07 May KEDOSHIM: STOP JUDGING ME CHALLENGING OUR INSTINCT TO CONDEMN

Judge Favorably
This week’s parsha,
Kedoshim, contains a
commandment, which
we often do not think
about as such: “With
Justice you shall judge

your fellow man.”
The Talmud gives two different interpretations
for this verse. According to one opinion, this
verse is giving direction to Judges. When a
person comes to a Judgment in a civil case
according to Torah law the judge must treat the
litigants equally. He is not allowed to have one
litigant stand and the other one sit, one speak at
length and the other urged to speak briefly, and
so forth. However, according to a second
interpretation in the Talmud, the injunction in
this verse is directed at every Jew. Its intent is
that we must “judge our fellow with justice,” as
the Talmud puts it, “Judge your fellow man to
the side of merit.”
A similar expression we find in Pirkei
Avot: “You should judge every person to the
side of merit.”
But what does this mean?
Changing the Instinct to Condemn
On the most basic level, it cautions us to give
people the benefit of the doubt. If we see a
person doing something that apparently seems
to be an act that he or she should not be doing,
there is a full-fledged Biblical command to give
him the benefit of the doubt.
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 or
some agenda. This attitude has plagued us for
millennia and has caused untold harm and
divisiveness in communities. Learn to judge
people favorably, to attribute positive, or at least
neutral, motives to people’s acts and words. 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 he
more likely to be successful? When he attributes
negative motives to you, or positive ones 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 or her
favorably.
The Blind Chazzan
The composer and story-teller Reb Shlomeleh
Carlebach 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. Carlebach thought to himself that the
horrible 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 looked closer, he realized that
the chazzan was blind.
Shlomoleh asked the person near him who this
chazzan was. The man explained: Before the
war, he was the chief cantor of the grand Jewish
community of Lemberg (Levuv), 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.”
Shlomeleh 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. They
told him: Shlomeleh Carlebach. He said:
Shlomo, I love your niggunim (melodies.) He
gave me back my soul.”
On the Subway
In his “Seven Habits” Steven Covey tells the
story of him traveling one Sunday morning on a
subway in New York.
People were sitting quietly—some reading
newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting
with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful
scene.
Then, suddenly, a man and his children entered
the subway car. The children were so loud and
rambunctious that instantly the whole climate
changed. The man sat down next to me and
closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the
situation. The children were yelling back and
forth, throwing things, even grabbing people’s
papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man
sitting next to me did nothing.
It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not
believe that he could be so insensitive as to let
his children run wild like that and do nothing
about it, taking no responsibility at all. (It was
easy to see that everyone on the subway felt

irritated, too.) So, finally, with what I felt was
unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him
and said, “Sir, your children are really disturbing
a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control
them a little more?”
The man lifted his gaze as if to come to
consciousness of the situation for the first time
and said softly, “Oh, you’re right. I guess I
should do something about it. We just came
from the hospital where their mother died about
an hour ago. I don’t know what to think, and I
guess they don’t know how to handle it either…”
“Can you imagine what I felt at that moment?”
Covey concludes his story.
This is the truth of life: We know nothing of
the trials, sorrows and temptations of those

around us, of pillows wet with sobs, of the life-
tragedy that may be hidden behind a smile, of

the secret cares, struggles, and worries that
shorten life and leave their mark in hair
prematurely whitened, and a character changed
and almost recreated in a few days. Let us not
dare to add to the burden of another the pain of
our judgment, the Torah is telling us. Think
before you speak. You never know the “whole
story” of that other person’s life.
Penniless Employer?
The Talmud relates this story:
Once a man went from the Upper Galilee (in
northern Israel) to work for an employer in the
south for three years.
On the eve of Yom Kippur of the third year, he
said to his employer, “Give me my wages, and I
will go home and support my wife and my
children.”
The employer said to him, “I do not have any
money to pay you.”
“Give me fruit instead,” said the worker.
“I have no fruit,” answered the employer.
“Give me land,” said the worker.
“I do not have any land,” answered the
employer.
“Give me animals,” said the worker.
“I do not have any animals,” answered the
employer.
“Give me quilts and pillows,” said the worker.
“I do not have any quilts and pillows,”
answered the employer.
The worker packed his bags and went home,
disappointed.
After the holiday, the employer traveled to the
worker’s home with the man’s wages and with
three donkeys. One was laden with food, the
second with drinks, and the third with delicacies.
When he arrived, after they had eaten and
drunk together, the employer gave the worker
his wages and all the other gifts, and said to him,
“When you asked me for your wages, and I told
you that I did not have any money, did you think
that was the truth?”
“I thought,” answered the worker, “that you
had obtained merchandise at a bargain price,
and had spent all your money.”
The employer said to him, “When you asked
me for animals, and I told you that I did not have
any animals, what did you think was the truth?”
“I thought,” answered the worker, “that they
were rented out to others.”
The employer said to him, “When you asked
me for land, and I told you that I did not have
any land, what did you think was the truth?”
“I thought, “answered the worker, “that the

land also was rented out to others.”
The employer said to him, “When you asked
me for fruit, and I told you that I did not have
any fruit, what did you think was the truth?”
“I thought,” answered the worker, “that the
fruit had not yet been tithed.”
The employer said to him, “And after you
asked me for quilts and Pillows, and I told you
that I did not have any, what did you think was
the truth?”
“I thought,” answered the worker, “that you
had given away all Your Possessions to the Beis
Hamikdash by making a vow of hekdesh.”
The employer said, “I swear to you that that is
exactly what happened. I had promised away all
of my possessions to the Beis Hamikdash
because of Hurkanos, my son, who did not wish
to learn Torah [and I did not want him to be my
heir]. And when I came to my friends in the
south, they annulled my vows.
“Just as You Judged me favorably, so may G-d
judge you favorably.”
In Summation
So this, in summation, is the conventional
understanding of this Torah injunction to “judge
every human being meritoriously.” It consists of
three points:
A) If you hear your fellow say something or
you see him do something, and you can interpret
it as a being moral or immoral, give him or her
the benefit of the doubt. As in the Talmudic story
above, where the employee did not immediately
assume that his employer was lying. Or as in the
stories of Shlomo Carlebach and Steven Covey
where their perceptions clouded the true story.
B) Even if you know for sure that the person
did or said something wrong, attribute to him
positive motives. He may think he is doing the
right thing.
C) Even if he knows he is doing the wrong
thing, be careful before judging him. “Do not
judge your fellow until you are in his place,”
warns another of the Pirkei Avot sayings, and
his place is one place where you will never be.
You have no way of truly appreciating the
manner in which his inborn nature, his
background and/or the circumstances that hold
sway over his life have influenced his character
and behavior. His struggles are not mine.
Perhaps if I would have the same struggles, I
would behave just as bad, or worse. Yes, you
may be an addict and I am not. But if I would
have had the same sensitivities as you, if I would
have endured the same abuse as you, am I so
sure I would have not sold my soul to addiction?
This message, too, is implied in the words of
our chachamim in Pirkei Avot chapter 1: “Hevei
dan et kol ha’adam lechaf zechut” – judge every
person favorably. The word kol ha’adam (every
person) can be translated as “the whole
person.” Before you judge someone, you first
have to know “the whole person”—everything
about this person, from their background, to the
workings of their inner psyche, to the challenges
they are facing today.
Learn to live this way and you will live a
happier life, besides being far more effective.