Our own personal Sinas Chinam - Rabbi Efrem Goldberg

every year we talk about we hear about sinatra but we don't feel ourselves guilty of it we're all pretty decent pretty nice people baseless hatred hatred do we hate one another and do we do so for no reason at all so i want to share with you a form of basis hatred which in a way every one of us is guilty of we're not cool we're not mean to one another but the fact is that we are cruel in one way when we fail to give one another the benefit of the doubt it's an act of cruelty people who are our friends our family members even though when it comes to ourselves we rationalize we justify we defend every deficiency every indiscretion every poor judgment with the people around us we're exacting we hold an accounting for the people around us we see the wrong the bad that they do and we jump to assume what they do is wrong is incorrect that they are guilty we can all do an incredibly better job at being don is of having the benefit of the doubt when it comes to other people the immortal ambassador tells us which usually is translated as correct yourself and only then seek to correct others but reverse says the word as in means be truth be truthful be honest be honest with yourself look in the mirror realize none of us are perfect before we expect perfection from the people around us all around us are people who are doing their best they're trying their hardest and if we cut them to slack if we realize that life is not easy for them it's not easy for us we're not perfect and neither are they that is a form of it's how we can show love during this period of the three weeks it's how we can restore relationships that's how we can rebuild the des amitos one brick at a time you know they say when you point the finger at somebody you're pointing three fingers back at yourself how often we see someone else having done something wrong when the truth is it's our own mistake it's our own judgment it's our own misunderstanding of the situation if only we'd be more generous in giving people the benefit of doubt the sixth mission on the opening paragraph tells us [Music] make yourself choose a rabbi and acquire for yourself a friend and judge everyone around you favorably and the question is what does that third sentence have to do with the second what does judging other people favorably have to do with acquiring a friend the man hasn't been saying zack said his commentary and turkey explains so beautifully that the capacity to give authors the benefit of the doubt is a prerequisite to being a good friend they can't be a good friend and look to catch people to be better than people to assume the worst in people to be angry at people to be a good friend the prerequisite of a good friend is a willingness to look the other way to let things go to give the benefit of the doubt to cut some slack to assume the best not the worst because after all salomon said that ain't so there's no perfect person we know we're not perfect and we excuse ourselves we have to make room for the people around us to be imperfect too to judge people favorably that's what it means to be a good friend to understand to be happy and satisfied and love people with their imperfections that have the confidence that you'll be loyal to give the benefit of the doubt not to assume to rush to judgment somewhat someone didn't text your back immediately maybe they didn't get the message maybe they're preoccupied with something incredibly important somewhat they don't reciprocate the meal you have them for shabbos or yanta maybe they can't afford those guests the way that you can maybe they're insecure about their ability to run a shabbos or a junktive table so they said hello and they shook hands with other people at the kiddush and they made you feel invisible maybe they never saw you to begin with to be a good friend is to give the benefit of the doubt it's to assume the best not the worst it's to be flexible and to cut other people's slack zach points out the mission suddenly includes the strategy for how to be generous with others when it says don't just judge a portion of a person a person in their worst moment a person when they're stressed out in the sliver of time that you interacted with them done is cola of them look at the whole picture look at your history look at the longevity of that relationship and realize that one mistake doesn't have to define the whole thing be generous be flexible be loving cut slack give the benefit of the doubt see the good ian mclaren once said be kind to everyone you meet everyone's fighting a battle you know nothing about the truth is we don't know what's going on in other people's lives and therefore during these three weeks we can express love we can make sure not to violate baseless hatred even or especially to the people closest to us by giving them the benefit of that by realizing we have no idea what people are battling and just like when we're fighting something that we're private about and we hope that people around us will cut us some slack if we cut each other's slack we can build the basement