I’m glad I found this guy David. I hope one day to meet him in real life. He always gives me good food for thought.

He posted today something about judging people inwardly. It was a personal thought about a personal trait, how he reacts to it in his life and how he feels about it.

Monday night in Talmud class, the teacher referenced the famous Talmudic phrase “Make for yourself a teacher; aquire for yourself a friend; and judge everyone favorably.”

The truth is, when I first learned this saying from the Talmud, only the first two parts stuck in my mind. I think I may not have even learned the third part with the first two. Honestly, I think that I first learned the phrase when I read The Chosen by Chaim Potok when I was a kid, and I’m fairly certain that only the making of a teacher and acquisition (or choosing, in Mr. Potok’s preferred translation) of a friend were referenced.

The past couple of mornings, walking down the street, I have found myself muttering this third principle to myself on the way to work. I walk on 42nd street toward 5th avenue from the subway station exit and I look around. I look at the trees in Bryant Park bending inward toward the lawn away from the shadows of the buildings, and I look at the people sitting under those trees. I look at the folks walking with me down the street on their way to work like me. I look at the Greenpeace kids in their green jackets, asking everyone if they have a minute. I look at the AM New York and Metro distributers saying good morning to everyone who comes out of the station, offering them a free paper.

I look around at everyone and I say to myself, over and over “Judge everyone favorably. Judge everyone favorably.”

This. Is not easy.

It sounds nice to say “judge everyone favorably.” It sounds like a very nice principle. It sounds like the kind of thing that no one could object to.

But, lets put up a couple of easy examples: I do not want to judge Jews for Jesus street preachers favorably. I want to rip into them for their ignorance and their co-opting of my religion. I don’t want to see that they are advocating for something that they truly believe in, misguided though they might be.

I don’t want to judge the anti-zionist protesters at Union Square favorably. I want to be angry and them for spreading a message of thinly-veiled hatred, even if the hatred is not theirs, but merely what they have been duped into repeating without knowing facts or history.

I don’t want to judge that Ultra-Machmir Chasid favorably who calls upon Jews to shun other Jews as “phoneys” and “pretenders” and “fakes” because their conversion or their mother’s conversion was not performed under Orthodox auspices, and seems not to care about the feelings of people whom he does not consider to be Jewish and as much as says so.

What does it mean to be someone who judges everyone favorably? Does it mean never to criticise? To always assume that someone means well, even when their words or actions suggest otherwise? Does it mean to be always an appeaser? Does it mean to go through life smiling mildly like a labotomized Zombie with never a harsh word for anyone? Does it mean never to be angry?

There are lots of yesses and nos in this, I think. There is, of course, the argument that this actually means judge every Jew favorably. After all, at the time in which this was written, it would have been very dangerous to judge every non-Jew favorably. It still may be.

Though there is wisdom in the general rule of trying to assume, at least initially, that the people with whom we interact on a daily basis, generally do mean well, and to remember that each other person is an “I” just like you are. Think about yourself and how you try your best, all day, every day, to be the best person that you can be. Then look at the person next to you and think how likely it is that they are doing the exact same thing, as best they can.

One day I was walking with Aaron to the subway. We were coming into Grand Central and we were talking. I noticed a woman struggling with a suitcase and so I said “Here, let me help you with that.” And I did. We got to the bottom of the stairs and Aaron turned to me and said “Look at you, being all helpful and stuff!” I said the first thing that popped into my head to say which was “I have to assume that she would have done the same for me.” He looked at me like I was crazy. And maybe I was. Because actually, no. Not everyone would do the same. But I know that I would. I do. And looking at another person, I have to remember that the “I” that I am, the way that I look out of my eyes and think my thoughts and feel my feelings and feel breath come into my body and go out of it… the person in front of me is an “I” in the same way. What I would do, the right that I would do by them, they can just as easily do the same right by me. In a strange way, thinking that that is the case and acting accordingly makes it seem all the more likely to me that, even if they would not have, maybe they will anyway because I judge them as being someone who would.

Judging others favorably begins with you, and what you do because it is for you to see yourself in others. Be a person that you want others to be and you’re on your way.