BLIND TO ONE’S OWN FAULTS

“Judges and officers you shall place for you within all your gates that the Lord your God is giving you for your tribes. And they shall judge the people a fair judgment.” (Devarim 17:18)

The opening comment of the Midrash (Devarim Rabba 5:1) on our parsha states: “Judges and officers you shall place for you within all your gates that the Lord your God is giving you for your tribes, and they shall judge the people with fair judgment” – halakha: What is the ruling regarding a person’s relative? Is it permitted for him to sit in judgment of him? This is what the Sages taught: These are considered relatives: One’s father, one’s brother, one’s father’s brothers, and one’s mother’s brothers…Why is it so? Just as a relative is ineligible to testify, so is he ineligible to judge. What do you see that leads you to say so? Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai said: It is written: “The priests, sons of Levi, shall approach, as the Lord your God chose them to serve Him, and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word shall be every dispute and every case of leprosy” (Devarim 21:5). Come and see that it compares leprosy to disputes, and disputes to leprosy. Just as [the examination of] leprosy is only during the day, so judgment is only during the day, and just as disputes exclude relatives, so too [the examination of] leprosy excludes relatives.”

A relative may not serve as a witness in a case in which one of his relatives is a litigant or an accused. Nor may a relative serve as a judge in a case in which one of his relatives is a litigant or an accused. Moreover, a Cohen may not examine the leprous symptoms of his relative to determine whether he must be quarantined, declared pure or sent out of the city. May a Cohen examine his own leprous symptoms and make a decision as to his status? Regarding this, the Mishna rules (Negaim 2:5), “A person [cohen] may examine all leprous symptoms, except his own.” There is no relative closer to a person than the person themselves. Consequently, the Cohen cannot be objective when deciding whether his symptoms require quarantine or whether they can be ignored.

The phrase kol hanegaim adam roeh chutz minigei atzmo, “a person [cohen] may examine all leprous symptoms, except his own”, can be read as “a person can see all the faults of others, except his own.”

Rabbi Yissocher Frand (Torah.Org, Tazriah Metzorah 2021) develops this idea further and offers two anecdotes to illustrate the lack of objectivity that people have about themselves: “Beyond the simple and correct interpretation of this Mishna, there is also a life’s lesson to be learned from the Mishna’s formulation of this Halacha: “All blemishes a person can see” – meaning I can look at other people and notice their faults. “This person has a temper, this person is haughty, this person is envious” and so forth. I see every fault under the sun in other people! But “except for his own blemishes” – We do not see our own faults. They can be staring us in the face, but we do not see them.

This is one of the great challenges of life. We all have personal biases that do not allow us to see our own shortcomings. We are not even aware of these biases…I want to relate two incidents that vividly illustrate this phenomenon:

There was a person named Rav Dovid Mirer from the city of Mir and a second person named Rav Dovid Novardok from the city of that name. (In Europe people were often identified not by their last names, but by their city of origin.) The cities were not far from each other, and the two Dovids knew one another. In the course of their business dealings with one another, they had a dispute which they brought to a Din Torah. They came before the great Rav Chaim Volozhiner to adjudicate their case. Rav Chaim ruled in favor of Rav Dovid Mirer. Rav Dovid Novardok felt that Rav Chaim had made a mistake and that he was wronged in this Din Torah. However, Rav Chaim Volozhiner was acknowledged as one of the greatest sages of that generation and Rav Dovid Novardok was not about to challenge him. However, he always felt that he lost the case unjustly. Several months later, Rav Chaim met Rav Dovid Novardok and asked a favour of him: “There are two Jews that I know who asked me to hear their Din Torah. I am too busy to adjudicate their dispute. Would you mind taking the case for me? I will even pay you for your wasted time ten gold pieces. But I want you to hear the case and you adjudicate it.” Rav Dovid Novardoker accepted the assignment. He went to adjudicate the case. The two people sat down in front of him and they each presented their claims. Rav Dovid Novardoker ruled in favor of one of the parties. Rav Chaim later asked him “Nu, who did you rule like?” He responded, “I ruled like this one person.” It hit him suddenly like a bolt of lightning. It was precisely the same case that he had with Rav Dovid Mirer. But he had not been able to see then how his logic was wrong because he was dealing with his own pocket. And yet, when he saw these same facts being replayed with other individuals, he was easily able to see the truth. After Rav Chaim Volozhin died, these two people came to Rav Dovid Novardoker and explained to him that they never had a Din Torah between themselves. It was all a charade that Rav Chaim Volozhin set up with them. He wanted to teach Rav Dovid Novardoker this lesson – when it is a case involving your own money, you do not view things correctly.

The following is an even more startling incident: The Shach (Rav Shabtei Kohen, 1621-1662, who authored a famous commentary on the Shulchan Aruch) once had a Din Torah with another Jew. However, nobody in the Shach’s city wanted to adjudicate the case because they did not want to take a case where they might have to rule against such a great person. The Shach and his disputant decided they would travel to another city where nobody knew the Shach and they would have the case heard there. In the seventeenth century, people did not know what the Shach looked like. There were no Jewish newspapers and there were no photographs. They went to a rabbi in another city. The Shach gave his side of the story and his disputant gave his side of the story and the rabbi ruled against the Shach. The Shach said, “You are the rabbi. You have ruled, I need to accept it. But tell me, why did you rule like that?” To which the rabbi said, “I ruled that way based on the opinion of the Shach in Choshen Mishpat (the section of Shulchan Aruch dealing with monetary matters) and he quoted the exact chapter and paragraph where the Shach’s ruling was recorded!

At this point the Shach was startled. “It is an explicit ruling in the Shach! It is me!” But even though the Shach ruled clearly in an abstract case, he was still not able to apply it to himself. He was blinded by his personal involvement in the matter! It was because “all blemishes a person may rule on, except on his own blemishes.”

We see everyone else’s faults except our own. This is the scary part about personal bias.

Lee, Chani Merryl & Naomi join me in wishing you Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Liebenberg.

Rabbi’s YouTube message: https://youtu.be/2_NedUvL-_k?si=A2sQYAJ9V88liBxV