Rebbetzin Aviva Feiner: Do Not Judge Until You Are In Her Shoes - Project Inspire Convention 2016

she fits into until you fit into their shoes and will her shoes ever fit and anyone who have tried to borrow shoes from somebody else knows that rarely once a shoe is worn does it ever fit anybody else including Cinderella so what is our perspective in Yiddish kite about judgment and about judging others and and how should we approach a world where we very easily and quickly see people and the first thing we see is what they look like or what they're doing and not judge and it truly is a tremendous challenge I learned the most from my students as president and I love opening this year with this line because one of my students just said it so simply last year we were talking about the Holocaust and very very commonly whenever the Holocaust is discussed the line used about Holocaust Survivors is this person survived the Holocaust and they became very angry they're not from but we don't judge we always give the Holocaust Survivors and they should live as many of them are still alive they should live and be well we like to give them that blanket um excuse of but we don't judge and she and so we were discussing the Holocaust and we're discussing some of the repercussions and she just raised her hand and she said hi rabbits in finder we don't judge anybody and I said you're right we don't judge anybody and that is not an easy order Rabbi hanuk teller typically says and if you've heard this line from him I just enjoy it so I love to share it again and again he says whenever you meet somebody and this weekend we all met a lot of people I think I said I I saw people last night at this weekend that I hadn't seen all Shabbos I mean there can I have a lot of people here and whenever you meet somebody he says what you need to assume is you're meeting them at chapter two and there's a chapter one and you don't know what chapter one was so that now that you're meeting them it's chapter two and you have to assume that there's a whole long story that took place beforehand that you are not pravichu and of course the source of this in Ghazal is the mishnan avos where Hillel tells us and of course hello is the one who loves everybody so he's the one who's going to teach us this he says the following hot seabor do not separate yourself from the community and do not believe in yourself until the day you die is and do not judge your friend until you reach their place very interesting says this is building on the fact that don't believe in yourself don't believe in your own knowledge of course don't think you know better because laficia and kayodea you do not know mayelid what a day what will come in a day so the one previous said don't believe in yourself until the day you die you don't know what's going to come into your life and just like you don't know what's going to come into your life you can predict what you would be if you came into his situation and everything changes and life constantly changes and situations constantly change and people constantly change and there is no way that you can predict what you would be if you were in his situation however when looking in Rev destler this this blanket statement of we can't judge anyone I think is better explained and professler on this mishna says to us what does it mean macomo do not judge your friend until you're in their place what does it mean to be in your friend's place so we said fit in their shoes be in their place whatever that may mean but he defines their place as four aspects what does it mean my place on a funny note somebody somebody still just met me yesterday and said to me don't you live in Jerusalem and I love when people ask me that because it's unfortunately already been over seven years that I'm living in America but you can be in one place and your heart can be someplace else and my heart still certainly is in yerushalayim so what does it mean to be in someone's place and ravdester defines it as four things to be in their place you need to have their nephesh their soul their Seiko their intellect they're mats of their situation and their sviva their surroundings essentially it's impossible to be in somebody else's place it's impossible only each individual has that combination of their so they're intellect their surroundings and their challenges are so unique to them that there's no way you could ever be in somebody else's place and that's why only is actually called Macomb is called hamako when we Comfort mourners the place in our pesacher we sing about our when we say blessed be the makum because the only place the only one the only being God is who can be in every place he can be in everyone's situation he understands the place of every person nobody else is in any Malcolm in fact the example that Moshe rabenu that that that rev destler gives is even the greatest navian we say every day Locomotion oh there never was enough he like Moshe albino and I love a call and a cheer for women when did he totally judge wrong and he misjudged them and he criticized them he sent them away and Hashem says to him no no no King Dove Rose I know what they're saying and what they're saying is just and true because a person only sees what do I see and just to quote the puzzle directly or of Schwab said so brings this down in shmuel where it's talking about where shmuel hanavi goes to anoint the next king of Israel and the postok says there I'm sorry the posix says and showed him that Hashem will appoint a navi and the navi deposit says amongst you from you God will appoint a navi you'll have a navi from amongst you but when he gets to the house of eshai and that isn't shmuel what happens he looks