Judging Others Favorably: The Deeper Lesson Learned from Rashi

 Why are we so quick to judge others, often assuming the worst before we know the facts? The answer may lie, at least in part, in our evolutionary history. For our ancestors, encountering a stranger could be a matter of survival. Was this person a friend or a foe? Could they be trusted, or did they pose a threat? Making that determination quickly could mean the difference between life and death. Over generations, our brains developed the ability to form impressions almost instantaneously, using cues such as appearance, behavior, and facial expressions. These mental shortcuts remain useful, but they also lead us to draw conclusions before we have enough information to judge accurately. Psychologists have also observed that we tend to give greater weight to negative possibilities than positive ones. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense: mistakenly trusting someone who posed a genuine threat could have devastating consequences, while mistakenly suspecting someone who meant no harm might simply cost us an opportunity. When the stakes were high, it was safer to err on the side of caution. Yet the instincts that once protected us can now lead us to misjudge others, attributing negative motives to ambiguous behavior and allowing first impressions to shape our perceptions. Our initial judgment may be instinctive, but it need not be our final one. Sometimes, the greater challenge is not recognizing danger, but giving another person the benefit of the doubt. Jewish tradition challenges us to overcome this instinct. As Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachya teaches in the first chapter of Pirkei Avot: וֶהֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת, “Judge everyone favorably.” Rabbi J. Simcha Cohen suggests that this lesson is embedded in a famous comment of Rashi’s at the beginning of Parshat Noach. The Torah describes Noach as נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה בְּדֹרֹתָיו, “Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generations.” On the final word, בְּדֹרֹתָיו, “in his generations,” Rashi cites a debate among the Sages over how to assess Noach’s righteousness:

יֵשׁ מֵרַבּוֹתֵינוּ דּוֹרְשִׁים אוֹתוֹ לְשֶׁבַח, כָּל שֶׁכֵּן אִלּוּ הָיָה בְדוֹר צַדִּיקִים הָיָה צַדִּיק יוֹתֵר; וְיֵשׁ שֶׁדּוֹרְשִׁים אוֹתוֹ לִגְנַאי, לְפִי דוֹרוֹ הָיָה צַדִּיק וְאִלּוּ הָיָה בְדוֹרוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם לֹא הָיָה נֶחְשָׁב לִכְלוּם.

“Some of our Sages interpret this favorably: How much more righteous would Noach have been had he lived in a generation of righteous people! Others interpret it disparagingly: He was righteous only in comparison with his generation, but had he lived in Abraham’s generation, he would not have been considered of any importance.”

Rabbi Cohen identifies two lessons in Rashi’s wording. First, the favorable interpretation appears before the critical one. This reflects the teaching of Pirkei Avot: our instinct should be to judge favorably, even when suspicion comes more naturally. Second, Rashi introduces the favorable interpretation with the words yesh me-rabboteinu, “some of our Sages,” while introducing the critical interpretation simply as yesh, “others.” Rabbi Cohen suggests that this distinction reflects a hallmark of Torah wisdom: the ability to restrain our instinct to suspect and allow a favorable interpretation to prevail. We live in an era that gives us plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Yet the Torah reminds us, both explicitly and through the subtle language of its commentators, that we must consciously cultivate the Jewish instinct to judge others favorably, even when our natural instinct is to do otherwise.

