JUDGE EVERYONE FAVORABLY

At the height of a political corruption trial, the prosecuting attorney attacked a witness. "Isn't it true," he bellowed, "that you accepted five thousand dollars to compromise this case?"

The witness stared out the window as though he hadn't hear the question.

"Isn't it true that you accepted five thousand dollars to compromise this case?" the lawyer repeated.

The witness still did not respond.

Finally, the judge leaned over and said, "Sir, please answer the question."

"Oh," the startled witness said, "I thought he was talking to you." 

This week's portion Kedoshim contains a positive Biblical commandment, which we often do not think about as such: 
With Justice you shall judge your fellow man

A similar expression we find in the Ethics of the Fathers:

You should judge every person to the side of merit.

But what does this mean?

On the most basic level, it cautions us to give people the benefit of the doubt. is thus an explicit commandment in the Torah!

Upon observing another person doing or saying something we perceive as undesirable or destructive, many of us instinctively assume that negative motives are compelling these acts and words. We naturally believe that the person is aware of the damage he is creating, and despite this he is doing it for his own benefit. 

 Learn to judge people favorably, say to yourself, "His or her behavior might appear wrong; but in his own mind and heart he really thinks he is doing the right thing." 

This approach of condemning the behavior, but not the person is counterintuitive, but it is tremendously beneficial for two reasons:



A) When you are able to alter your attitude, you will not become resentful. When you attribute evil motives to a person performing a negative act, your brain instinctively swells with negative energy. On the other hand, if you train yourself to view the person, unlike his behavior, in a positive light, you save your heart from being consumed by ire.


B) You will be in a much better position to communicate your feelings to this person without compelling him to construct defense mechanisms and reciprocate your rebuke with stubbornness and anger. When he feels that inside your heart you don't view him as a "bad guy" who craves destruction, only as a "good guy" who made an error, your criticism will most likely be more effective.

Think about yourself. If someone approaches you and criticizes your behavior, when is that more likely to be successful, if he attributes negative motives to you or positive motives to you? The answer is more than obvious.

This means that if you are truly bothered by what this person did, the best way to eliminate such behavior in the future is to judge him favorably. People who judge others negatively make it more difficult to effect a change in their attitude and behavior. 

A Rabbi once told a story of a Shabbat spent in a community in post-war Europe. When he came to shul on Shabbat, he was disappointed with the cantor. The man was skipping words, had a feeble, timorous voice. Worse still, his pronunciation of the Hebrew text was dreadful. The Rabbi thought to himself that the dreadful cantor must have paid off the synagogue to let him pray… he was so disgusted he decided to go to a side room and pray alone. He would only come to the main shul to listen to the Torah reading.

When he returned for the Torah reading, he noticed that the cantor holding the Torah and leading it to the bimah was being supported by two people. As he look closer, he realized that the chazzan was blind. 
The Rabbi asked the person near him who was this chazzan. The man explained: Before the war, he was the chief cantor of the grand Jewish community of Lemberg, in Poland. When he conducted services there, his voice was as powerful as a lion's roar: it shook the very pillars of the synagogue and penetrated the heart of every worshiper. From all over Europe Jews came to listen to his heart stirring prayers.

Then the Nazis came. The chazzan was sent to Auschwitz, where he endured unspeakable torture. He became blind. He survived the death camp, but has lost his vision, his voice and his diction.

“We always beg him to pray for us,” the man continues the story, “but he always refuses. “Today he agreed.”

The Rabbi wanted to bury himself from inner shame. “Overwhelmed by my sense of guilt and shame, I waited for the old chazzan to approach. When he did, holding the Torah scroll, I kissed his saintly hands…

“He asked, who just kissed my hands? He gave me back my soul.” 

You know the joke concerning twin boys of six years old. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities -- one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist -- their parents took them to a psychiatrist.

First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears. "What's the matter?" the psychiatrist asked, baffled. "Don't you want to play with any of the toys?" "Yes," the little boy bawled, "but if I did I'd only break them."

Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, took a shovel and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. "What do you think you're doing?" the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. "With all this manure," the little boy replied, beaming, "there must be a pony in here somewhere!"

This is what it means to live with a divine consciousness: When I observe “manure” in someone else’s behavior, or nature, I can choose to focus on the manure. Or I can choose to focus on the fact hat there “must be a pony here”—the very “manure” demonstrates that there is tremendous potential here capable of overcoming all this “manure.” It merely needs to be actualized. By focusing on it, by looking at it this way, by talking about it this way, I help the person get in touch with that aspect of themselves and change the course of their life.

“And what is a weed?” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “a plant whose virtues have not been discovered.”

So the next time you see a flaw, a challenge, a set back, a behavior problem in your child or another loved one—don’t become obsessed with the problem. Rather zoom in on the power this child must have to vanquish this challenge and live a meaningful and noble life. If you do that, you will help him or her actualize that power and become the person they are capable of becoming. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky