Tosafot explains that there must be edim during the time of halvaah because migo the guy could say "you didnt loan me anything" but later on he says we would not give the guy a migo that he would have said "i paid you earlier today" since thatis a migo dehaazah. My question is isn't the first case also a migo dehaazah! Why is he believed? It's probably even more mechutzaph!
Max maslaton , New York, united states
Shalom Max,
Your question is excellent, because it leads to a better and deeper understanding of the concept of "Migo d'Ha'azah."
Let's analyze the principle of Migo. Migo tells us that what the person is actually saying is not a lie, because if it were a lie, the person would have chosen for himself a much more "reasonable" or effective lie.
Note that, in any case, in all the options that this person chooses, he is lying to the lender and avoiding the fact that he borrowed money, and by the lie that he will now choose he tells a completely different story, which, in the end, means that he is lying and saying that he does not owe.
In other words, every Migo claim (the claim we say he should have chosen if he is lying) carries within it the audacity and "Ha'azah" that the person denies the loan that was, and now lies that it was not, or alternatively that he paid it in the past even though he did not do so. This is not called "Migo d'Ha'azah," since in any case we are talking about the lie that the person would lie, if he were truly a liar.
The additional factor of "Migo d'Ha'azah" is to say that even within lies there is a hierarchy. The assumption of "Migo" is that a person will choose a "better" lie if he is really lying. If the claim includes a lie that requires a great deal of audacity to claim, beyond the usual audacity of the basic lie, that is, an additional audacity on top of the audacity that he is already lying and saying that he does not owe him anything, and he adds and tells him that the reason he does not owe him anything is because of something that happened that very day, and he does not even try to distance the lie to a week before or just deny the loan without any extra details, this is too much audacity, and it is not assumed that if the person were lying he would have chosen such an audacious claim. in a case of such Ha'azah, the claim he is actually saying might be a more "comfortable" lie than the one we assume he should have said.
In conclusion, in every lie there is "audacity." The question is whether the person adds additional audacity and actually lies about facts that occurred that day, and in a case that he is lying, is the "other" lie more comfortable for him than what he is actually saying right now?
I hope this helps!
Aharon Steiner
I understand but i feel like there is even more audacity to say that "you never even loaned me" than to say "i just paid you earlier" also which sefer can i find this answer in
Is there any more audacity to say so, more than just saying, "I owe nothing"? As I wrote, that amount of He'azah we must assume there is anyway!
Yeyasher Kochacha for raising this point!
Aharon Steiner