Starting Anew — From Bet

The Torah begins with the letter bet. Many have asked: Why not begin the Torah with an alef, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet? One popular answer is that starting with bet is an expression of humility. There are certain things about God that are beyond our human comprehension. Just as the letter bet is closed on three sides and open only toward the left, the direction in which Hebrew is written, so too we approach the Creation story with an awareness that we cannot comprehend what came “before the bet,” before Bereishit. A second explanation is that the Torah begins with bet as a reminder that we should always build our Torah knowledge upon some precedent, and never begin from absolute alef. Our understanding of Torah should be built upon what we learn from our teachers, earlier commentators, and traditional sources. While it is appropriate to seek out new and personal relevance in the Torah, these efforts cannot begin from scratch. Our new understandings must start from bet, remaining loyal to the traditional understandings of Torah that have been incorporated into our Mesorah. Lastly, the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 1:10) suggests that the Torah begins with bet because the word bracha, blessing, begins with a bet. The Ibn Ezra asks: We find many negative words that begin with a bet. What exactly is the Midrash trying to tell us? The Maharal explains that bet symbolizes blessing, not simply because it begins the word bracha, but because of the nature of the letter itself. Bet is the second letter in the alef-bet. Its gematria is two. Whereas alef represents the singular, bet represents multiplicity. When you add to a single entity, you create the possibility of blessing. Throughout Parshat Bereishit, we see how blessing can be found in multiplicity. Hashem says, “Lo tov heyot ha-adam levado — It is not good for man to be alone.” This is the first lo tov in the Torah. Light is good. The heavens are good. The earth is good. The animals are good. What is not good? Being alone. So God says, “E’eseh lo ezer k’negdo — I will make for him a helper opposite him.” It is a seemingly contradictory phrase. Which is it? Ezer — someone who helps me? Or k’negdo — someone who stands opposite me? Rashi quotes the Gemara: Zacha — ezer; lo zacha — k’negdo. If a person merits it, his spouse is a help. If not, she is against him. The Izbitzer Rebbe offers a powerful way to understand these words: Maybe the opposition is the help. Think about learning Torah. Imagine a Beit Midrash where everyone always agreed. “I think the Gemara means this.” “Absolutely.” “I Couldn't agree more.” You wouldn't get very far. Torah is learned with someone opposite you, literally and figuratively. The person arguing with you isn't necessarily interfering with your learning. He may be helping you learn. According to the Izbitzer, k’negdo becomes the ezer. Sometimes the person who helps us most is the one who pushes back against our assumptions: the spouse who sees things differently, the friend who tells us what we don't want to hear, the child who forces us to discover patience we didn't know we had. Not all opposition is good. Cruelty and destructive conflict are not growth opportunities to be romanticized. But a life without resistance doesn't make us stronger. It leaves us untested. This is true of a community as well. We need the people who say, “Let's do it!” and the people who ask, “How exactly are we paying for it?” We need dreamers and skeptics, those who dream big and those who bring us back to reality. We need to stop assuming that every person who sees things differently is getting in the way. Sometimes they're showing us the way. That is the deeper meaning of the bet. The blessing is not simply that there are two of us. It is that there can be another perspective, another personality, another way of seeing the world. We don't have to agree with everyone. But we should be willing to listen, to learn, and to recognize that sometimes the person standing k’negdo may actually be the ezer we need. The Torah could have begun with alef, with one. Instead, it begins with bet, with multiplicity. The blessing of bet is found in the richness of different perspectives, in the strength that comes from people who see things differently, and in the growth that takes place when we encounter ideas and people who challenge us. Bet reminds us that a multitude of opinions and perspectives  is not simply something we tolerate. It is something that can make us stronger. 

Miracle in the Clouds

 On Wednesday Flydubai Flight 1073 was flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv when an ordinary flight suddenly became a miraculous salvation brought about by humble, human heroes. About two and a half hours into the flight, the co-pilot allegedly attacked and stabbed the captain, Smit Machchhar, sending the plane into a terrifying descent. The Boeing 737 plunged thousands of feet in a matter of minutes while the passengers had no idea what was happening. Despite being seriously wounded, Captain Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers to rush forward and help. Among them was Yaniv Hayun, an Israeli plumber. Hayun had never flown a plane, but he knew that something had to be done. He helped subdue the attacker and then helped pull the plane out of its dive. Hayun later explained that he had watched the television program “Air Crash Investigation,” which dramatizes real-life aviation disasters. From watching the program, he remembered what to do when a plane goes into a dangerous descent.  Other Israeli passengers also stepped forward. Asaf Rajuan helped restrain the attacker, while Dr. Shota Musaev, a dentist, treated the wounded captain. And then came another remarkable / miraculous piece of good fortune: two off-duty pilots were among the passengers. They were able to take over the controls and help bring the plane safely to the ground. The flight ultimately made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, and all 174 passengers and crew survived. It is difficult not to look at this story and see a miracle that occurred in the clouds. The Torah tells us about another miracle in the clouds: the Jewish people were protected in the wilderness by the Ananei HaKavod, the Clouds of Glory. But why do we specifically commemorate this miracle? Bnai Ysirael also received the miraculous mann every day and drank from Miriam’s well. Why is a Yom Tov only built around remembering the Clouds of Glory? The mann and the water were miracles provided to the nation but experienced by individuals. Every Jew benefited from them, but each person gathered the portion of mann he needed and drank the water he needed. The miracle sustained the individual Jew, one person at a time. The Clouds of Glory were fundamentally different. They were a miracle that could only be experienced collectively. There was not one cloud protecting Reuven and another protecting Shimon. There was one Divine cloud over the entire camp. It protected everyone equally. When it moved, everyone moved. That is why the Clouds of Glory are the appropriate miracle to commemorate through Sukkot. The sukkah recreates not simply the protection that Hashem gave each Jew, but the experience of living together beneath one shelter, sharing one journey and moving toward one destination. The unique, shared journey and destiny of the Jewish People is a theme tied to today, Shemini Atzeret. Throughout Sukkot, seventy bulls were offered, corresponding to the seventy nations of the world. Sukkot reminds us that we are part of a larger human family and that we live in a world shared with many nations. But then comes Shemini Atzeret when we offer just one bull. After seven days in which the offerings represent the seventy nations, we remain behind alone with Hashem as one people. We may live in different communities and different circumstances, but ultimately we are all in the same boat (or plane), beneath the same Clouds of Glory. Our security, our destiny and our future are bound together. The more deeply we recognize that reality, the more deeply we can celebrate the unity and uniqueness that sits at the heart of Shemini Atzeret.

Sukkot: Imagine That

 Imagination plays a critical role in the meaning and observance of Sukkot. It begins with the first time Sukkot appears in the Torah, when Yaakov builds sukkot for his animals. Ohr Hachayim suggests that Yaakov invented the idea of shelter for animals. The first sukkot in the Torah celebrate the ingenuity of our forefather Jacob. Imagination continues to play a prominent role as the Rabbis make sense of the mitzvah of sukkah. The Talmud records that Rabbi Elazar says that Sukkot commemorates the Jews dwelling under the protection of the Ananei Hakavod, the Clouds of Glory. When we eat in the sukkah, we are supposed to think about that experience. The problem is that we have never dwelled in the Clouds of Glory. According to Rabbi Elazar, we will have to use our imaginations to commemorate the Ananei Hakavod. Just as imagination is necessary when dealing with the more esoteric elements of sukkah, so too is it necessary when dealing with the nuts and bolts of sukkah construction. A sukkah does not need to be completely enclosed. It doesn’t even need to have three full walls. Two connected walls and a third piece of a wall suffice. The laws of Gud Asik, Dofen Akuma and Lavud require us to see something that is not literally there: a wall continuing upward, a roof becoming part of a wall, or empty space being treated as though schach is present. If you utilize all of these rules at one time, you may need a great deal of imagination to view that sukkah as functional protection. And yet, the halacha is that such a seemingly incomplete structure would be perfectly kosher for Sukkot use. We just need to use our imaginations. Imagination helps a person see what is possible, not only what everyone else assumes to be true. Imagination allows a person to see things as they could be. One of the recommendations suggested to help adults boost their imaginations is to change daily habits. This is exactly what we are doing this week as we dwell in the sukkah: Tzei midirat keva v’shev b’dirat arai. We leave our regular existence and hold up in a dirat arai, a change of pace whereby our imagination is given more reign.  Even the concept that our sukkahs should serve as our permanent homes for the week is framed in terminology that alludes to the need for imagination: Teishvu k’eyn taduru. We dwell in the sukkah as if we lived there. We don’t really give up our homes. The mail will still come to our permanent address, and we’re moving right back in at the end of the week. But on this holiday where imagination is the task at hand, we are instructed to imagine that our real home is the sukkah. By using our imagination while in the sukkah, we can develop skills that will serve us well for the rest of our lives. Just as the farmer would celebrate all of the bounty that Hashem had blessed him with, so too let appreciate that all of our achievements are really from Hashem. Sukkot is a time not only to strengthen the abstract notion of Emunah, that G-d is in charge, but the very personal and practical notion of Bitachon, that G-d plays a pivotal role in my own life, and that Hashem must be recognized and thanked in connection with all of my success. There is a dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai whether a Sukkah Yeshana, a sukkah built prior to 30 days before Sukkot, is permissible to use on the holiday. Rav Soloveitchik explained that even according to Beit Hillel, an old sukkah requires that an element of ingenuity be introduced into the sukkah within 30 days of the holiday. Even if the sukkah had been built a year ago specifically for the mitzvah of sukkah, something fresh needs to be added. Our relationship with the sukkah and its message must change and develop each year. We too need to consider ways to keep our sukkah experience, and our religious lives, fresh, new and relevant. The answer is as simple as it is challenging and emerges as an important theme of Sukkot: Use your imagination.

Ode to a Familiar Tune

 There are certain Jewish melodies that feel as if they have been around forever. One of them is the melody we often sing for “Etz Chaim Hi” as we return the Torah to the Aron Kodesh. Most of us probably assume that it is an old melody, passed down through generations. It isn’t. The melody was composed by Tanchum Portnoy, who passed away recently on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, at the age of 75. Portnoy composed “Etz Chaim Hi” in the early 1970s, when he was just 22 years old, and it was recorded on his 1975 album Tanchumim. Within a generation, it had become so familiar that people assumed it was a traditional melody. The music publisher Velvel Pasternak once found it identified simply as “traditional” and corrected the attribution. The story of Tanchum Portnoy is particularly meaningful because of the legacy he inherited from his father, Rabbi Eliezer Portnoy. Rabbi Eliezer came to the Mir Yeshiva as a young orphan with virtually nothing. He spoke about wanting to make a name and a lineage for himself. This was accomplished in a most unexpected manner: when he helped save the students of the Mir Yeshiva (he personally dealt with the famous Japanese diplomat Sugihara) during the Holocaust, enabling hundreds of young men to escape. Those students went on to create their own names; build families, communities and Torah institutions. Tanchum, in his own way, left a far reaching legacy. His melody became part of Jewish life beyond those who knew him personally. A tune he wrote as a young man became something that thousands of Jews would sing, decade after decade. It is particularly appropriate to talk about a familiar tune on Shabbat Shuvah, because that is what teshuvah is meant to be: a return to something familiar. The Gemara in Niddah teaches that before a child is born, an angel teaches the fetus the entire Torah. Then, just before birth, the child forgets everything it learned. Why teach us the Torah only to make us forget it? Rav Soloveitchik explained that this occurs so that when we encounter Torah during our lives, it should never feel completely foreign. On some level, we have already encountered it. Torah is familiar to us. Learning is, in a sense, always recalling and never really starting from scratch. This familiarity is true not only of Torah learning, but Torah living as well. Shabbat, davening, chesed, connection to Hashem and responsibility for other Jews are not foreign concepts that we need to introduce into our lives. They should feel natural, even familiar, because they are part of who we are. It may be possible for someone to forget and become distant. We may drift away from certain aspects of tradition or ritual, such that some elements of Jewish life may feel less familiar. But the Torah assures us that somewhere beneath that distance is something familiar. That is what makes teshuvah possible. Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha venashuvah, chadesh yameinu k’kedem. “Return us to You, Hashem, and we will return. Renew our days as of old.” Teshuvah is a return. We are not being asked to become someone entirely new. We are being asked to return to something that is familiar, something already part of our identity. That is the meaning of k’kedem, “as of old.” We may have forgotten, we may have drifted, but the Torah, the mitzvot and our relationship with Hashem are not foreign to us. They are familiar in a deep and essential way. A melody written only fifty years ago can become so familiar that we assume it has been around for generations. Perhaps familiarity is not really a measure of how old something is, but of how deeply it resonates with who we are. Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha venashuvah. Bring us back to You, Hashem, and we will return. Because deep down, we never really left.

