I was walking past Mr. K, last week, at an assisted living home, and he told me the news: “Menachem, I’m the president.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yup, the first Jewish president.”

How to respond to a statement like this is a quandary that confronts me regularly in my work. After all, the Torah tells us to stay far away from sheker, lies. Yet we social workers, in the course of helping people in all kinds of settings, are often faced with such ethical dilemmas. In fact, the Maryland Board of Social Work Examiners, which licenses and monitors all Maryland social workers, requires every licensed social worker to take ongoing education classes in “Ethics.”