around Anisha has all these tall handsome strapping Sons and he's sure that one of them must be the next king and Hashem shows him no no no no then that son that nobody liked that little red-headed one he wasn't so little the youngest one that's the next king and the Apostle says because a person sees with his eyes only Hashem can see what's in somebody else's heart only Hashem can see what's deeper than what the eyes see and says Schwab and then I want to go back to her of destler how often how often and we can think of personal examples in our own lives do we meet somebody and we think from the outside oh this person looks so strange this person looks so he uses the word ugly nobody's ugly in my eyes but this looks so horrible this person looks strange they look weird they look different they look and you talk to them and you find somebody so beautiful inside you find somebody so precious inside have we ever seen somebody who looks so beautiful and in a second in talking to them they become so ugly in our eyes because they're mean they're cruel they're nasty a person sees with eyes only Hashem can see what's in somebody's heart only Hashem can Plumb deeper Into the Depths and actually see what's in a person's heart and I want to divert for a second because of that and we're going to go back to this point when we go on but ravdesla brings it up here we have to be very careful because although we're cautioned not to judge we are taught and we are told and we are given the responsibility as parents and as Educators to sometimes give Moser we are supposed to sometimes give Musser and we we must note that when we give Musser how are we giving muscle we're only giving Moser on what was Nira we have to be careful when we give it I'll share with you one of my favorite stories of growing up grew up in a small town wherever I grew up you might think of who the Robinson is it's not even a bad story but I had gone to Eric Israel to Seminary I came back good girl quote unquote and it was aceresime chuva and I was driving down one of the streets and I saw one of my high school teachers of revitson and I pulled over the car to say hello to her and she said to me Aviva I'm so happy to see you I've been thinking of you ever since Rosh Hashanah and I said why okay we're talking 22 years ago um I said why she said I saw you on the second day of Rosh Hashanah and it looked like you were wearing lipstick and it's been disturbing me she said it very lovingly very lovingly very lovingly she said it like that and I said to her I don't do anything special I have no special tricks and I don't use any special makeup or special lipstick and I don't know why the reason is but it just didn't come off it stays on me very well really wow but I think in her right place to ask me because the flip side of this is we are meant to be careful never to do something that might cause maras ayin we recognize that Adam people do see and this is a typical argument that I have with my Seminary girls all the time what does it matter if I dress this way should I why should people think I am this way if I dress this way because the way you present yourself is what people are going to see we do see and yet at the same time that we do see and at the same time that we may criticize and I'm going to go back to this point later on in this year we have to realize that we only see La a knife we are seeing what they're presenting to us but we only see Hashem only can see in the heart and we have to assume we have to really assume and going back to that original point of chapter two that even the people who are closest to us foreign we just see to the eyes and how often are we quick to judge especially those who are close to us do you know why do you know what happened do you know what was in chapter one and it's amazing it's amazing that we're faster to judge everybody in the world and we're faster to judge the people who are closest to us and in that with that mindset with that knowledge we have to play with our heads because it is true I did just say people do represent themselves a certain way people are doing something that makes them look like they are very Pious or very Wicked so to speak if one would see someone who they know who seems to be an upright and God fearing religious person walking to a non-kosher restaurant and order food we're seeing that happening do we have a right to question still there is a famous story and I think it's it's maybe a rabbi Krohn book about the person who saw um someone eating in a non-kosher restaurant it turns out they had some sort of stomach condition that they really needed to eat something right away so they ran into that restaurant but we do see and we see something that's wrong are we not going to judge anything at all and sometimes again we need to criticize says my husband rabbi feiner the mission of navos has many many many many many different pieces of advice that it gives to people when it comes to social etiquette and social propriety how does it open it opens with Moshe kibel Toro misi night opens with the homeless Sora and then it starts with what uncheign would teach and what would they teach the first thing that it lists is what's the first of the three things listed in all of pair que avosunim Badin be exacting when you judge and the bartonura says something beautiful on the word misunim means to be exacting but the bartonura says the word misundum is very closely related to be to the word which means to wait be slow to judge be cautious to judge wait think they have a done is called what we need to try to put in there if we could imagine to ourselves again we're not God more of the picture Adam all of the person what might make