9/11 and Aseret Ymei Teshuva: Lessons in Resilience

 As we commemorate September 11, 2001, the events of that day continue to challenge many survivors, even 25 years later. One such person is Virginia Buckingham, who was the head of Boston’s Logan Airport on 9/11, the origin of the two planes that crashed in New York City. After the terrorist attack, many people, including the media, politicians and some families of victims, looked to blame Logan Airport, and Buckingham specifically, for a “failure to prevent” the terrorists from boarding their flights. In the aftermath of an unprecedented catastrophe, people want to find a scapegoat, someone they can blame so that they can feel more secure that once that person or problem is taken care of, they do not have to worry about it ever happening again and they can go on with their lives as before. Buckingham was asked to resign and was sued by several families. She began to question herself: maybe I am guilty. Maybe I should have known about the threat and stopped it from happening. Ultimately, the 9/11 Commission found that Logan Airport was as secure as every other US airport. Both the airport and Buckingham were blameless, and the lawsuits were dismissed. But that did not lead Buckingham immediately to forgive herself and move on. In her memoir On My Watch, she describes trauma, grief, depression and resilience. As she puts it, she can never “move on,” only “move forward.” She does not expect to ever fully recover from her experience. She hopes that she can use those experiences to grow and become a better person. Buckingham lives in the coastal town of Marblehead, Massachusetts. Through her many walks along the shore, she came to see herself like a piece of sea glass. “Sea glass comes from a broken bottle that the sea has tossed about. It’s completely unrecognizable from what it started as. But it still has value. It’s still beautiful.” 9/11 tested our resilience, both as individuals and as a nation. Merriam-Webster offers two definitions of resilience: “the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation,” and “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” The second definition is particularly important. Resilience is not simply about returning to what we were before. Sherri Mandel, the mother of Koby, wrote about this in her book on resilience. In Hebrew, the word designating resilience, chosen, means to be inoculated, impermeable. But neither of these terms describe the Jewish concept of resilience. Judaism teaches us that we always need to become greater, bigger, better. You have to expand in order to be able to contain the new you, shattered though you may feel. Resilience is about becoming, not overcoming. When we face a trauma, we are in danger of breaking apart; we may even fear that we will lose our sense of self. Yet that same sense of vulnerability and fracture can lead us toward connecting to something greater than ourselves, connecting to others and to the Divine. Mandel concludes that resilience is connected to the word for silence and also the word for salience. What silenced you, what felt beyond language, now propels you to find salience: a heightened sense of meaning and significance, a deeper conversation with God. Sometimes, after the tear, we can actually come back better. In 2006, casino owner Steve Wynn accidentally poked a hole with his elbow in Le Rêve, a 1932 Picasso painting he was in the process of selling for $139 million. The painting was restored for $90,000, and seven years later Wynn sold it for $155 million, $16 million more than he had originally been offered. While some may think that this time of year is meant for beating ourselves up over our shortcomings and our mistakes, Aseret Ymei Teshuva are really about tapping into our resilience. Let us be reminded that we can become stronger and even more valuable after the tear.

Debunking a False Choice: Jewish Survival and the Good of the World

A recent controversy in Michigan raises an important question about what it means for Jews to care about the future. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, speaking to a Jewish Democratic group about the upcoming Senate election, urged Jewish voters to put the “needs of the world” above their own self-interest, and even “our own survival.” Her comments generated significant criticism, not simply because of the politics involved, but because of the philosophy behind the statement. The suggestion that Jewish survival might have to be placed on one side of a moral equation, with the good of the world on the other, struck many as deeply troubling. Parshat Nitzavim offers a very different framework. At the end of Moshe’s final speech to the Jewish people, he tells them: רְאֵה נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ הַיּוֹם אֶת הַחַיִּים וְאֶת הַטּוֹב, וְאֶת הַמָּוֶת וְאֶת הָרָע... וּבָחַרְתָּ בַּחַיִּים אַתָּה וְזַרְעֶךָ . “I have placed before you life and death, good and evil... choose life, you and your descendants.” Choosing life is not simply a personal decision. It is an intergenerational responsibility. We are commanded to choose a future in which the Jewish people continue to exist, to raise generations, to be ambassadors of Torah and Jewish values, and to carry our tradition forward. The argument that we must choose between Jewish survival and the good of humanity is a dangerous idea and a false choice. We must understand that being Jewish is one of the ways we make the world better. By preserving our Jewish values and teachings, we are able to contribute essential ideas to the world. For instance, the Torah teaches the sanctity of human life, the dignity of every person created in the image of God, justice, compassion, responsibility for the stranger, care for the vulnerable, and the obligation to build a society guided by morality. These are not values that the world would be better off without. They are values the world needs. For thousands of years, the Jewish people have contributed to civilization in ways that extend far beyond our own community. Those contributions can only continue if there is a strong and vibrant Jewish community going forward. We are not the first generation to face the question of whether Jewish life is worth preserving, and we will not be the last. Every generation receives Judaism as a gift and a responsibility. We inherit a tradition that survived because previous generations chose to preserve it, and we have an obligation to make sure that it remains vibrant and relevant to those who come after us. There are many things that we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of others, such as our time, our money, our comfort, and our personal interests. Judaism teaches us to look beyond ourselves and to care deeply about the broader world. But Jewish survival itself cannot be treated as something expendable. It is part of the responsibility we have been given. The world does not benefit from a weaker Judaism or from a Jewish people that is less secure, less confident, or less willing to preserve its identity. The world benefits from a Jewish people that is alive, thriving, and able to contribute its unique voice. The choice, then, is not between Jewish survival and the good of the world. The choice is whether we will have the courage to believe that the Jewish people still have a role to play in making the world better. This is what it means to choose life, for ourselves and for those who come after us.  We choose Jewish life not at the expense of the world, but because we believe that the world is better off with a living, thriving Jewish people.