One day Rab Safra went for a walk in the suburbs with his pupils. He was met by a pious man, a stranger, coming along the road, who thought that Rab Safra had come out to meet him, and did not know that R. Safra had merely gone out for a walk. So he said to him: "Why did you take so much trouble to lower yourself and come out to meet me?"

R. Safra replied: "I do not want you to think that I came out specially to meet you. I merely came out with my pupils to take a walk."

When the pious man heard this, he was ashamed for having spoken thus before R. Safra and his pupils, for he had really thought that they had come out in his honor.

Then the pupils asked R. Safra why he had put the poor man to shame, which is a

great sin.

R. Safra replied: "Why should I have told him a lie?"

The pupils said: "You might have kept silent."

R. Safra replied: "If I had kept silent, he would have thought it was true, and I would not have fulfilled the verse: 'Speaketh truth in his heart' (Ps. 15.2), which means: You shall speak with your mouth that which your heart means; whereas I should not have meant what I spoke. Moreover, I should have 'stolen his heart' (cf. Gen. 31.26), i. e. I should have outwitted him, making him think that I had come out in his honor. The name of the Lord is 'Truth,' and He desires that man should always speak the truth and never lie. If men observe this, the Lord sends rain in its due season when it is needed, as the Bible says: 'Truth springeth out of the earth' (Ps. 85.12)." Therefore people should always speak the truth and never tell lies.