December 11, 2025 • 12 mins
Ever judged a “bad driver” — or anyone — for cutting corners and then wondered about your own reactions? This week, Rabbi Oren Hayon shares a powerful take on justice, mercy, and how we judge each other. In this time of Elul, discover how the Torah calls us to temper our judgments with compassion — for each other and for ourselves.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
So there I was,
driving down the highway just a few days ago.
And I want you to picture this.
I'm driving down 59 South,
getting ready to merge onto 610 North.
I am a rule follower.
I am an all-around good citizen.
And so I moved all the way over to the right lane,
(00:24):
just like you're supposed to,
remaining calm as the traffic around me slows to a crawl
while everybody's waiting their turn to move into the exit
ramp.
And then, just as it was about to be my turn,
I see in my side mirror a car barreling toward me at top
speed in the second to farthest right lane,
(00:46):
blasting its way in front of me to squeeze into the exit
lane before all of the other law-abiding drivers who are
waiting their turn like you're supposed to.
And because this guy's driving has positioned him roughly
three inches in front of the front of my car,
I can see very clearly the bumper sticker on the back of
(01:08):
his car with a Bible verse on it.
It says, James 4:12, only God can judge me.
And if I had somehow been able to,
I would have loved to have found that guy later to reassure
him that despite what the Epistle of James may say,
(01:30):
I was doing a very good job of judging him.
Thank you very much.
And I was reflecting also, after he pulled away,
that the idea that only God can judge us is actually a very
foreign idea in Jewish thought.
Yes, we do think about God as a sort of celestial,
universal, cosmic judge,
(01:52):
but we have never extended that idea in the same way that
our Christian friends may have,
to get to the conclusion that human beings are somehow
immune to being judged by each other.
The ability for people to evaluate each other's behavior is
actually at the heart of much of the Jewish Bible's
(02:12):
blueprint for Israelite society.
This week, our Torah portion, Parashat Shoftim,
lays out requirements and expectations for the Israelites
in the communities they'll build when they settle in the
land of Canaan.
It lays out the framework for a judicial system.
It instructs the children of Israel about the grave
(02:33):
importance of establishing reliable civil and criminal
courts and finding people of repute to uphold the work of
justice.
These were not optional features for a pie-in-the-sky
society.
These are God's non-negotiable conditions for covenantal
life.
Without justice executed by our fellow human beings,
(02:55):
the Torah suggests, Jewish life cannot long endure.
A portion this week contains a familiar verse which over
the centuries has come to become a sort of faithful byword
of Jewish social activism and social justice.
Tzedek tzedek tirdof.
(03:17):
Justice, justice shall you pursue.
Over the centuries, readers have debated this verse,
wondering specifically why the Torah,
which is normally so economical with its words,
would repeat the word tzedek, justice,
two times in one verse.
Many people assume that it was for the sake of emphasis,
(03:38):
that the Torah is willing to suspend its normal
succinctness to make clear the supreme importance of the
principle of justice.
Because whereas justice shall you pursue would have been a
perfectly clear and understandable thing to say,
maybe the repetition of that first word, justice, justice,
shows that the pursuit of justice is of a higher level of
(04:01):
importance than other Jewish values.
Interestingly,
most of the great rabbis who wrote commentaries on this
verse disagree with this interpretation.
They don't think that justice was repeated for emphasis.
Instead,
the prevailing opinion is that each of the two uses of the
word justice, tzedek,
comes to teach us about a different kind of justice or a
(04:24):
different context in which it is pursued.
There are a lot of different rabbis with a lot of different
ideas about the double tzedek.
I want to offer just one to you tonight,
which comes from a book that was written in the year 1860
by Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izhbica.
He's the guy we call the Izhbitza Rebbe.
(04:44):
This rabbi was the leader of a great rabbinic dynasty that
was thriving in eastern Poland,
but at the same time he was possessed of a soft and
profound mystical tenderness.
So the Izhbitza Rebbe offers a complete reframing of the
question about why the verse repeats the word justice.
His belief is that the repetition, again,
(05:06):
is not for emphasis,
but because it's one commandment directed to two separate,
different listeners.
