[Avodah] Fw: fashion models and opera singers

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, April 30, 2007 5:37 am, saul mashbaum wrote:
: The mishna says "V'hevi dan et kol haadam l'kaf zchut". This is
: usually taken to mean "Judge everyone favorably." However, one may
: inquire why instead of the word "adam" (cf "Eizehu chacham? Halomed
: mikol adam"). , the mishna writes "haadam".  It is possible to say
: that when considering our relation to someone, and evaluating his
: actions, one should take into consideration the totality of his
: actions ("kol haadam", all of the person), and thus reach a favorable
: conclusion.

Or perhaps we could explain it using Tosfos's he'arah. "Adam"
sometimes means all people under discussion (usually, all Jews), as in
"adam ki yamus ba'ohel. However, they explain that "ha'adam" always
means "all human beings", ie "And it should be that you judge all of
the human species on the [balance scale] cup of merit."

On Mon, April 30, 2007 1:22 am, Samuel Svarc wrote:
:>Of course they're wrong; we _can_ judge the actions. In the case of
:>tinok shenishbah, what we cannot judge is how guilty (and liable)
:> they are.

: Of course one can. In certain aveiros (such as shabbos) they aren't
: liable, in certain aveiros (such as murder) they are liable.

Actually, liability is commesurate with a person's ability to know it
is assur. Whether that means intellectual knowledge, or veshinantam
levanekha, know deep in your bone so that they shape your judgement,
is an interesting debate.

We might know the clearcut cases; murder is obviously more of a
mitzvah sikhli than Shabbos is. But gradations depend on the person's
history in ways only the Borei can judge.

...
: R' Sholom used to say, when it's your Yankel, then you're not
: ambivalent. When shabbos means as much to you as your bank account,
: you shriek. When someone rips you off, you're not ambivalent about
: it; you say, "That person, he's a ganef!". When someone rips off the
: Ribona Shel Olam, it's the same thing... if it's your Yankel.

When Yankel falls and hurts himself, a mature adult doesn't geshrei in
front of Yankel and make him more upset.

I would think that the lesson to take from RSSchwadron's maaseh is
that you should want to geshrei, but you should think first and figure
out what will actually help the situation.

Not wanting to scream is wrong. Screaming when it will simply push
people further into trouble is also wrong, and *may* flag a need to
double check the authenticity of one's motives.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter