Let us imagine a business tycoon who is setting up a large
factory, equipping it with all it needs in order to operate,
hiring trained workers for the various positions and
appointing a supervisor for personnel to see that all goes
smoothly and the work is equitably divided up. Then, in a
magnanimous gesture, he decides to establish that supervisor
as a partner in the venture.
A judge who delivers a true and just judgment, say Chazal, is
considered a partner to Hashem in the "venture" of Creation!
His job is merely to judge equitably between man and his
fellow man, and the stakes are sometimes no more than a
single coin -- sometimes the two sides may be contending for
no more than a pennyworth. But since the world stands on
judgment and truth and the clarification thereof, according
to which the judge establishes peace in justice and
righteousness, it is as if he has become a partner with
Hashem in the work of Creation. Fortunate are those who judge
truly, who share a portion in maintaining the entire world.
Who cannot help being envious of this exalted, marvelous
stature of being a partner to Hashem?
In Parshas Kedoshim, Rashi tells us that a storekeeper
who deals with weights of merchandise also falls under the
category of a judge-partner. Let us concretize this for
ourselves:
In a store that sells condiments and nosh, a customer asks
for 200 grams of pumpkin seeds. The storekeeper fills up a
small bag, lays it on the scale and studies the digital face
that wobbles between 190 and 210 grams. He waits for a moment
until it stabilizes to 203 and then hands the bag over to his
customer. Rashi tells us that "he is called a judge."
So here we have another partner to Hashem in the ongoing
routine administration of the world. This fellow, the simple
proprietor of a candy store or what- have-you -- be his
establishment a pickle store or a fabric shop where material
is sold by the yard, or a hardware store which counts out
thirty screws for a customer -- all these deal with the
sacred work of maintaining the world through justice and
truth. And these folk become partners in its normal
functioning, in the true and just extension of the work of
Creation.
We learn this from the verse that commands and warns us not
to miscarry justice. Ostensibly, the Torah is addressing
those judges who sit on cases. But the Torah specifies those
to whom the warning is directed as well: those who deal with
weights, measures (of land) and measures of volume. All those
engaged in such acts of measuring are considered judges who
decide how much each customer/client should receive. If his
measurement is false and he withholds from the client his
full due, he is causing through his act a serious deviation
or corruption of the act of Creation and a subsequent
destruction of Hashem's world.
Rashi enumerates the devastating consequences, one by one: He
desecrates Hashem's Name and ousts the Shechina; he
defiles the Land, and causes Israel to be laid waste by sword
and to be exiled from their homeland.
One who reads this passage and Rashi's commentary thereon,
and then must go to serve behind the counter of his shop to
measure and weigh merchandise for his customers, requires a
most steadfast, stalwart heart in order to stay the trembling
in his hands that is evoked by the very thought of the
fateful act he is engaged in and the ponderous responsibility
required of him for exactitude in his deeds. A bit of
pressure from customers on a Friday, or some casual
conversation whilst weighing or measuring, are liable to
divert his attention from the job at hand and shake the very
pillars of the world!
The broad ramifications of carelessness are evidently drastic
when it comes to a heart or brain surgeon, where any
unwarranted twitch of the hand can result in irreparable
damage to the patient. But so many people are engaged in
weighing and measuring -- and each operates within the
parameters of judgment where a partnership status with Hashem
winks to him on the one hand while a gaping abyss threatens
to engulf him with every slight aberration, inattention,
lightheadedness or carelessness in the critical execution of
each act, on the other.
The verse, "You shall do no wrong in judgment" has greatly
swelled the ranks of judges. For not only are those judicial
figures numbered in this important and critical profession,
but also every storekeeper and retailer dealing with
measurement, even an automobile assessor or a doctor who
establishes the degree of disability of his patient for
various purposes and the like. All of these fall into the
category of judges who require precision in rulings that
apply to a person's ownership, even if it involves a mere
penny, and they stand on the delicate balance of either being
a partner to Hashem in the act of Creation, or, G-d forbid,
desecrating His Name and causing a withdrawal of His
Shechina, and terrible misfortune to the People and
the Land.
An avenging angel created from theft or the corruption of law
has the power to reduce entire cities to rubble and to
disperse their inhabitants to the four corners of the
world.
It seems, however, that we haven't yet exhausted the list of
judges upon whom rests the awesome responsibility of not
veering off the course of truth and justice.
Every person, without exception, is engaged in giving marks
to those connected to him in any way. Even a small child is
happy to see that "good uncle" who hands out candies in
shul on Shabbos. That "uncle" is marked as a good
person in the child's mind because of his kind act.
An older person draws up in his memory lists of people whom
he designates as positive or negative figures, one way or
another, according to their appearance or past
performance.
The actions by virtue of which a person is registered as
positive or negative are not always clear-cut or absolute.
Often, it is possible to interpret a deed in several ways
that range from "something altogether despicable" to "an
error" and all the way to "good." This passing of judgment
upon a person preoccupies much of our thoughts, resulting in
our categorizing the objects of our judgment to one of our
mental lists. And from thereon, our relationship to that
person is determined by his place on our list: from an
attitude of respect all the way to abuse or total
dismissal.
These acts of passing judgment which every person must
necessarily engage in all the time, are not a wide open area
of no-man's-land, that is, hefker, subject to the
willfulness, mood or arbitrariness of the judge. There are
halachic parameters on how to judge a person's acts, and this
depends on whether we know and accept the person as a
strictly G-d-fearing one, an average person or a wanton
sinner. The nature of the act and the possibilities of
interpreting it determine how to judge the man behind it and
to what extent we are obligated to exert our minds in order
to judge favorably when the act seems outwardly to be
altogether negative.
The extent of our duty according to the rules of
halacha is determined by Chazal in Pirkei Ovos:
Judge every person favorably. Some mistakenly think that this
is a figure of speech for seeing the good in every person,
but in reality it is a positive commandment of the Torah:
"You shall judge your neighbor justly." A judge is always
judging between two, whereas here we are talking about one
single person.
The Torah turns to every person involved in judging others
according to their deeds, and it commands us to judge our
fellow man justly and charitably, leaning to his favor. A
person who interprets the deeds of his friend negatively, in
violation of the halachic rules in the matter, transgresses
an explicit positive commandment. That sin will grow and
expand and produce bad fruit when his relationship towards
that person will henceforth be in accordance with his
negative interpretation of his act. The result of an invalid
judgment is a thousand times more severe than cheating
someone on ten grams of pumpkin seeds.
We thus see that all of us, you and I, are almost full- time
judges, and we do not deal with matters of pennies but with
lives. Woe to the poor fellow who was misjudged as guilty,
especially if he is our student, employee, or simply a
neighbor or acquaintance. How weighty is the responsibility
in choosing between being a partner in Creation or in the
destruction of the world!
