Every year on my husband's birthday, his mother calls. She tells him the same thing each year. Actually, there is a birthday mantra. "Micah, I carried you for nine months. Every time I stood up you stood up. Every time I sat down you sat down. Every time I ate you ate. Every time I slept you slept."
Today is the birthday of the world. We recall the miracle of the world's creation. A midrash adds a new dimension to the familiar story from Genesis, "And God made heaven and earth." There is a story told of a king who had cups made of delicate glass. The king said: If I pour hot water into them, they will expand and burst. If I pour cold water into them, they will contract and break. What did he do? The king mixed hot and cold water, and poured it into the cups, and so they remained unbroken.
Likewise, the Holy One blessed be He said: If I create the world with the attribute of mercy—with Rachamim—alone, its sins will be too many; if I create the world with judgment—with Din—alone, how could the world be expected to last? So I will create it with both din and with rachamim, with judgment and with mercy, so that the world may long endure. (Genesis Rabbah 12:15)
Today, Rosh Hashanah, the Birthday of the World, is also called Yom HaDin—the Day of Judgment. According to our tradition, we stand on trial before God. Our lives hang in the balance. The awe-filled and fearsome melody of Unetaneh Tokef transmits the message: "This is the Day of Judgment. For even the hosts of heaven are judged, as all who dwell on earth stand arrayed
before You....God is Judge and Arbiter, Counsel and Witness." Our tradition interprets that not only do we stand before God, but we also stand before our community, and our conscience. We each don the black robe of judgment, as we look back on the year that has passed and judge ourselves.
The question of justice and judgment has been on our minds recently. Over the past month much discussion has been devoted to what kind of judge should serve as the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. And the conversation will continue with the recent nomination of Harriet Miers. Senators asked Judge John Roberts about his views on privacy and precedent, and most importantly, what values influence his approach to judgment. Although Roberts compared judges to umpires who do not make the rules, but merely apply them, the question of Judge Roberts' character, his morals and his values system entered each of our minds as we watched the hearings unfold. During the proceedings, Senator Arlen Specter, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, "Great justices are more than just legal automatons, legal technicians. Though they lose their individuality when they put on a black robe, great justices never forget who they are."
Today, as we bear the awesome task of judging ourselves, we are faced with the question of how we will approach our own judgment. What values guide our sense of right and wrong? By what standards does God judge us, do we judge others, and do we judge ourselves?
Ideally, as the midrash teaches, we should apply equal amounts of din and rachamim—judgment and mercy. As in the Akeidah, the chilling story of the binding of Isaac that was chanted earlier with so much reverence by our teens, we saw the equal attributes of Divine Judgment and Divine Grace. God appears five times as Elohim—a Judging God, and five times as Adonai—a Merciful God. The text is framed by a divine test, a trial if you will, and a divine act of compassion, in the form of a ram.
David Hartman, the modern champion of religious pluralism and tolerance, writes, "Rachamim and Din together join human responsiveness with human initiative and responsibility." (A Heart of Many Rooms, Celebrating the Many Voices within Judaism) Din captures the idea of human accountability. Rachamim expresses human compassion. Either element alone in the world would be disastrous. However, when it comes to how we judge others and ourselves, sometimes we err with too much din, and sometimes with too much rachamim. Sometimes we judge ourselves too harshly. Sometimes we do not judge ourselves harshly enough. It is difficult to find the balance.
Looking back on the year, our nation witnessed too much leniency in judgment. When its leaders dodged responsibility for the rescue and safety of hundreds of victims of Hurricane Katrina, they failed to stand accountable to a standard of justice. In the aftermath of massive displacement and destruction, the head of FEMA, Michael Brown, said they had done a "heck of a job" attending to those in need. We know this not to be true. We want our leaders to stand up and say, "I was wrong. I made a mistake." And, if we expect this of our leaders, shouldn't we expect it of ourselves? Too much rachamim can lead to a sense of moral relativism, an I'm ok, you're ok, we're all ok kind of existence, with disregard for inaction or deeds that are wrong. Excessive mercy rears children without a clear sense of boundaries and limits. When compassion and unconditional love are mistaken for permissiveness, we do not judge honestly enough. We
do our children a disservice when we teach them that they or anyone else is above reproach.
The Kotzker rebbe, a Hasidic rabbi, was haunted by the idea of a world only founded upon love and compassion at the expense of honesty and responsibility. He said that to show too much mercy means, "to compromise with evil." (Heschel, A Passion for Truth) Without enough din, the Kotzker cautions, we fall prey to man's unreliability.
Yet, if stern judgment only exists without mercy, then we experience the brutal effects of judgment that is too harsh. This year we witnessed the devastating judgment in the aftermath of the hurricanes by certain fundamentalist groups who said that the victims deserved what happened to them. We witnessed the horrifying judgment of those who said that it was God's punishment for their sins.
The pain of harsh judgment also hits closer to home. Jew verses Jew captures the bitter reality of interaction within the Jewish community. We are judged as not being Jewish enough, our Judaism is not authentic, our rabbis are not rabbis. We judge the Orthodox as backward and cloistered. When our eyes turn toward Israel, we hear echoes of the slanderous rhetoric that led to the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. There are those within the settler movement today who call other Jews Nazis.
