Favorable Judgment

Goldstein, after much delay and against his better judgment, finally gave in and agreed to go on a camping trip with his dear friend Cohen. At the end of the first day, exhausted, they set up camp, ready for a night under the stars. At that very moment, they hear a growl coming from the woods, the leaves rustle, and not more than ten feet away, they see the outline a very big, very angry and very scary black bear. Without missing a beat, Goldstein reaches over, grabs his sneakers and starts lacing them up. Cohen sees what his friend is up to and whispers, “Goldstein! What are you doing? You can’t possibly outrun the bear.” Goldstein turns to his companion and says, “Cohen, I don’t need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you!”

Shanah Tovah! On behalf of Cantor Schwartz, Rabbi Rein, Cantor Lissek – the newest member of the PAS clergy team – our new Chairman Art Penn, the leadership of Park Avenue Synagogue, Goldstein – on behalf of all of us, I wish you, your families, the people Israel and all of humanity, a sweet, happy and health-filled new year.

I hope, at this moment, everyone feels good. Because truth be told, if the cantor and I do our job well over the next ten days, that feeling won’t last very long. Like the story of the Garden of Eden, the progression of these holidays reflects the promises and pitfalls of what it means to be human. On Rosh Hashanah, we recall not only the creation of the world, but of the first human being, made in God’s image, endowed with unlimited freedom, beholding the miracle of creation. And then, without pause, we are reminded of how we have abused those freedoms, given in to temptation, and fallen short of the potential of our promise. Over the next ten days we will recount our sins and perform painful inventories of the soul, all with the aim of doing teshuvah, returning to being the people we thought we could be. Not all wrongs can be righted and not all that is crooked can be made straight. But the spiritual itinerary of these holidays is to traverse our humanity from its heights to its depths and then back again. In doing so, we seek to enter the coming year wiser and more hopeful.

This year, this evening, on this Day of Judgment, I want to take our examination of the flawed nature of the human condition in a slightly different and perhaps unexpected direction. To observe that the holidays are meant to remind us that we have all sinned in the year gone by is an insight that is neither new nor interesting. “We are not so arrogant,” the Mahzor teaches, “…as to say before you our God…that we are righteous and have not sinned…for we have sinned.” We acknowledge the wrongs we have committed – in public and in private, knowingly and unknowingly, against God and our fellow man – in alphabetical acrostics, fist on chest, one after another, covering the full range of human failing. Ten days from now, just before we chant Kol Nidrei, we will ask for permission to pray with the sinners, which, if you stop to think about it, is a liturgical sleight of hand to drill down that you and I, each one of us, is included in that very category. Today reminds us of what Ecclesiastes knew long ago: “There is not a righteous man upon earth who does good and sins not.” (7:20)

But tonight I want to go even further, because I believe that this process of self-reflection, heshbon ha-nefesh, of “moral inventory-ing” is only half the story. After all, some of us may arrive here tonight aware of our faults. I hope most of us are open to the possibility that in the days ahead we may discover in ourselves a fault or two. But I am willing to bet that all of us came here able to point out the faults of our family, friends and others, who we believe, in the year gone by, have what to atone for. Remember the story of Goldstein and Cohen, sworn enemies (they meet again), who see each other as they are walking out of shul on Rosh Hashanah. Cohen decides that this year he is going to take the high ground and greets Goldstein with a big hug and a smile: “Goldstein, tonight I prayed for you. I prayed everything for you that you prayed for me.” To which Goldstein replies: “Nu…are you starting with me already?” Tonight, we know our task is not just about self-reflection, but also about granting forgiveness to others, even those people – especially those people – whom we would be otherwise disinclined to forgive.

