Leviticus 19
Witness judgement throughout the Bible: H4941 misphat act of deciding a case, place, court, seat of judgment, process, procedure, litigation (before judges), case, cause (presented for judgment), sentence, decision (of judgment), execution (of judgment), decision that grants deliverance
Leviticus 24:22; Isaiah 26:8; Proverbs 24:23
Leviticus 19:15
And he brought the people's offering, and took the goat, which was the sin offering for the people, and slew it, and offered it for sin, as the first.
The Torah teaches us to accurately apply a principle and it will prosper you financially, spiritually, emotionally and mentally when applied to your life. There are 613 principles to apply to one's life--for situation. That Yahweh gave His children to use in order to permit or forbid (bind or loose) situations in a Hebrews life. The Law of protection is seen in the text when Yeshua was asleep in the belly of a ship during a storm. While His 12 Talmidim feared for their lives above deck--they awoke Yeshua only to find that He was at peace with the surrounding danger. At total ease He spoke to the storm and calmed both storm and Talmidim. The Law of protection.
Isaiah 54:17
No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.
That is a quick example of applying the principles for the law of protection, but the topic at hand is judging. The scriptures are opened to many of us just as Paul mentioned--looking through a glass dimly, but the definition is distorted till our understanding of passages are revealed. Contrary to our understanding.
1 Corinthians 13:11-12
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
Judging others in the Hebraic understanding is far from modern interpretations of this meaning. This makes perfect sense in the light as we expel inaccurate beliefs about judging our neighbors, thus freeing ourselves in the process of inaccurately judging others.
An old Hebrew saying goes. "Don't judge your friend until you've walked a mile in his moccasins."
Other People's Shoes: Strategies for judging favorably.
by Sara Yoheved Rigler
Before I left for my college year in India in 1968, my friends warned me not to act like a Western imperialist and impose my lifestyle on the Indians. "Don't worry," I joked. "I won't buy shoes for the natives."
But four months later, I found myself doing precisely that.
Twelve-year-old Mundju was the daughter of the family of servants who attended on the International Ladies' Hostel, where I lived. While the rest of the women and girls in her family were congenial and beautiful, Mundju was morose and homely. She rarely spoke and never smiled.
Like everyone else in her family, she went barefoot. Unlike everyone else, she had deep cracks in her feet. One day she came to my room limping. When I asked her what was wrong, she silently showed me a deep gash in her left foot.
I whisked her off to a doctor in the nearby clinic. He pronounced her foot infected. He prescribed some antiseptic cream, and a pair of shoes. "If she doesn't wear shoes to protect her feet," he warned, "the infection will never heal. She'll be crippled."
"Do you want shoes?" I asked in simple Hindi.
Mundju's eyes lit up and she grinned.
I hailed a bicycle rickshaw and took Mundju to the Bata shoe store in the center of the city.
She happily picked out a pair of patent leather Mary Janes, which cost twice what I had expected to spend. Remembering my mother's dictum, "No use buying you something you don't like, because you won't wear it," I forked out the price of the Mary Janes from my meager student allowance, and handed the shoebox to Mundju. "Wash your feet when you get home, and put them on," I instructed her. "I never want to see you without them."
The next day, she came to my room barefoot. I was exasperated. How could she be so heedless?! "Why aren't you wearing your new shoes?!"
She lifted up her heel and showed me a huge blister. It had not occurred to me that a girl who has no shoes has no socks. I dropped what I was doing, found a rickshaw, and took Mundju back into the center of town. I bought her two pairs of white socks. Now we were "all systems go."
I didn't see Mundju for the next few days. Then, riding home one day, I saw her in the distance. She was walking barefoot.
I felt indignant. Here I had spent time, money, and energy trying to help her, and she was flaunting the doctor's orders and not wearing her shoes. How ungrateful! How reckless!
I went straight to the servants' quarters and accosted Mundju's mother. She looked at me sadly and said, "Don't you understand? These are the only pair of shoes Mundju will ever own. She's saving them for special occasions."
BEFORE WE CONDEMN
A couple decades later I learned about one of the Torah's most intriguing mitzvot, the obligation to judge other people favorably. The Torah enjoins us: "Judge your fellowman justly." [Lev. 19:15] The classic commentators explain this to mean "judge your fellowman favorably and interpret his actions and words only to the good." [Sefer HaChinuch 235]
Three thousand years before the advent of Cognitive Psychology, the Torah recognized that our attitudes (and consequently our words and actions) are formed not by what the other person said or did, but rather by our interpretation of what the other person said or did. Therefore, the Torah obligates us, whenever possible, to find or devise a favorable interpretation.
This mitzvah pulls the rug out from under the critical, condemning attitude that characterizes much of our interpersonal relations. In practice it looks like this:
Instead of faulting a friend for not calling you back when she said she would, you could think: "She may have tried to call me back, but my line was busy," or "She may have received an important call just when she was about to dial my number."
Instead of faulting your spouse for being late (again!), you could think: "I'm not time-challenged like s/he is, but how much have I really changed my own ingrained bad habits?"
Instead of faulting a repairman for not coming when he said he would (leaving you sitting at home all afternoon waiting), you could think: "His previous client may have had a more complicated job than expected," or "When he went to phone me that he'd be late, he couldn't find my number or his cellphone battery was low."
Finding the favorable outcome in others actions. Causes us not to be a judge in the other sense and cause us to misunderstand the commands to judge favorable and you will be judged favorable.
Matthew 7:1-2
1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
Strategy For Judging Favorably
In the book, The Other Side of the Story, by Yehudit Samet, offers strategies for judging others favorably. Here is a sampling:
Stop applying a double standard--many of us judge others severely while we have a host of excuses for our own reprehensible behavior. For example, we grumble about other drivers who double-park their cars and thus block a whole lane, but when we double-park it's okay because our son is just jumping out of the car for one minute to pick up the dry cleaning and we didn't know there'd be a line...
"Don't judge your friend until you reach his place." [Ethics of the Fathers 2:5] This is the Jewish version, dating back 1800 years, of "Don't judge your friend until you've walked a mile in his moccasins." This means that even when another person has done something culpable, consider the possibility that you would have done likewise if you had been in the same situation. Your employee or co-worker quits and takes a better paying job, showing no loyalty to the company that gave him his start. Before you say, "I wouldn't do that!" think: "But would I do that if I had his mortgage, his debts, his size family?"
Admit that you don't know the whole story. No court would render a judgment based on insufficient evidence, but we do it all the time. We see someone do something reprehensible, and we immediately decide, "Guilty!" What do we know of the background of the situation or that person's circumstances or challenges? Conjuring up the humility to admit, "I don't know," can save us from judgments that are severe--and wrong.
Total different outlook on judging others and ourselves. No longer looking through a dim glass window but clearly and knowing as we are known. How to shut the door on being judgmental towards life, looking for the favorable outcome in ourselves and others. If Yeshua can look at us in favorable outcome. Why can't we? Made in His image and likeness!!! To hear this again click here.
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