Finally, the devastating effects of judgment that is too harsh go even deeper when it is directed inward. The pain we inflict on ourselves by judging ourselves without mercy goes to the very core of our being. Witness our society's highly judgmental obsession with external appearances and
image and what this message of excessive judgment has done to our self-esteem.
Of the nearly seven million women in the United States who currently suffer from an eating disorder, most are overly self-critical and suffer from low self-confidence. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human services, illnesses such as anorexia and bulimia usually begin in adolescence or early adult life and affect people who are overly judgmental about their body weight and shape. Our society's idealization of thinness has resulted in distorted body image and unrealistic measures of beauty. Due to the harsh standards of judgment on external appearance that our culture has fed us, many young girls and women are starving themselves to
death. How many of us have looked into the mirror and not liked what we have seen? Such harsh judgment that starts on the outside goes inside to our very core.
For the men who may be wondering whether the effects of this kind of overly harsh judgment apply to you, I believe that they do. Most men know or live with a woman who has suffered from the overly critical way that society or she judges herself. Although more than ninety percent of those with eating disorders are women, the prevalence rates are also increasing among men. Boys with eating disorders tend to share the same characteristics as their female counterparts, including distorted body image and low self-esteem. Additionally, the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs reflects a society that judges men's image by unrealistic standards as well.
As we can see, too much din or too much rachamim can be disastrous. God knew this when God created the world. God understood this during the Akeidah, the story of the binding of Isaac. Though we may err during the year with either too much or too little of these attributes, on Rosh
Hashanah we strive to recreate the balance of Divine Accountability and Divine Grace. We strive to right the balance of din and rachamim to ensure that the delicate glass of our souls will not burst or break.
As we stand before God today, how can we stand by the values of responsibility and compassion in our own acts of judgment? Jewish law is at the core of our religious culture, so it is not surprising that Jews take judgment seriously. The wisdom of our tradition offers two guiding
principles. The first message is from Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of our Ancestors. Rabbi Hillel said, "Do not judge your fellow human being until you have reached that person's place." (2:4-5) One should not judge another until one has put oneself in his or shoes. We must first try to see things from the other's perspective before offering judgment. The sages could have anticipated Steven Covey's fifth habit of highly effective people, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." Elsewhere in Pirkei Avot we learn, "When you judge anyone, tip the scale in her favor." (1:6) This includes judging oneself.
The second message is revealed by the meaning of this day, Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment. According to the Talmud, the world is judged on Rosh Hashanah. All the inhabitants of the world pass before God, as it is said in the Psalms, "God fashions the hearts of all humanity, God understands all their doings." (Mishna Rosh Hashanah 1:2) Based on this verse from the Psalms, the Talmud explains that God judges us according to our doings, our deeds. The judgment of our worth is not based on an unrealistic standard of external image. Rather, our worth is based on our inner character and morals, our behavior and how we choose to act.
The standard is those who gave donations, traveled to the Gulf Coast, volunteered at shelters, took supplies to collection centers, or sold beaded Mardi Gras necklaces during Religious School. The standard is the members of kibbutzim in Israel who took in settlers from Gaza after the
disengagement. The standard is Palestinian professor, Ahmed Harb, who nominated Israeli writer, Sami Michael, to become a Nobel Prize laureate in Literature for 2005. The standard is all those this year who comforted a mourner, visited the sick, rejoiced with a bride and groom, and truly listened to a friend in need.
I am reminded of an old phrase that we used to say at my Jewish summer camp in New England, as we greeted one another. There was a certain cadence to it—"You look so beauuutiful as uuusual mibayit u'michutz," which means, you look so beautiful as usual mibayit—on the inside, u'michutz—and on the outside. It is the inner self—our values and principles—that sheds light on our outer image. A Jewish way of judging is based on how we begin with our inner qualities and manifest them outward through our actions.
It would be wise to keep these two Jewish principles in each of our pockets as reminders for how to balance the divine attributes of din and rachamim, of responsibility and compassion. In one pocket—the message tells us to judge ourselves and others according to deeds, for deeds tell us who we really are, and they indicate the character of the other. In the other pocket—the message tells us not to judge another until we have put ourselves in their place; in other words, to judge others and ourselves with compassion.
The idea that we, as human beings, are on trial before God can be frightening. But on Rosh Hashanah, we are not like K, the helpless victim in Kafka's novel, The Trial, who puzzles just before his death, "Where was the Judge whom he had never seen?" For us, on the contrary, Rosh Hashanah is no trial before a cruel or anonymous judge who brings us up on arbitrary charges. Instead, Rosh Hashanah is a summation of our deeds, an acknowledgement of responsibility for our actions. Rather, God is a merciful judge who understands the frail nature of human beings. God calls us to return. Honest judgment tempered by mercy centers us as we make our way back to the best that is inside each of us.
A long time ago, the King of Kings carefully mixed and poured judgment and mercy so that the delicate glass of the world would not break. Each of us is a world unto ourselves. We do not want to break. As we enter the New Year, may we find the right mixture of din and rachamim, so that our cup remains whole, overflowing with both attributes of the Holy.
