words is that a person must pursue “tzedek” – to seek ways that will enable him to increase righteousness and tzedakah in the land.

However, the Ben Ish Chai undertakes to comprehend the true meaning of the word tirdof – to pursue, which usually indicates a lashon of hisnagdus – opposition and conflict, and why the word tzedek is repeated twice.