When push comes to shove

I posted this piece initially on my Facebook page, but am posting it here too because it has obvious implications for Avot 1:6 -- the principle of judging other people favourably if one can.

Here are two incidents from last week.

In the first, I was waiting with many others for the arrival of Jerusalem's light rail train. When it pulled in, I immediately noticed how crowded it was. The automatic doors opened. Standing in the middle of the door nearest me, with obvious intent to stand, was a large woman with a wide double buggy.

As the doors opened, the crowd around me surged forward, quite forcing the woman back before she was eventually able to get off the train. The behaviour of the other passengers struck me as being not only unpleasant but also counterproductive: if they had only stepped back and let the woman with her buggy get off first, there would have been easier access for the oncoming passengers as well as more room for them once they were inside the carriage.

The second incident took place in a popular shopping mall, where I was sharing a lift with an elderly gentleman. As the door opened and before we could step out, a woman in a wheelchair propelled herself straight at us, causing an unnecessary and (for the elderly gentleman) painful collision. Again, it would have been more courteous and efficient for the woman to let us out of the lift before trying to enter it.

My first thought was that there are many people in this beautiful country who have no idea how to behave. On further reflection, I wondered whether there has been some sort of epigenetic effect at work. Many people who live in Israel are descendants of refugees from persecution and genocide in their countries of origin, people who may have owed their lives to being able to squeeze themselves on to the last train out of time or force themselves on to the last bus or boat. They may have transmitted an urge to board as a sort of survival gene that their subsequent generations find irresistible -- and this epigenetic effect may have mutated into a new social norm.

This idea may be quite wrong, but at least it gives me the chance to be less critical of my fellow humans when they practise a standard of behaviour that is so easy to criticise.