I wrote the following on Facebook a month ago: How many times have you seen someone on the worst day of their lives? Have you felt their pain, or did you laugh at them for their pain? Every one of us has experienced our worst day so far. They vary in magnitude and cause. But none of us would ever want to be judged by that. None of us would want to be ridiculed or be the butt of every joke. Just a thought. Not that I approve of infidelity in any way shape or form. Just some perspective about our culture.
These words were in response to the numerous memes and satires of the infamous Coldplay Concert Kiss Cam incident. I wrote these words because I was tired of the joy and laughter at the expense of others great misfortune. I was tired of the humiliation and the inability to recognize that lives had been destroyed by that awful choice and awful night. Nobody seemed to think of that, but perhaps each of us should be a bit more careful to judge less harshly and to minimize how we laugh at people and cause them pain.
We have a custom that when we fill our קידוש/Kiddush Cups with wine, we add a drop of water. The reason is the wine is seen as the substance of judgement, and the water the substance of kindness. We need to have kindness in the way we judge others, and ourselves. That’s of the utmost importance. We should never judge people when they’re living their worst day as that’s not who they are… that’s not the totality of their existence. When שבת/Shabbat concludes this week, we’ll begin the month of אלול/Elul which is the final month of the year and the one that leads up to the New Years celebration, ראש השנה/Rosh Hashana. Each morning we’ll say סליחות/Selichot and blow the שופר/Shofar. All of this is to awaken within us the power to change and to be better. Each of us is a work in progress… none of us is a final product. Each of us has work to do to make ourselves better… to make our relationships better… and to make our community and world better.
Jonah ben Abraham Gerundi was a 13th century rabbi from Spain who’s best known for his book: שערי תשובה/ShaArei Teshuvah/Gates of Repentance. Early in his career he had been an opponent of Moses Maimonides and his philosophies. The tradition is that he witnessed the burning of volumes of the תלמוד/Talmud in 1240 and saw this as Divine displeasure for having joined ranks against the רמב”ם/Rambam/Maimonides. He wrote this book on repentance to find a way to repent for his wrongs in the past. In the 28th entry of the “First Gate,” the first section, he wrote: “The would-be penitent should take a lead from the Sages with regard to humble behavior. They said: ‘And be lowly of spirit before all people.’ (פרקי אבות ד:י) From this, one may deduce that one should neither become angry nor deal strictly with one’s associates. One should pay no mind to anything one hears spoken against oneself. One should view any personal injury caused by others as an atonement for one’s sins. Such action would confirm what the Sages said: ‘Were one to overlook injuries, one’s sins would be forgiven.’ (תלמוד בבלי ראש השנה י”ז:א)”
We must be careful when we judge other people. When we judge other people, we must be aware we’re going down a road that is difficult to navigate and hard to find a way to exit. But perhaps each of us needs to see that Jonah ben Abraham’s instructions to us can help us understand that every person will be hurt in this world and will need to find a means by which to forgive the person who has injured him or her. Each and every person must see that repentance is essential, but so is the act of forgiveness. Each of us needs to look at this אלול as an opportunity to begin to repent for what we’ve done wrong and to start down a new path. At the same time, we all need to find the chance to forgive and let go, since that’s the way we can move forward to a better tomorrow together.
All too often we judge people by their singular wrongs. All of us have had bad days and all of us know what it means to be judged by our poor decisions on those days. Those actions, however, aren’t the totality of our existence and thus each of us needs to open our hearts to the power of forgiveness. Let us begin this אלול in such a fashion.
