Ahead of Yom Kippur -- the Day of Atonement and the occasion on which we think of God's judgement of us as being irrevocably sealed -- here's a short thought on the exercise of one's judgement, taken from Rabbi Reuven Melamed's Melitz Yosher.
Rabbi Melamed observes that being deliberate in one's judgement is actually the foremost principle that a person should employ in every walk of life. When thinking about performing a mitzvah, avoiding the transgression of a prohibition or just making routine decisions in one's life, we should stop and think, weighing up the wisdom and the real meaning of what we do.
In his seminal work, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explains that we cannot in practice cogitate upon every action we undertake. Much of the time we act on autopilot. If we have to stop and think each time we take a step, life becomes intolerable, normal existence impossible. This does not however affect Rabbi Melamed's view of the advice of the Men of the Great Assembly, which is clearly addressed only to the sort of decisions we should make consciously (but often do not).