them act that way before I speak to them if I'm in the position where I'm the person that should be speaking to them and maybe I'm not in which case I'm not going to speak to them and I'm just making that judgment in my head which we all do what is this whole picture maybe I don't know it maybe I can fill certain things in in my head but I should be mom seeing him I should wait and he says the Apostle says in year me Yahoo and he quotes from you that the public says like a Hammer breaks a rock into a million shards so too everything we see has a million reasons we don't know we have to be Mom we have to wait we have to be careful and he says why aren't we careful this is going back to our Death Star why don't we walk into a room and we size everybody up and we're quick one of the most powerful messages that Mrs Greenblatt said last night at our latest discussion stop judging everyone this person's in this situation because they did this and this and this and this person's in this situation because they thought that and that and that why are we so quick to judge and he says something so painful but so honest the rush the need to judge others unfavorably he says in your friend that need comes from the show Rish is the person who's miscope that I can lift myself up from that other person shame because they're like that because they're like that and I'm not and I would never do that if I was in that situation and that would never happen to me it's the Miss coffee as I heard River frying Waxman say once and it's such an amazing analogy because it's so realistic what's the Miss caveiro you're in the schoolyard and everybody's playing and there's this little short kid and he feels like nothing so you know what he does he kicks his friend and he knocks him down and he stands over him and he says I'm bigger than you now that's the miscape that somehow when I'm judging them negatively when I'm making that judgment call it's picking me up it's making me feel better it's giving me something to feel more confident about and that is such a I would call it a pity pathetic place in a person that poor kid in the schoolyard who needs to knock somebody else down to pick themselves up so before I judge somebody else negatively I have to ask myself where is this coming from why do I need to put them down and he says the antidote to that is who taught us hello Omer Hillel also says be among the students of our own what does our own teach us love everybody if you loved Claudia as well saysler you wouldn't be judging so fast if you really loved them if you felt that way towards Claudia's role you wouldn't jump into the Judgment you wouldn't let your head go that way right away you would want you'd want to find the best reason as to why they're displaying even if it's an unobjectively negative behavior you'd want to find the reason why you want to love them just as somebody pulls in your own kid and they tell you this is what your kid did in the streets how fast do you try it's your own child maybe this happened maybe this is why they did it maybe that's why they did it Claudia so it's my child it's my brother it's my sister I'm looking to bring out the best in them because I love them because I want to find that place in me and that really picks me up that need to fill me with positivity by putting other people down is this need that can never be satisfied because it's coming from a negative place but when I'm lifting up others when I'm picking up others in my heart when I'm giving others that feeling of goodness even in just my heart that makes me a bigger person for myself that's even before I do anything to them that's before I say anything to them my teacher Mrs tarshish she uses a muscle that hazal use and she illustrates it she said she went to the zoo to see that it's really true the mission avos tells us better to be low Roche Alim better to be the tale of a lion and not the head of a fox so there are many particular and different reasons why you might say better to be the tale of a lion not the head of the fox maybe because Fox is our Sly and you don't want to be the head of Sly people and lions are great and it's even better just to be the weakest of the great people which is certainly shot but she said she heard this from somebody and she went to the zoo to check it out a lion walks with his head down a a I'm sorry a fox I'm sorry this is being recorded too a fox walks with it with his head down a lion walks with his tail lifted High great people lift up others even the ones who are weakest in the back sly mean people even if you're among the greatest of the Gang they'll be happy to put you down when you turn around that comes from the greatness inside I gave a sheer yesterday and there were a number of people who said that I didn't touch on one point and I don't see too many people were in this year yesterday but it was an important point I spoke about the pride of being Jewish and how Yiddish kite is not necessarily at all racism and that we think everybody's great in the world and somebody came after me after over to me afterwards and they said to me but what about the fact that we do find many people who really put down people who are not Jews and are not nice to them and really use it as a disparaging term when they're talking about non-jews I said to them the following and that's why I think of it now I challenge you to look at any great person in Claudia Israel and watch them interact with a guy and see if they put them down because great people only pick up others everybody this need to put down other people to be disparaging to other people this comes from abcos says rev destler comes from in yourself that you need to be putting down others