Judge Yourself, Not Others! A Life Changing Lesson from the Baal Shem Tov - Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

The balmtov discusses why do we have two eyes a left eye and a right eye. Why do we have two eyes? He says the right eye is for you to look at others and the left eye is only for you to look at yourself. Very very like a riddle. What does that mean? What's the difference between the right eye and the left eye? The right always means in according to cababala and spiritual reality above kindness, love. The left always means strictness, judgment, punishment. And so what he's saying is that I have two eyes. Meaning there are two ways I can look at every situation at least because he sees it another two ways. My friend, did I introduce you yet? Never mind. He's he's shy. Basically, there are at least two ways to look at every situation and as a side of positivity or negativity. kindness with with with a foundation of love and kindness or a foundation of judgment and punishment, strictness, harshness, to see the bad. And so he says, unbelievable lesson. Use the left eye only for you and the right eye you use for others. Only the right eye. One could ask, why should I use the left eye on me? Let me love my let me love myself like I love them. If I'm only using the the right eye on them, let me only use the right eye on me, the right eye on me. That's that's not going to work. You know why? Because if you can use the right eye, the left eye, then you should because it'll bring you to a higher level of truth. And on me, I can, but on him, I can't. And this has to be understood. Why is it that I cannot use my left eye on my fellow when I can use it on myself? Unbelievable idea I would love to share with you right now. It's because I don't love him like I love myself. It's sure I have a mitzvah to love him as I love myself. And this is in fact what we're going to get to this in our mitz in this mitzvah in the mitzvah. But because naturally and unfortunately most likely I don't love him the way I love me. So when I use the left eye on him, it's going to be unfair to him because it's going to be only judgment and only strictness and punishment. I'm going to look at him and turn him into a bad person because I'm not going to do it with love. I'm going to do it only with hate, anger, and I will convince myself that it's all for God. I don't hate him. I love him. I just I hate him for God. Well, you know what? God didn't ask you to hate him and do yourself a favor and do God a favor and do what he told you to do in the Torah. Love him. But it's hard to do. So, the Bett is telling us a quick way to avoid the problem of being so judgmental of others and convincing myself that I'm so righteous. I'm so good, but look at those bad people. Why is Msiah not here? It must be their fault. How could it be my fault? Is the way to say it in in Aramaic. The opposite is more likely. Mashia is not here because of you, not them. And that's the that's the way we're meant to look at it. And so since I cannot judge him without loving him properly, the Bashan says, "Don't judge him. Don't judge him." And in fact, he's he's just echoing the sages in Perky that say, "Don't judge your fellow." until you reach his place. Can I reach his place? Can I be in his foot in his shoes and his footsteps? Can I understand what he went through from the day he was born until now? Certainly not. And even more than that. Can I understand what he went through before he was born? Before he was born. What does that mean? Means a lot of things. Before he was born means what? How did God create his soul? When God decided what kind of body his soul's going to come into, what did God decide? What kind of body is he going to go into? what level of of refinement or of the the or the opposite. I can't know that. Therefore, I can never judge him. Not even to mention the fact that he could be coming as a reincarnation to fix past mistakes. I cannot even begin. I can't even judge 1% of him because I don't know him. I don't know what he's going through and I don't know what he's been through. So, it's it's it's it's totally beyond any sensible thinking person to even try to do. And so, therefore, there's only one that's all perky ever. I'm not making up anything. There's only one one judge. That's God. God only has the right to judge. We don't have the right to judge anyone. Now, it's true. We have to sit down sometimes in a court of law and we have to do what we have to do to that the world should run properly and we have to protect victims and we have to do what we have to do. But on a personal level to judge him and define him with my judgment, I have no right to do that because I don't know who he is and I don't know how much he's struggling. I might see externally that he failed just like so externally that this person was would be a perfect king. But Hashem said, "No, no, no, no, no. He's not my perfect king. He is." And so since cannot decide who is a perfect king, I also can't decide who is wicked. I can only see what I see externally, but I don't know internally. So therefore, I don't really know how wicked he is. I don't know if he gave a 99% effort to to fight his evil inclination and he just failed at the very last second where I it's all been given to me easily. So I can't since I can't know that I can't judge anyone. So with this we can appreciate why can I judge myself now? Because I intrinsically automatically love myself. I I certainly love myself since I love myself. that when I use my left eye on me, when I am strict about myself and judgment, full of judgment and full of strictness, since I love myself, I will be able to bear it and tolerate it and it will reach a higher level of truth and reality because I will balance it with my qualities because I know and love me and therefore I will see also the good in me. And this is also dangerous because if I am too negative then my self-judgments and my accusations upon myself might weaken me and bring me down. And therefore I have to also be careful with this and I will say it that and there are sources for it that in this day and age we're so weak, so fragile that it's it's not the ideal thing to do is to be overly judgmental of yourself. It's true that we can use the left eye on ourselves but I think it should be done with caution and with limit. What was once a practice of every day or even countless times a day could be less often once a week and whatever. Speak to a competent proper rabbi that knows you that can advise you to to what extent should you try to really look at all of your flaws and try to work on them because too much negativity is uh is is depressing and and weakening in the end of the day. So so that's a beautiful insight into how we're meant to look at others. The right eye is for others. Why? because I am meant to just love them and see the positive in them. Could it does it have to be true? No. But that's what I'm supposed to do from my perspective. I'm supposed to d them the I'm supposed to give them the benefit of the doubt. And who better than than all says this? The Ramban. The Ramban says when I look at someone else sinning, I should say that he is doing it by accident. But when I sin, it's on purpose. The Ramban Nakmanes is saying the exact same thing as the ram as the as the Bashamto thousand or so years earlier about a thousand some odd years earlier he's saying that I use my right eye on him and I this and I say even if it's not true that he's sh he's only doing it accidentally maybe even against his will he's maybe even anus but I know myself and I cannot give myself that same liberty so I have to tell myself that I'm doing it on purpose my sin. So that means every time I come across someone who sins and I also sin, then he's always better than me and I'm always worse than him. And I will just add in parenthesis an idea, a possible idea is I think that in this day and age that the Ramban will hopefully agree if I could ask him to judge yourself the same way sometimes to to imply this other rule to love you yourself as you love your fellow. It's the inverted version of the mitzvah. Love your fellow as you love yourself. So I will say also love yourself the way you love your fellow. And in this context you have to also give yourself the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes you have to also lift yourself up. Sometimes you have to also, you know, tell yourself that you mean something and you're worth