Today I want to talk about the important quality of “judging favorably.” This quality will make our lives significantly easier and help us avoid potential mistakes and misunderstandings.
To gain a deeper appreciation of this concept, today I want to tell a story from my own life that perfectly illustrates what I mean.
I was born in Belgium. I attended a Jewish school. There were 60 girls in our grade, and one of them became my best friend. She now lives in America. Back then we were very close, and I often did my homework and studied for exams at her house.
Her mother also became my friend, if I may put it that way. She was a very good woman with exceptionally fine character traits. At that time, she was suffering from a well-known, dangerous illness. She had to undergo treatment at the hospital, and each session left her utterly exhausted.
But she did not want to tell anyone about her illness. Only her husband and her closest friend knew about it. She hoped that if her condition worsened to the point of becoming noticeable, she would have time to tell her children. For now, she did not want them to worry.
After one of her treatment sessions, she was returning home in a taxi. She was torn between two choices. On the one hand, she was very tired, utterly drained, worn down by pain—she needed to go home. There she could cry into her pillow and feel sorry for herself. On the other hand, that very evening there was a gathering for women from all over the neighborhood, with challah separation and lectures—a kind of evening of “encouragement” (chizuk). She longed for support, for something to give her inner strength…
At the end of the street, she asked the driver to turn left, toward the gathering, rather than right, toward home. But one thing troubled her. She would usually come to these gatherings, like everyone else, with a dish she had made herself: a casserole, a salad, a pie. She was a wonderful cook; she would have won first prizes in today’s baking and cooking competitions... But that day she arrived straight from the hospital, empty-handed.
Once she had left the gathering, the women who remained began discussing her behavior. Why on earth had she come empty-handed?! She has already married off most of her children; she has no babies at home getting in the way and underfoot—she has so much more free time than we do! How can she allow herself to come like this?!
A month later, she was once again on her way back from the hospital and once again stopped by a women’s gathering, using the last of her strength. Her condition had deteriorated badly; once again she came empty-handed, straight from the hospital, hoping to find a boost of energy there… Those same women once again discussed her “shameless” behavior. That very week, she returned her soul to the Creator.
How do we know all this? During shiva (the seven days of mourning), these women came to comfort the family. And her one close friend who knew about her illness told them: “You should know that she was very embarrassed to come to the gathering empty-handed, but she did not want to tell anyone about her illness or make excuses. Yet she sensed that people were looking at her differently. She felt and understood that you were judging her behavior. But she desperately needed to come and receive a boost to her spirits, even when her body was failing her. You should know that she came after grueling treatments at the hospital, and she had been ill for nearly 8 years…”
These women felt deeply uncomfortable. And what, in fact, had they done? They had failed to judge her favorably. They reproached themselves: why had they not thought of her more charitably? For example, perhaps she was having financial difficulties at the time, or was tired? Why had they immediately condemned her?
Eventually, these women went to her grave to ask her forgiveness—there is such a procedure in Jewish law…
I want all of us to start thinking more about this: judging others favorably. Our Sages say: “Hevei dan et kol ha’adam lekaf zechut”—judge every person favorably. At the same time, the word kol also means “the whole,” meaning that we must judge a person as a whole, taking into account all their current problems, their past, their character, their upbringing, and their emotional, physical, and financial condition.
Is it possible to know a person completely? Probably not. You may know a third, or half, but it is impossible to know everything about a person. There is another interesting point. The word kaf means the pan of a balance scale, but the same word is also used, for example, for a shoehorn, which helps you slip your foot into a shoe. In the same way, to understand someone else, you need to use such a shoehorn to “put on their shoes.”
How wonderful it is to be surrounded by people whom we know will judge us favorably! We can rely on them: they will not read deliberate malice into our mistakes. We feel at ease with them. Let us become such people ourselves: let us see only the good in those around us! Let us judge everyone favorably!
Translated by Mrs. Zissi Skarzhinskaya