to lift yourself up wait love Claudius throw love the world don't be fast to judge it's impacting you what kind of person you are in your head and what kind of person you'll be with everybody else and that we have to work on the Vietnam that love that we should have for every member of quality Israel I don't know why that child went off and did that I don't know why that adult went off and did that and sometimes we hear stories and it's astounding how much we really didn't know and we really walked in in chapter two and in fact you're supposed to when you're not done somebody and they prove you wrong I don't know if it's an old wives tale if there's a macaw for it you know what you're supposed to do give them a bracha you weren't done you owe them a bracha in their life you were quick to judge them they should have more bracha I I saw written down actually a a trans a transcription of a recording from rabbi Franz hamashir and I saw some beautiful ideas in this sense from Rabbi friend my friend says that the Apostle says again in showtim that when you need something judged in Claudia so and sometimes we do need things judged what should you do yeah Mayhem go to the people the judges the the wise men the kohanim that live in your times they'll tell you what to judge Rashi says on this pasok even if whatever has just happened happened in the generations before and the judge is already judged on a similar situation in the generation before you should still go to the judges in your time as the possuk says go to judges that are in your time so at least if you're going to judge somebody we said we said makomo is their sejal their nephesh their they're intellect their attitude their life their surroundings at least the public says be a Mayhem go to people who are in your times what does that mean the assumption is that even what they judged in a different generation for a similar scenario may be different now so that you need somebody who is in your times to judge you and he quotes a hesped that one of the grandchildren of ravenkin zatala one of the rabbanim from yushalayim hayashan said about his grandfather he said his grandfather was so aware and so in touch with the generations that were younger than him even when he was old that he was always able to judge because he was so in touch so aware so be you Mayhem so in their days and that it takes to be a judge a true judge in Claudia's thrill and we need people sometimes to judge you have to be be a Mayhem you have to understand their world their time their place I'll share with you a beautiful personal story about RAF Pam zatzao my husband as a young Earnest Yeshiva bachar was back from Yeshiva living in Lawrence davening in the weichel which is the show he incidentally grew up in and he heard that as commonly happens in the five towns there was going to be a breakfast and she was going to breakfast to benefit shuvu and RAV Pam zatzal was going to be there so even though he did not have a checkbook and that's who the breakfasts were for he quickly grabbed his younger brother and they went to this breakfast because they wanted to see harav Pam is that so and when the breakfast was over my husband somehow found sitting alone at a table so he went over to him and he asked him what was on his mind that time he had just finished one year in Israel and his parents had made him go to college that summer and he wanted to know if he should take a certain psychology course because the psychology might have a little bit of a connection to something that might be heretical whatever was going on in his head and rafam looked at him and he said I'd love to help you but I don't know you what a lesson how can you even begin to criticize or advise in your own head forget about even speaking to somebody else somebody who you don't know you need to get Beyond Mayhem you need to get in their days in their place in their world you need to understand them to even begin to touch on advising or criticizing or giving muscle wait be careful you don't know and he ends his word with a beautiful beautiful thought and he quotes everybody he says that whenever the gemara gets to a place that it can't answer something that the tanaim or amarim are discussing something and they can't find up with it find an answer the gemara says take who what is taku tishbe tierta um will answer the questions and the challenges take who is Russia tavos for that sentence who's tishby last night after Abdullah we sang that when eliyahu comes all the questions that the gemara couldn't answer Eli Yahoo will answer and foreign going to be able to answer all the questions of everyone ever why save all questions that we just don't understand foreign he says something beautiful we know is he comes to every breast everywhere in every country in every place in every generation shows up somehow and we don't know how he does it at every Seder in every land in every family in every generation in every place is the one who can judge everything why he's been everywhere he's been in every generation and in every place and in every community and he can judge just another reason for us to wait for Eliah Navi foreign and until then one of the greatest challenges facing Claudia Israel today is something that we did not see the shavista project inspire but so often we see the maritzos the separations between this community and that community and where you're like the this and you're like the that and we're like the that and you're like the back just take them down let's bring eliyahu sooner let's bring akhtas into Cloud Israel let's stop the judging and it goes both ways people judge people who they think are holier than them and people judge people who they