Don't Judge Me

A few weeks after Rosh Hashanah, a few years ago, someone in the congregation came to talk to me in my office.  He said that he felt like his life wasn’t going in the direction he wanted, and he wondered if maybe it was because he’d made what he considered a few mistakes.  He wondered if he was being judged in some way.   I asked what he meant and he said, ‘well maybe this is God’s way of telling me I messed up.’

He then told me that he also felt like other people were judging him negatively for what he’d done.  I’ll come back to what I told him at the end.

The more I thought about the conversation, the more I considered the issue of judgment.   This person is not alone in feeling like he’s being judged, either by God or by other people.

My sense from my professional and personal interactions with people is that judgment is something we often think about and worry about.   And while the feeling of being judged by God is important, I somehow feel that for most of us, it’s the sense that others are judging us that is more persistent. 

How do I look to my friends?  How did I come across in that conversation?  What did my friends in social studies class think of my speech?  Will my child think I’m too strict?  Will my spouse think I’m being annoying?  Will the people at work think I’m a team player?  

And if we consider our own feelings of wondering if and how we’re being judged, we may want to think about the extent to which we judge others and thereby contribute to the reservoir of discomfort that so many of us feel.

I want to say that while some situations call for our judgment, more often than not, what we need from each other is not judgment.  We need something else.   But I’m not there yet.

As I often do, I want to take us back thousands of years in a way that I hope will illuminate the present.

The Torah portions we read this morning are in some ways difficult to relate to. They deal with skin disease and quarantine, priest and congregant, pure and impure, and the proper mix of animal sacrifices to restore purity to the one who has become impure.

Beneath the surface, however, I think the Torah is teaching us about shame, judgment and dignity and if we look carefully at its descriptions, we may discover just what it is that we really need from each other.

The Torah describes what’s to be done if a person has a certain type of skin condition, called tza’ra’at.  The Kohen, the priest, would determine if the person indeed had this illness.  The person then was quarantined until the ailment subsided. 

The Torah tells us that, toward the end of the ordeal, the Kohen would leave the camp where most of the people resided so that he could determine whether the person was healed or not.  If he determined that the person was healed, he would prescribe the sacrifices that needed to be brought in order for the person to rejoin the community.

At the end of the illness, there are three steps that occured that I believe are instructive and one that is missing, whose absence is perhaps most instructive.  First, the Kohen left where he was to get to the person; second, he assessed the situation; and third, he enabled the person to return.

What’s missing is judgment – yes, the assessment is a type of judgment, but it’s not a moral judgment.  The Kohen did not analyze the person’s virtue.  He didn’t say, “you got this ailment because you did this wrong or that wrong.”  And the sacrifices brought are not sacrifices of guilt or atonement, just a ritual means of allowing the person to resume life as part of the community.

Elsewhere in the Torah a connection is made between illness and wrongdoing – but not here.  Rabbis for generations have spoken about this parasha and said, “tzara’at, the skin ailment, is a punishment for speaking slander, lashon harah.   And there seems to be a connection elsewhere in the Torah. 

But not here.  Here it’s more matter-of-fact.  Here the Kohen is not judging.  Which is probably a good thing, because a person contending with that type of illness likely feels enough fear and shame already.  The last thing he or she needs is a lecture.   Imagine if the Kohen had said, “Did it occur to you, Mrs. Goldberg, that you might have done something terrible to deserve this?”

When we have a friend, a family member, a co-worker in distress and we sense that they need something – maybe they ask, or maybe they don’t and if they don’t we have to be very careful not to impose – we can be guided by the three steps that the Kohen took as described in this morning’s parasha.

First, we leave where we are to get to where the person is.  Yes, that can be understood literally – we pay a visit, we travel to where the person is.  But perhaps it can also inspire us to leave the comfort of where we are. 

It’s awkward to engage someone who is ill, whose marriage is floundering, who is emotionally fragile because we know deep down that we are all potentially vulnerable in all of these areas and others, as well. 

The kid on the playground who isn’t popular is terrifying, because every kid knows that the distance between popular and unpopular can be one comment, one embarrassing situation.  The tables can turn in a nanosecond and we all know it.

Decades ago, a Dutch priest named Henri Nouwen, wrote a book called The Wounded Healer.  In it he argued that if you want to help someone, you don’t offer judgments and you don’t even offer detached advice.  You get yourself a little messy.  Go to where he or she really is and just sit there and be there and don’t be afraid to feel it.  You’re not a tool, you’re a human being.

Here’s what he wrote in his book, The Road to Daybreak:

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. “

The Kohen doesn’t cure.  He leaves his place, he visits, he touches.

Let’s not underestimate how powerful it is for someone in need that we are willing leave our comfortable space and prepare to share some of the person’s pain.  And usually it isn’t our words that convey that, it’s our actions.  We approach, we sit down, we stay, we listen, we embrace.

The second thing the Kohen does is assess.  This one, we need to do very sparingly, if at all.  It’s so easy to say things like:  Of course you’re upset, it’s because your spouse is a fool.  You’re too lenient with your children.   You’re not getting enough exercise.  It’s time for you to change jobs.  

Some of that, in the right context, might be helpful but generally it’s not; either our comments are off-base or, if they’re on target, the person already knows it.  They need our support more than our analysis.

The Kohen’s assessment in the scenario described above was actually quite simple.  He would say to the person, “you’re ready to come back now.” Back inside the camp.

Which leads to the third and crucial step.

We need to remind each other, particularly during difficult times, that there’s always a place for us “inside the camp.”  That is as simple and as profound as letting someone know, "there’s always a place for you – within the community, within the family, within our friendship. “

We approach, we embrace, and we convey through our words, and mostly our actions, that the person has a home.  It may shift, it may morph, but it’s a home, a place of connection and acceptance.

Judgment is called for in certain situations, to be sure.  It is the cornerstone of much of the stability that we try to bring to society.

However.

When we suffer physically or emotionally, when we’re not sure if we can get through the next five minutes let alone plan for the New Year, the last thing we want is a systematic analysis or a lecture.

We want to know that someone cares enough to share even a bit of what we’re going through and to let us know, “you’re feeling dejected now, but you will not spend the rest of your life michutz lamachaneh, outside the camp.”

There’s a place for you, there will always be a place for you, within.

So, more or less, I said to the person who came to speak to me, weeks after Rosh Hashanah, I’m sorry things aren’t going so well.  It must be painful to imagine that God is judging you, or to sense that others are judging you.  But I think, that the thrust of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is to remind us that we are each amazingly valuable and that we can each make important changes.

I feel that’s true about you, I told him.  You’re an incredibly good guy and you have the ability to make whatever changes you feel are necessary.  We talked some more and before he left I said, “I’m glad you came to talk.  You’re always welcome here.  No matter how you feel, no matter what you’ve done.  This is your home.”

Sometimes I screw up.  I read the situation wrong and I say the wrong thing.  That time, I think I did OK.  

Sometimes we all screw up - we rush to judge when our presence is what’s needed or we misfire in other ways.  In mid sentence, we wish we could hit delete for whatever reason.  But if we take a deep breath and try to remember what we ourselves need, we are more likely to be able to provide it for someone else.

The Talmud says that a person should try to cultivate לב מבין ואזן שומעת lev mevin v’ozen shoma’at.  An understanding heart and a listening ear.

Whatever our role or position, whether we are 13 or 93, on the playground or in the hospital or wherever, it’s what we all need, and what we should be offering each other.  In my view it’s the most significant implication of the exchange between the Kohen and the suffering Israelite thousands of years ago.  Less judgment.  More listening.  More understanding.  And the everlasting promise of home.

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on April 28, 2012