The Washington Midrash

Most of us are familiar with the story of George Washington as a child, who had received a hatchet as a present and then chopped all around a cherry tree on his family's farm, causing the cherry tree's death (or the alternative version where the cherry tree was "chopped down"). When the tree was discovered by George's father, he was angry and sought the identity of the culprit. The young George then brightly said, "My father, I cannot tell a lie. I chopped on the cherry tree."

For centuries, we have told this story to our children as a way of teaching them not to lie.

The only problem is that this story about Washington and the cherry tree isn't true. It's a lie. According to the Internet site for the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, which operates Washington's Mount Vernon estate today, "The story, known to schoolchildren for generations, seems to have been invented by a man named Mason Weems shortly after Washington's death. Ironically, the story was intended to show how honest Washington was."

Yes, it is ironic that we would lie to our children to teach them not to lie. It's a long standing tradition, though, one used by the Bible and one which was used millennia before Christ in the Arabic and middle eastern areas of the world, and it's called "midrash." Midrash is a story telling technique which glorifies kings, generals, and heroes or perhaps which tells the great lessons of the culture, teaching the social mores and values of the people. Perhaps some of the stories are based in fact or based on historical events, but the storytellers take enormous artistic license in making their points, wanting a good and entertaining story as well as a fable with a moral or lesson.

In those cultures, it is well understood that these stories are for teaching purposes, and no one expects them to be literally correct. Of course, where this gets to be a problem for modern day Americans is that the entire Bible—which was written by Jews, one of those middle eastern cultures with a long-standing midrashic tradition—is essentially a midrash, and, therefore, cannot be taken as literally true and correct. The Bible, though, much like our story of George Washington and the cherry tree, is still a useful means for imparting our social mores and values to our younger generations. Thus, we keep our midrashic stories in our modern culture, and we will continue to lie to our children about cherry trees every February to teach them not to lie when they chop down our cherry trees.