The first one, the first plea to exercise justice,
that one is directed to God.
The Torah is in effect interceding with God on our behalf.
Please, God, be fair.
Please be just.
(05:27):
They know they've done things wrong.
They know you're watching them.
They know you see them failing again and again and again.
But you know their hearts, God.
You know their intentions are good.
So please, when it comes time for you to judge them,
be fair.
And the Izhbitza Rebbe suggests then that the second plea
for justice is directed at us, at us human beings,
(05:51):
reminding us to be fair and merciful.
Because we are really good at watching what other people
are doing.
And despite what the bumper sticker might have you believe,
we are very good at being judgmental of one another.
This is at the heart of the Izhbitzer's teaching.
Sometimes you're going to see another person doing
(06:11):
something wrong.
Maybe it's something you disagree with mildly.
Maybe it's something egregious and deeply upsetting.
Whatever it is, very quickly,
we're prone to feel some very big,
intense feelings rising up inside us.
Big, sanctimonious, judgy feelings.
(06:33):
And at that moment, the Ishpitzer teaches,
that's the time to remember the Torah's commandment
directed to you.
Tzedek, be fair.
Just slow down.
Take a breath and give him the benefit of the doubt.
The rabbi teaches that we have to stay on guard against
allowing our own moral principles to lead us to
(06:55):
self-righteousness.
Most people's hearts are good.
Most people's intentions are good.
So our task is to channel that impulse toward fairness and
generosity when we see someone else acting in a way that
seems wrong to us.
And he goes on as an illustration to teach that in the old
days when there was a Sanhedrin in Jerusalem,
(07:17):
the great Jewish Supreme Court,
and when the court found someone guilty of a crime,
sometimes the judges would deliberately insert a waiting
period between conviction and sentencing.
Because they knew that even if the accused was found
guilty,
they could still hold out hope that new evidence would come
(07:40):
to light or that God would grant them some new perspective
and some new way to find a path toward acquittal for the
person who had been indicted.
We are now just in the beginning of the month of Elul,
the time of preparation for the days of awe,
and the High Holy Days will be here very soon.
These holidays are a time of deep scrutiny and
(08:02):
self-reflection when the judge of the universe we are
taught will be evaluating us and our conduct.
And in all likelihood, if you're anything like me,
there will come a time during those holidays when we find
ourselves sitting in services and we find ourselves hoping
fervently, desperately,
(08:23):
that God will have mercy and judge us leniently.
And we hope that God will see us at our best,
not our worst.
And we hope that God will remember our hearts and to know
that we're all doing our best.
And if we can hope for that sort of mercy and leniency from
God,
surely we can hold ourselves to a certain standard of compassion
(08:46):
in our attitude toward other people.
Surely we can remember that they are also doing the best
they can and to judge them too with gentleness and fairness
and grace.
We can't plead for God's compassion unless we're willing to
extend it ourselves.
It is very hard to do.
We don't always get it right.
(09:07):
There's a reason I think that the verse doesn't command us
to create justice, but just to pursue it.
It plots justice as a horizon line that is clearly visible,
but never fully reachable.
And yet our job is not the perfect completion of perfect
justice.
Our job is to keep moving toward it,
(09:29):
stumbling and striving,
but always resisting the temptation to give up on one
another.
We may not ever get there.
Our judgments of one another may never be as generous as
we'd like them to be, but the Torah still commands us,
keep pursuing.
This, I think,
is the heart of Parashat Shoftim and of this month of Elul
(09:52):
as well.
That even in a fractured world,
God's hope for us doesn't end.
God sees our failures,
but God also sees our potential with infinite yearning and
love.
Even if the kind of world God hopes to create seems
impossibly distant,
we join in God's unending hope to bring it about.
(10:14):
So friends, in these days of the month of Elul,
as we look at ourselves with honesty and rigor,
readying our hearts for judgment,
let's temper justice with compassion,
even when it's difficult.
Let's seek fairness, not only in how we hope to be judged,
but in how we judge others.