All of which, of course, begs the uncomfortable but unavoidable question: How does recognizing our own faults affect our ability to judge those whom we believe to have sinned in the year gone by? Does an awareness of our own shortcomings have implications for our ability to redress, resolve and reconcile with others? Dressed in our holiday finest, we are tempted to proclaim our righteousness, to see ourselves as of unimpeachable moral quality. Not so, says the Mahzor. By focusing on our own flaws, the holidays ensure that we do not unduly skew our righteousness about that of others. As the Hasidic Rabbi Wolf of Strikov taught: “Remember that you are not as good as you think you are, and the world is not as bad as you think it is.” (Cited in Telushkin, A Code of Jewish Ethics, v. 1, p. 83)

In his book on ethics, my colleague and teacher Rabbi Joseph Telushkin explains that we all invariably judge other people according to a standard which we could never live up to ourselves. We are quick to provide context and rationalizations for our own misdeeds, but never think to grant that same courtesy to others. We bend and twist the moral arc of the universe to conform to our own sensibilities, as if any of us could possibly be objective about judging ourselves. What is more, our very reluctance to be candid about our own sins inevitably distorts our assessment of others. Long before Freud identified the psychological defense mechanism of “projection,” there has always been a human tendency to see in others those very traits we deny having personally. As the Hasidic master the Baal Shem Tov wrote, “The world is a mirror. Inasmuch as a person is blind to one’s own faults, God arranged it to see them in other people. The defects you see in others are your own.” (Cited in Twerski, A Formula for Proper Living, p. 62) Consider the troubling scene in tomorrow’s haftorah when the High Priest Eli callously reproaches the weeping and prayerful Hannah, accusing her of being drunk. None of us ever knows the whole truth, and yet again and again in the past year, we have rendered judgment, proclaimed ourselves judge, jury and sentencing agent to countless people, denying them the very due process that we would want for ourselves. The power of these holidays is that they call on us to entertain the inconvenient possibility that we would rather avoid when confronting our loved ones with their faults, namely, that you and I, all of us, are terribly flawed, altogether defective, and far more accountable for the deficiencies of our imperfect world than we would like to let on.

Unlike Christians, as Jews, we do not believe that we are born sinful, nor, at the opposite end, to use Niebuhr’s language, that we are “moral men in an immoral society.” As Jews, we believe ourselves to be creations of mixed morality in a society chock-full of temptation. From the Garden of Eden onward, we have been endowed with both a good and an evil inclination. And as God counsels Cain just before Cain slays his brother Abel, the evil inclination crouches in wait. Its urge is towards us, but we can, if we try hard, master it. Some of us do, and some of us don’t, but the struggle is never ending for us all. All of which means, that for Jews the difference between a moral and immoral person is not whether she or he possesses the capacity for wrongdoing; the difference is whether she or he demonstrates the ability to restrain the inclination which we all equally possess. As I am fond of quoting the pre-wedding advice of my granny of blessed memory, “Elliot, you can get your appetite anywhere you want, just make sure you eat at home.” None of us dare be too assured in our self-righteousness, we are all made of flesh and blood. We may not all live in glass houses, but we all put our pants on one leg at a time. Lace up as fast as you can, but these holidays are here to tell you that the difference – the distance – between you and the person about whom you sit in judgment is not as large as you think.

Which brings us back to the central question. If indeed, all of us are flawed, and if indeed, we know that the flaws we see in others are very possibly - projections of our own shortcomings, or by definition, possibilities rooted in our own humanity – then how exactly does one go about judging others? If the playing field of the human condition is flatter than we think, is there such a thing as a moral high ground?

To begin with, and to state the obvious, one answer is not: “Not to judge.” We do not live in a world of moral relativism. There is a right and there is a wrong and there are many people who have crossed the line. From the moment we ate of the fruit, we were granted the ability to distinguish between good and evil which means that a person is always accountable for his or her behavior. According to Jewish law, Adam mued l’olam, “A person is always responsible.” To confess our own sins, to know ourselves to be human in no way exempts others from culpability.

But what it does mean is that the measure of our judgment is to be reckoned not just in terms of the application of justice, but in its being guided by a sense of modesty and humility. Do we know all the facts of the case, or is our judgment based only on hearsay? As Rabbi Telushkin notes, even when God was set to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness, God went down to see things firsthand. (p. 76) Not every conversation this week needs to begin with accusations. There is nothing wrong, in fact there is everything right with beginning a difficult conversation by acknowledging that you have only one side – your side – of the story. Don’t be so quick to rush to judgment, ask for the facts first. And if you should discover that in the past year you have unfairly suspected your neighbor of a misdeed, the Talmud explains, that person must be pacified and blessed. (Berachot 31b, Jerusalem Talmud 93). We must be modest in judgment if for no other reason, because that is the basic decency we would ask of from others regarding our own actions.

