In my role as a pastoral healthcare liaison at a local hospital, I have the privilege – and the responsibility – of visiting Jewish patients on a regular basis. These visits are often deeply meaningful. A familiar face, a few words of comfort, and a sense that someone from the outside world cares – these things matter.

But one recurring moment has pushed me to think more carefully about honesty than I might have expected.

I walk into a patient’s room – often someone who is also a congregant – spend time with them, and as I am leaving, they say: “Thank you so much for coming just to visit me.”

And then comes the question: Do I say, “Of course”? Or do I clarify that I was visiting the hospital anyway?

On one level, the answer feels obvious. Why diminish the emotional impact? The patient feels valued, cared for, remembered. Telling them that I was “in the neighborhood anyway” can feel almost deflating, even insensitive.

And yet, from a halachic perspective, the answer is not so simple.

The Shulchan Aruch teaches that a person must avoid creating false impressions that generate goodwill they did not actually earn. If I allow someone to believe that I made a special trip just for them, when in fact I did not, I am benefiting from a form of misrepresentation. Even if I did not initiate the misunderstanding, allowing it to persist can still be problematic.

Unless the other person’s assumption is unreasonable, I am expected to gently correct it.

In practice, when I find myself in this situation, I usually try to respond along these lines: “I was coming to the hospital anyway, but I’m really glad........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)