think are unholier than them and it's on both sides you're making assumptions about me I'm making assumptions about you take a step back wait time will tell who knows what really went on before and who knows what really will come after only Hashem knows Hashem knows what really is going to come from what just happened and I'm currently teaching and just to end with of Art I'm McGillis Esther peric base of mcgillus Esther ends with a very short Kata very small story and that story is going to impact wildly the end of what will happen what happens big sun and sarish are plotting to kill the king and they're standing by the gates and they're talking in Lush on torsi whatever that means that's what Rashi says whatever language that is it's one of the languages that not too many people people spoke in Tucson at the time and more is sitting there he sat in the lishka sagasas he was one of the Sanhedrin he speaks all the languages he understood it he gets the message to Esther hamalka Esther hamalka tells the king in the name of Mordechai and we find that that it is transcribed it is transcribed before the king in the book of The King and the peric ends many of them again we know Esther is all about what's hidden ask the questions or try to point out all the protests in everything so clearly we know that one of the big practices in this story is that Esther says it in the name of Mordechai and that's going to end up being the Salvation will come at the point when the king remembers the good that Mordechai did another point that the mafar should bring out is that most things that might have been done for a king are not necessarily written it was written and transcribed right in front of the king but ravling one of my husbands are being from Karen biavna who has his own safe armagillos Esther he says something else fantastic he says ordinarily most Kings work cash service you do something nice for the king what's he gonna do he's going to pay you back right away and yet it's written in the book and it sits there foreign a lot of things are sitting in hakadash barahu's book we don't know when we did 15 years ago is going to be repaid in another 10 years we don't know what happened to us it will happen in another 10. we don't know what's written we're waiting to see what who's going to do and I think the same miso should be with everybody there's a safer and it's written and we said when we started and we don't know what happened in chapter two and we don't know what's going to happen in chapter 10. we just see the chapter that we're looking at right now in everybody very soon and we'll see everybody doing amazing things and we'll we won't even have to judge we'll see it so clearly yes Mrs Glover practical question right how do you do that in grad school how do you control your thoughts yes worrying like we're just going like this but we're not they they say that that's all was so in control of himself his head did not move unless he wanted it to that's the amount of self-control that's that's that he had okay so everybody on their own level so again and I said this earlier on and I tell this to my students you dress yourself a certain way you can expect people are going to judge you that's why we have not doing something that would cause somebody to judge poorly at the same time I might see someone do something or look something and my brain is gonna go that way because I wouldn't spend so much time warning us not to if they didn't expect our brains to go that way so my brain is going to go that way my challenge is to stop it and we know we can do that did you see what was put out there last night my brain could have said I want all of this what are we able to do it some of us are able more than others and that's our greatest tough kid in life how much control do you have of yourself and of course that begins not with your actions but it actually begins with control of thoughts and the possum says in Shema Lo sasuru akarei and what did we say ing our eyes can take us anywhere Butner says our senses can take us anywhere our senses are immediate you go by a bakery you smell the wafting smells I don't know what communities you live in but less and less do we have the actual Bakery we have the grocery with the bakery inside but if you live if you're okay to live somewhere where there's still a bakery just the bakery and you walk by the bakery and you smell the smells so what happens your KOA of smell is innate it's immediate you're not in control you will smell it what are you in control of your demion where's your head going to go are you going to start imagining what's in there and picturing whatever your Delight might be for the day and then run in and buy it or you also have the to just stop it and shut it down so I think that's the same that's the same in every aspect of life my eyes will see this person doing something that looks wrong the question is where will I take my imagination you want to add something in the back of control and if you replace it with something else well beautiful thank you thank you so so that if you could put in so with down the castle because that is what you're supposed to do sometimes you just but there are times where you just say I really just I can't know right I I can't I can't know there's this just it doesn't make any sense there are times we see we see things and we can try but we can't make sense of it then we and then we just have to say only Hashem is Diana MS and we're not and and and and we can't be um it was a pleasure seeing all of you we should all take our inspiration Inspire others and Emirates Hashem love others and see a lot of good things and happiness and Claudia as well thank you very much