One of the messages that Pirkei Avot most persistently hammers home is that it is unwise to judge other people—whatever we may be tempted to think of them. We can’t know why they do what they do unless we are standing in their place (Hillel, 2:5). If we do judge them, we should look at them favourably if at all possible (Yehoshua ben Perachyah, 1:6). In any event, judgement should be a collective exercise, not the prerogative of the individual (Rabbi Yishmael ben Yose. 4:10).
A further encouragement not to judge others, one that is not
couched in the vocabulary of judgement but of vilification or scorn, is found
in the words of Ben Azai (Avot 4:3):
אַל תְּהִי בָז
לְכָל אָדָם וְאַל תְּהִי מַפְלִיג לְכָל דָּבָר, שֶׁאֵין לָךְ אָדָם שֶׁאֵין לוֹ
שָׁעָה, וְאֵין לָךְ דָּבָר שֶׁאֵין לוֹ מָקוֹם
Do not scorn anyone, and do not disdain
any thing, for there is no one who does not have his hour, and no thing that does
not have its place.
Scorning other people, writing them off as what Basil Fawlty
would call “a waste of space”, is in essence a judgmental process. We size
someone up, we write them off as being worthless, we deem them to be literally
“useless”.
I believe that Ben Azai’s message comes to reinforce that of
Ben Zoma at Avot 4:1, that a person is wise who learns from everyone. If
everyone has something to teach you, you can hardly point to anyone and declare
them to be “a waste of space”.
We do however have a problem. Let us suppose that someone
appears to be useless. Ben Azai tells us that everyone has their hour. But what
if that hour has already passed, and their usefulness has been spent, as it
were? What happens if they have nothing left to offer? May we not write them off even then? Or are
we supposed to take them seriously and treat them with respect in case they still
have another hour to come, another moment of significance? And how can we
assume that they can no longer teach us anything?
These are not, possibly with justification, issues that
trouble our commentators—but the Torah narrative in Sefer Bereishit may furnish
us with an answer. After the Flood and the episodes that take place shortly
after it, we hear no more of Noach, though he lives for hundreds of years. He
is often characterized as a spent force, a man who had his moment but never
succeeded in building upon it, a sad soul who sunk into an abyss of alcoholic
obscurity from which he could not emerge—or chose not to.
But maybe Noach’s inactivity was itself teaching us a
lesson. His sons and subsequent generations took up the story of human life on
Earth, but Noach did not take any steps to interfere with them. For many if not
most parents it is very difficult to let one’s children grow in terms of taking
the reins of responsibility and leading their lives in directions that they
have chosen for themselves. Yet this is what Noach did. Perhaps his apparent
inactivity was the result of a conscious decision to trust his descendants to
take their own decisions and to decide for themselves whether they wished to
obtain his advice or not. And that is an important lesson for us all.
