Judging favorably means finding excuses for questionable behavior, excuses which make sense to us and leave us with a positive feeling towards the person in question. When we find ourselves suspecting others, we must ask ourselves: Are there any redeeming factors? Did I miss something? Did I jump to the wrong conclusion? For instance, take the following four cases…

Judge everyone favorably, and remember: Even a pizza has two sides.

The Other Side of the Pizza

Hi to all the staff of the Ohrnet and thanks for a great job. I have been wanting to write to you about a story that happened in our neighborhood here in our small city in Israel. This is a classic "Other Side of the Story" story. There has been a pizza shop in our town for many years. Even their name, "Dominoes," gives the impression of true non-kosherness. (They are not affiliated with the famous Dominoes pizza, they have been in our town for 19 years, and recently won a law suit against Dominoes for name infringement.) They have a delivery service and, being the only food delivery service in our little town, their motorbikes are easily recognizable.

One day their delivery motor bike came to deliver a pizza. People looked out their windows in disbelief. My wife and I also went to the window as we heard the distinct sound of the mo-ped in our all-religious cul-de-sac. The children were running after the mo-ped to see who had ordered from the non-kosher pizza shop. I said to my wife, as a child of a prominent rabbi from the community paid for the pizza, "they must be newly under hashgacha (kashrut supervision)." When I went downstairs, I saw, sitting in a bundle, a large stack of flyers announcing that the pizza shop was now kosher l'mehadrin (strictly kosher). They never got handed out and were just left there sitting. I guess one person did get the flyer.

If his friends had judged favorably, the fellow in the following incident wouldn't be saying....

Call Me Mr. Cats

Recently we have had serious cat problems in my neighborhood. So much so that people have joked about actually going out and killing them. Anyway, one night about a month ago I was bringing the trash cans up to the front of my house when I noticed that there was a cat inside. I yelled "Go away cat," and chased it out of the can. The cat jumped up, screamed, and in the process of running away it squeezed an open ketchup bottle at me, staining me from head to toe with red gook! Some neighbors, hearing the commotion, ran to check if everything was all right; embarrassed, I nodded politely.

The next day, my co-worker, who also lives in the neighborhood, commented how he was grateful that someone had finally taken some serious initiative in destroying the cats. Turns out one of the neighbors had spread a nasty rumor that I had violently bashed a cat's head in. Even though I have repeatedly denied this and explained the situation several times, some people in my neighborhood still insist on calling me "Cat-the-Ripper," which not only does not make sense but has made this awkward incident all the more uncomfortable. If only they would have assumed correctly that the red gook on me was ketchup. Please inform your readers of how to properly judge people.

If you know negative information about someone, you are not allowed to "let the cat out of the bag" except under the strict conditions set forth in the sefer Chafetz Chaim. All the more so when your information is based on mere hearsay or circumstantial evidence.

Judging favorably is a powerful weapon in the war against anger and evil speech. Take the case of...

Granny Get Your Gun

A friend assures me that the following story is true: Recently, a friend of his grandmother, a woman about 65 years old, was out shopping. When she returned to her car there were three men sitting inside it. Being the kind of feisty woman who had a gun for such emergencies, she whipped it out and yelled, "I know how to use it, and I'm quite prepared to. Get out!" The men were petrified and quickly jumped out and ran away.

The woman then got into the car, and to her dismay, the key wouldn't fit in the ignition. Wrong car. Oops!

Realizing her mistake, she thought she better report what she had done at the Police Station. Which she did. When she told the officer on duty the story, he laughed and pointed at the three still visibly shaken men sitting at the other end of the room. They had just reported being hijacked by an elderly lady.

After reading your McDonald's story (Feeding You a Whopper ) where you speculated what would have happened had a Jew come by while someone was eating a kosher airplane meal inside a McDonald's restaurant, I would like to tell you exactly what would have happened:

Feeding You A Whopper II

To install a new driveway at a gasoline station he owned, my dad hired some day laborers. At midday the laborers said they wanted to be paid half their day's wage to buy lunch. My father knew these men to be derelicts and alcoholics. He feared that if he paid them anything they would take the money to the nearest bar and he would never see them again. Instead he offered to buy them lunch and he would pay for it.

As he was leaving to get them lunch he asked my zaydeh (grandfather) if he would like to go along. My zaydeh got in the car and my father drove off. When he pulled into a nearby McDonald's my zaydeh said, "What are we doing here?" Dad explained he was only getting lunch for the workers.

Zaydeh said "you can't go in there, its ma'aris ayin (forbidden due to appearance)." Dad said, "If I don't get them lunch, I'll lose them and the whole job will have to be re-done, and besides no Jews ever come out here to the Northeast end of town." With Zaydeh protesting, Dad bought the laborers lunch.

Months later Dad is speaking to a fellow he grew up with but hasn't spoken to in years. His old friend says: "I've got to ask you a question. Do you still keep kosher?"

"Of course," Dad answers.

His friend continues: "You know it's sad that all of us kids from the old neighborhood are no longer observant, but I always thought that at least you still are. Then a few months ago when I had a job out in the Northeast side of town I saw you coming out of McDonald's. I felt really sad..."

Do you have a story to share?

Were you in a situation where there was the potential to misjudge a person, but there really was a valid explanation? Has a friend or a relative ever told you how they were in such a situation?

Share you stories with us for inclusion in future columns of The Other Side of the Story.

To submit your story, send it to info@ohr.edu. (To insure proper handling, put "Other Side" in the subject line of your message).

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