Chapter 50: You Be The Judge
On The Good Place, it’s time to pilot the new assessment system and and train its operators. Eleanor and Chidi are both afraid the other will have second thoughts about their relationship after reading their individual file, and Michael has trouble handing responsibility off to Vicky. On the podcast, Savannah Lipinski (new co-host!) and Jon Spira-Savett explore Jewish teachings about judging, and talk about what to take into account and what not to when we judge others and ourselves. We discuss Michael’s situation in terms of when it’s okay to focus on our own growth and fulfillment and when our role in a broader ethical project should be the primary frame.
Texts
(Go to Jewish Lexicon on this site for more on Jewish terminology, names of texts and other background. The links here in the citations take you to the specific quotes in their full contexts.)
Leviticus 19:15-18
(This chapter is known also as Kedoshim or the “Holiness Code”)
Do not do corruption in justice
Do not lift up in favor the face of the poor
Do not honor the face of the great
With righteousness/equity judge your fellow
Do not traffic in slander among your people
Do not stand idly over the blood of your neighbor
I am YHWH
Do not hate your brother in your heart
Ho-chay-ach to-chi-ach = confront/give feedback/rebuke/criticize your fellow
And/but do not carry guilt because of them/it
Do not take vengeance or guard a grudge against people in your nation
Love your neighbor/fellow as yourself
I am YHWH
Babylonian Talmud Shavuot 30a
Rav Yosef teaches: From “But in righteousness shall you judge your colleague [amitekha],” it is derived: With regard to one who is with you in observance in Torah and in mitzvot, try to judge him favorably…
Mishnah Pirkei Avot 1:6
Yehoshua ben Perachya… says: Make yourself a teacher/rav, get yourself a learning-friend, and be judging every person with a positive bias.
Commentary on Avot 1:6 by Rabbi Moses Maimonides
If someone is unknown to you, and you do not know whether the person is righteous or evil one -- if the person does an act or says something that could be interpreted as either positive or negative, judge the person favorably and do not think of that person as having done wrong.
If someone was well-known as a righteous person with good deeds -- even if you see the person do an action whose every aspect seems to be bad, and the only way of considering it good is through really stretching things and assuming a very remote possibility, it is still obligatory to interpret it as good based on that possibility.
Likewise, if a person was evil and that person's deeds were well-known -- if we see them do something which looks from all aspects as positive and there is only some remote possibility that it was bad, one must be cautious of them, and not necessarily believe that it is good, based on that possibility that it is bad...
If someone is unknown and the act could be interpreted in one of two ways, it is a pious obligation to judge that person favorably one of the two ways.
Rabbi Moses Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, Laws Concerning Virtues 7:1
A person who scouts out gossip/negative information about a friend/colleague violates a prohibition as [Leviticus 19:16] states: "Do not traffic in slander among your people." Even though this transgression is not punished by lashes, it is a severe wrong and can cause the death of many Jews. Therefore, "Do not stand idly over the blood of your neighbor " is placed next to it in the Torah. See what happened [because of] Doeg, the Edomite. (Maimonides is referencing a story in I Samuel 21-22 about information being passed in a negative light and leading to many deaths in a power conflict between King Saul and David, who would become king eventually.)
Sifra (Midrash on Leviticus), Kedoshim 4:10-11 on Leviticus 19:18
”Do not take revenge”… If a person said, “Lend me your sickle” and they did not, and the next day that one said, “Lend me your spade”, and the first one said, “I am not lending to you just as you did not lend to me.”…
”And do not guard a grudge” — If a person said, “Lend me your spade” and they did not, and the next day that one said, “Lend me your sickle”, and the first one said, “Ha, you, I am not like you who did not lend me your spade” [i.e. “and I am therefore going to lend you my sickle”].
Mishnah Pirkei Avot 4:1
Ben Zoma said:… Which one is mighty? The one who conquers their [selfish/evil] nature, as it is said, “Better is the one slow to anger than the mighty warrior, and the one who rules their own spirit than the one who takes a city” (Proverbs 16:32).
Rabbi Moses Maimonides’ “Shmoneh Perakim” (Eight Chapters) is his introduction to Pirkei Avot. It is a mini-treatise on moral psychology and the virtues in the spirit of Aristotle, including a discussion of free will. In Chapter 6 he discusses Avot 4:1 and whether it is better to be one who conquers their nature or to have a character that does not struggle with ethical temptations at all.
Deeper Dive:
A D’var Torah from Jon — “How To Be Judgmental”
Other Links
Tiya Sarcar (“Vicky”) on the NBC The Good Place: The Podcast — scroll to Ch. 9, where she talks about auditioning to be Tahani at 3m40s.
Is Shawn’s line about “working together” a callback to this classic scene from Happy Days, when Fonzie (Henry Winkler) has trouble saying “wrong”? You be the judge:
Learn more about Savannah and Jon on our Hosts page!