(10:34):
And may we together walk steadily toward that far-off
horizon, never perfecting it, perhaps,
but also never ceasing in our pursuit of justice.
May this be God's will for all of us.
Amen.
So there I was,
driving down the highway just a few days ago.
And I want you to picture this.
I'm driving down 59 South,
getting ready to merge onto 610 North.
I am a rule follower.
I am an all-around good citizen.
And so I moved all the way over to the right lane,
(00:24):
just like you're supposed to,
remaining calm as the traffic around me slows to a crawl
while everybody's waiting their turn to move into the exit
ramp.
And then, just as it was about to be my turn,
I see in my side mirror a car barreling toward me at top
speed in the second to farthest right lane,
(00:46):
blasting its way in front of me to squeeze into the exit
lane before all of the other law-abiding drivers who are
waiting their turn like you're supposed to.
And because this guy's driving has positioned him roughly
three inches in front of the front of my car,
I can see very clearly the bumper sticker on the back of
(01:08):
his car with a Bible verse on it.
It says, James 4:12, only God can judge me.
And if I had somehow been able to,
I would have loved to have found that guy later to reassure
him that despite what the Epistle of James may say,
(01:30):
I was doing a very good job of judging him.
Thank you very much.
And I was reflecting also, after he pulled away,
that the idea that only God can judge us is actually a very
foreign idea in Jewish thought.
Yes, we do think about God as a sort of celestial,
universal, cosmic judge,
(01:52):
but we have never extended that idea in the same way that
our Christian friends may have,
to get to the conclusion that human beings are somehow
immune to being judged by each other.
The ability for people to evaluate each other's behavior is
actually at the heart of much of the Jewish Bible's
(02:12):
blueprint for Israelite society.
This week, our Torah portion, Parashat Shoftim,
lays out requirements and expectations for the Israelites
in the communities they'll build when they settle in the
land of Canaan.
It lays out the framework for a judicial system.
It instructs the children of Israel about the grave
(02:33):
importance of establishing reliable civil and criminal
courts and finding people of repute to uphold the work of
justice.
These were not optional features for a pie-in-the-sky
society.
These are God's non-negotiable conditions for covenantal
life.
Without justice executed by our fellow human beings,
(02:55):
the Torah suggests, Jewish life cannot long endure.
A portion this week contains a familiar verse which over
the centuries has come to become a sort of faithful byword
of Jewish social activism and social justice.
Tzedek tzedek tirdof.
(03:17):
Justice, justice shall you pursue.
Over the centuries, readers have debated this verse,
wondering specifically why the Torah,
which is normally so economical with its words,
would repeat the word tzedek, justice,
two times in one verse.
Many people assume that it was for the sake of emphasis,
(03:38):
that the Torah is willing to suspend its normal
succinctness to make clear the supreme importance of the
principle of justice.
Because whereas justice shall you pursue would have been a
perfectly clear and understandable thing to say,
maybe the repetition of that first word, justice, justice,
shows that the pursuit of justice is of a higher level of
(04:01):
importance than other Jewish values.
Interestingly,
most of the great rabbis who wrote commentaries on this
verse disagree with this interpretation.
They don't think that justice was repeated for emphasis.
Instead,
the prevailing opinion is that each of the two uses of the
word justice, tzedek,
comes to teach us about a different kind of justice or a
(04:24):
different context in which it is pursued.
There are a lot of different rabbis with a lot of different
ideas about the double tzedek.
I want to offer just one to you tonight,
which comes from a book that was written in the year 1860
by Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izhbica.
He's the guy we call the Izhbitza Rebbe.
(04:44):
This rabbi was the leader of a great rabbinic dynasty that
was thriving in eastern Poland,
but at the same time he was possessed of a soft and
profound mystical tenderness.
So the Izhbitza Rebbe offers a complete reframing of the
question about why the verse repeats the word justice.
His belief is that the repetition, again,
(05:06):
is not for emphasis,
but because it's one commandment directed to two separate,
different listeners.
The first one, the first plea to exercise justice,
that one is directed to God.
The Torah is in effect interceding with God on our behalf.
