Ta’anit 4:5 begins with a mishnah that tells us that five [terrible]
events occurred in the lives of our ancestors on each of two inauspicious
dates: the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av (Tisha B’Av).
The first event associated with the 17th of Tammuz is the shattering
of the tablets containing Torah (or the Ten Commandments) that Moses received
from God on Mt. Sinai. Two aspects of the Gemara’s discussion intrigue me. The
first is how the lesson “Don’t judge on the basis of guesswork” is drawn from
the account of the Golden Calf in Exodus
chapter 32; that's for today's post. The second aspect of the Gemara I want to share concerns how the
tablets came to be shattered in the first place; that's for tomorrow's post.
On what basis do we make judgments of others? The
Gemara of the Yerushalmi reconfigures Torah’s account by arranging verses out
of the order we find them in in Exodus. The Rabbis of the Yerushalmi tell us
that when Moses ascends the mountain, God gives him the commandments on two
stone tablets, which he promptly conveys to the people, and only after delivering the tablets, Moses tells
them, “I am going to spend forty days on the mountain.” When the fortieth day
arrives and Moses does not return promptly, the people confront Aaron and
demand that he build them an idol to worship — despite the fact that God has
already been revealed to them and the Torah delivered to them. This
reconfiguration ramps up the severity of their idolatry because God had already
been revealed to them and Torah was already in their hands.
God, who is at the peak of the mountain commanding a primo
view of everything below, sees what the Israelites are doing. Torah recounts
that God informs Moses and threatens to obliterate the Israelites and begin
anew with Moses, but Moses convinces God to abandon that plan and forgive the
people instead. Joshua hears the noise the people are generating, but
misinterprets it as the rumblings of war. Moses, however, recognizes the sound
as singing. Gemara tells us that this inspired Moses to observe:
“Here
is a man [Joshua] who is destined to govern 600,000 people, and yet he cannot
discern the difference between one sort of noise and another!”
Joshua’s premature and faulty judgment calls his leadership
credentials into question. How can someone who is unable to distinguish war
from joy govern an unruly nation?
Gemara then quotes Torah:
As soon as
[Moses] came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing [he became enraged;
and he hurled the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the
mountain]. (Exodus 32:19)
This occasions R. Chilkiah in the name of R. Acha to teach
us that the point of the story is to instruct us: Do not judge on the basis of guesswork.
What a marvelous reading of the account of the Golden Calf! Moses is the model
and master of this wisdom. God informs Moses:
The Lord
spoke to Moses, “Hurry down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land
of Egypt, have acted basely. They have been quick to turn aside from the way
that I enjoyed upon them. They have made themselves a molton calf and bowed low
to it and sacrificed to its, saying, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought
you out of the land of Egypt.’” (Exodus 32:7-8)
But Moses does not know for himself, and responds to God’s
report with compassion for his people, convincing God to forgive, rather than annihilate,
the people. Joshua hears the ruckus and makes a judgment, but he misinterprets
what he hears. His judgment is based on guesswork. It is Moses who withholds
judgment; even though he hears correctly, he does not rely on hearing alone. It
is only after Moses sees with his own eyes what the Israelites are engaged in
that he becomes enraged and hurls the stone tablets to the ground.
Pirke Avot 1:6 records an important teaching of Yehoshuah b. Perachia: Dan et kol ha-adam l’chaf zechut / Judge
everyone favorably. Reserve judgment until all the facts are in, and until
then give others the benefit of the doubt. How difficult it is to live by this
standard!
Rambam (Moses Maimonides), in his
commentary to Pirke Avot 1:6, provides guidance for all cases except where someone
is well know to be evil:
If someone is unknown to you and you
do not know whether he is a righteous man or an evil one: If he does an act or
says something that could be interpreted as either positive or negative, judge
him favorably and do not think of him as having done wrong.
If one was well known as a righteous
man with good deeds: Even if you see him do an action whose every aspect seems
to be bad, and the only way of considering it good is through really stretching
things and assuming a very remote possibility, it is still obligatory to
interpret it as good based on that possibility.
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink!, in which he affirmed the accuracy and value of snap judgments, has
spawned a great deal of discussion on this matter. Scientific American, reporting research by professors Amy Cuddy of the
Harvard Business School, Susan Fiske of Princeton University, and Peter Glick
of Lawrence University, provides a divergent view:
When we
meet a person, we immediately and often unconsciously assess him or her for
both warmth and competence. Whereas we obviously admire and help people who are
both warm and competent and feel and act contemptuously toward the cold and
incompetent, we respond ambivalently toward the other blends. People who are
judged as competent but cold—including those in stereotyped groups such as
Jews, Asians and the wealthy—provoke envy and a desire to harm, as violence against
these groups has often shown. And people usually seen as warm but incompetent,
such as mothers and the elderly, elicit pity and benign neglect.
New research is revealing that these split-second judgments are often wrong, however, because they rely on crude stereotypes and other mental shortcuts...[1]
New research is revealing that these split-second judgments are often wrong, however, because they rely on crude stereotypes and other mental shortcuts...[1]
It would take little imagination
for Moses to envision the Israelites engaged in idolatry — the only type of
worship they have seen for 400 years in Egypt. And, indeed, God described their
activities to Moses with a fair degree of specificity (Exodus 32:7-8, cited
above). Yet Moses exemplifies Yehoshuah b. Perachia’s teaching at this most
crucial moment in Israel’s history. Had he adopted God’s view without seeing
what was happening with his own eyes, he would not have talked God out of
destroying the people. Had Moses accepted Joshua’s judgment concerning the
noise generated in the Israelite camp, he would have misjudged what was truly
happening.
Judging everyone favorably — until
the facts overwhelmingly falsify the validity of a positive judgment — is a
difficult standard to live by, but standards of righteousness usually are. What is more, as Mother Teresa said, "If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
