LEV336 The Torah clearly prohibits lying in several places: "You must not carry false rumors" (Exod 23:1); "Keep far from a false charge" (Exod 23:7); and "You shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another" [this verse]. While eschewing lies is necessary for the maintenance of trust among people, thus making human society possible, the Rabbis recognized that not every untruth is an evil to be avoided, not every truth necessary to reveal. According to a story on B. Sanhedrin 97a, Rava at first despaired of finding truth in the world. He then learned of another rabbi who never told lies and who had settled in a town called "Kushta" ("truth"). No one in Kushta ever told lies or died prematurely. The Kushtan rabbi married and had two sons. One day a neighbor called for his wife, who was washing her hair. The rabbi thought it inappropriate to mention that fact, and so (falsely) stated that his wife was not present. His two sons died, and when the townspeople investigated this unheard-of tragedy and learned how it had come about, they asked him to leave Kushta. The story's point is that absolute truth cannot abide an untruth told even for a virtuous purpose, and human life itself cannot be sustained within the realm of absolute truth. This latter rabbinic insight appears in a number of places in the Talmud and post-talmudic literature where the point is not necessarily that physical human life is endangered by absolute truth, but that absolute truth may endanger human relations, emotions, and psyches. For example, Genesis Rabbah 48:18 points out that while the matriarch Sarah had included her husband's advanced age along with her own as the reason she could not conceive (Gen 18:12), God reported her statement to Abraham as mentioning only her own age (Gen 18:13). The midrash points out that the Torah altered her statement in order to keep peace between them. B. Yevamot 65b also refers to Joseph's brothers' reference to the deceased father's non-existent request that Joseph forgive them (Gen 50:15-17), as well as to Samuel's misleading Saul as to the real purpose of his coming to see him (I Sam 16:2) -- which was to inform him of God's rejection. In the first and third of these biblical examples, it is God Himself Who utters or suggests the untruth. Referring to Genesis 50:15–17, Rabbi Il'a states that it is permitted to alter a statement for the sake of peace, but Rabbi Nathan relies on I Samuel 16:2 in asserting that it is a mitzvah to do so. The passage on B. Yevamot 65b closes with reference to God shading of the truth in Genesis 18:13, thus tipping the scale in Rabbi Nathan's favor. (By Alyssa M. Gray, "Jewish Ethics of Speech")