Please, God, be fair.
Please be just.
(05:27):
They know they've done things wrong.
They know you're watching them.
They know you see them failing again and again and again.
But you know their hearts, God.
You know their intentions are good.
So please, when it comes time for you to judge them,
be fair.
And the Izhbitza Rebbe suggests then that the second plea
for justice is directed at us, at us human beings,
(05:51):
reminding us to be fair and merciful.
Because we are really good at watching what other people
are doing.
And despite what the bumper sticker might have you believe,
we are very good at being judgmental of one another.
This is at the heart of the Izhbitzer's teaching.
Sometimes you're going to see another person doing
(06:11):
something wrong.
Maybe it's something you disagree with mildly.
Maybe it's something egregious and deeply upsetting.
Whatever it is, very quickly,
we're prone to feel some very big,
intense feelings rising up inside us.
Big, sanctimonious, judgy feelings.
(06:33):
And at that moment, the Ishpitzer teaches,
that's the time to remember the Torah's commandment
directed to you.
Tzedek, be fair.
Just slow down.
Take a breath and give him the benefit of the doubt.
The rabbi teaches that we have to stay on guard against
allowing our own moral principles to lead us to
(06:55):
self-righteousness.
Most people's hearts are good.
Most people's intentions are good.
So our task is to channel that impulse toward fairness and
generosity when we see someone else acting in a way that
seems wrong to us.
And he goes on as an illustration to teach that in the old
days when there was a Sanhedrin in Jerusalem,
(07:17):
the great Jewish Supreme Court,
and when the court found someone guilty of a crime,
sometimes the judges would deliberately insert a waiting
period between conviction and sentencing.
Because they knew that even if the accused was found
guilty,
they could still hold out hope that new evidence would come
(07:40):
to light or that God would grant them some new perspective
and some new way to find a path toward acquittal for the
person who had been indicted.
We are now just in the beginning of the month of Elul,
the time of preparation for the days of awe,
and the High Holy Days will be here very soon.
These holidays are a time of deep scrutiny and
(08:02):
self-reflection when the judge of the universe we are
taught will be evaluating us and our conduct.
And in all likelihood, if you're anything like me,
there will come a time during those holidays when we find
ourselves sitting in services and we find ourselves hoping
fervently, desperately,
(08:23):
that God will have mercy and judge us leniently.
And we hope that God will see us at our best,
not our worst.
And we hope that God will remember our hearts and to know
that we're all doing our best.
And if we can hope for that sort of mercy and leniency from
God,
surely we can hold ourselves to a certain standard of compassion
(08:46):
in our attitude toward other people.
Surely we can remember that they are also doing the best
they can and to judge them too with gentleness and fairness
and grace.
We can't plead for God's compassion unless we're willing to
extend it ourselves.
It is very hard to do.
We don't always get it right.
(09:07):
There's a reason I think that the verse doesn't command us
to create justice, but just to pursue it.
It plots justice as a horizon line that is clearly visible,
but never fully reachable.
And yet our job is not the perfect completion of perfect
justice.
Our job is to keep moving toward it,
(09:29):
stumbling and striving,
but always resisting the temptation to give up on one
another.
We may not ever get there.
Our judgments of one another may never be as generous as
we'd like them to be, but the Torah still commands us,
keep pursuing.
This, I think,
is the heart of Parashat Shoftim and of this month of Elul
(09:52):
as well.
That even in a fractured world,
God's hope for us doesn't end.
God sees our failures,
but God also sees our potential with infinite yearning and
love.
Even if the kind of world God hopes to create seems
impossibly distant,
we join in God's unending hope to bring it about.
(10:14):
So friends, in these days of the month of Elul,
as we look at ourselves with honesty and rigor,
readying our hearts for judgment,
let's temper justice with compassion,
even when it's difficult.
Let's seek fairness, not only in how we hope to be judged,
but in how we judge others.
(10:34):
And may we together walk steadily toward that far-off
horizon, never perfecting it, perhaps,
but also never ceasing in our pursuit of justice.
May this be God's will for all of us.
Amen.
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