Next, in acknowledging our own flawed humanity, we may also find that it is often, but not necessarily, the case that it is our own actions that have led to a relationship being in disrepair. It is far too easy to point out how we have been wronged, how others have let us down. They started it, they should be the one to call, it is on them to make amends. Really? Is it ever really so simple? I doubt it. Anyone familiar with the twelve-step program knows the pivotal importance of the fourth step – taking a moral inventory. Why? Because such an accounting illuminates how each of us bears responsibility for the condition of the relationships most dear to us. In the days ahead we must be willing to stand face-to-face with our own failings in order that we may ask how we are responsible for the broken relationships of our lives.

And yes, while nobody in this world gets a free pass, in the days ahead, as the lens of our concern extends far and wide, it is incumbent upon us to consider how society itself bears corporate responsibility for individual wrongs. The story is told of Fiorello La Guardia, who, prior to becoming mayor, was presiding one evening on night court. The defendant was an impoverished woman charged with stealing a loaf of bread to feed her family. Despite La Guardia’s request, the shopkeeper refused to drop the charges – a lesson must be taught, an example must be made, such behavior must not be tolerated. The law was the law, and La Guardia laid down the punishment: ten dollars or ten days in jail. Then he took ten dollars from his pocket, put it in a hat and announced that everyone in the room be fined fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal a loaf of bread to feed her family. According to the next day’s paper, $47.50 was collected and given to the accused – including 50 cents from the aggrieved shopkeeper himself. If nothing else, the point of these holidays is to communicate that we are all stewards of God’s creation; every one of us is responsible for the imperfect world in which we live. Acknowledging our own failings doesn’t mitigate the sins of others, but it does highlight that our moral posture is not to be measured only by our ability to feel righteous indignation. Our moral posture is measured by whether we have leveraged that indignation towards establishing a world filled with righteousness.

Finally, an abiding awareness of our sins, quotidian and otherwise, demands that we judge others with empathy, in the words of Pirkei Avot: “Judge every person favorably.” (1:6) We would all do well to imitate the attitude of the eighteenth century Hasidic Rabbi, Elimelech of Lizensk who would begin his prayers. “May I see the good traits of others and not their defects.” (Telushkin, p. 75). We should do so because it could turn out that our allegations are mistaken. We should do so because it is far more pleasant to go through life believing in a humanity that is fundamentally good and not bad. We should do so because the other person, wrong as he or she may be, is still a human being created in God’s image. We should do so because there is not one of us here who does not have a past. I know that I personally would never want the totality of my being judged on the basis of one misdeed. None of us can or should be reduced to a single incident – good or bad. The message of these holidays is that all of us are capable of growth. The past must not be wielded like a stick to be used by the present to blemish someone’s future. But most of all, we need to judge others with empathy because this is exactly what we are here to ask God to do for us. The Talmud explains that it is the person who is ma’avir al midotav, able to overlook the shortcomings of his fellow, who will accordingly be judged favorably by God (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 127b). Tomorrow we will beg of God, L’khol p’sha’im tekhaseh b’ahavah. “Cover our sins with love.” God help us all if we prove incapable of extending to others the opportunity to grow and begin anew. We can, if we so choose, be God-like in the attribute of mercy. Today can be the day we flip the calendar and rewrite the narrative, not just for ourselves, but for everyone looking to make a new start.

The midrash tells of Rabbi Yossi ben Halafta who was once asked by a Roman matron to explain what exactly God has been doing since the six days of creation. It is a timely question, certainly this evening, marking the anniversary of that very creation. Rabbi Yossi replied that ever since that first week, God has been building ladders: Some ladders for people to ascend and other ladders for people to descend. (Leviticus Rabbah 8:1)

Friends, I don’t know where you stand on your ladder, and whether you have ascended or descended in the year gone by – that is something for you to reflect on in the days ahead. What I do know is that no matter which rung you are on, right now we are all just trying our darndest to pull ourselves up a little higher. Perhaps this year, in recognizing that very struggle which is our own, we can also be a little God-like, stop trying to outrun our humanity and instead give a boost to another soul similarly struggling to climb. It is not a zero sum game. There is more than enough forgiveness to go around and God knows, we all need all the help we can get. L’elah u-l’elah, higher and higher let us climb, and with each other’s help we will greet this New Year in health, happiness, forgiveness and peace.