Yes!!! Parshat Shoftim this week, it's all about judgments!! The Torah warns a Judge not to accept a bribe, even when intending to Judge truthfully, a Judge is not allowed to act favorably toward one of the litigants, a Judge is not allowed to listen to one of the litigants argument before the other has arrived and amongst other things a judge has to devote enough thought to a case.

Judges or leaders are required to prevent wrongdoings in the community, they should seek truth and justice and reject falsehood, be G-d fearing, have a good reputation and be liked by their acquaintances for their pleasant conduct. It is also crucial for the people appointing the judges to only appoint qualified judges. The sages state that a person who appoints an unqualified judge is tantamount to one who plants a tree for idol worship (Avodah Zarah 52a), the passage about forbidden tree's and alters is right next to the topic of Judges in this Parshah (Devarim 16:21-22).

This interesting fact alarms us to another point on Judgments, as we see by the name of the Parshah - Shoftim, it is alarming that in truth we are all really judges everyday and every minute in all our undertakings, Hashem wants us all to act with justice in the way we act and the way we think about our fellow individuals. The Halacha stipulates that when one sees a righteous individual do a dodgy act, the Torah orchestrates us to judge that individual favorable, if we spin the coin, a wicked person doing a questionable act, their is a command to assume he is doing something incorrectly with intention. However there are scenarios where we may not necessarily know a specific individual, in which factors depending, if all things were equal we should judge the person favorably. If we just search for the bad in people it is a sign of what we may be inside, which is a trait of looking at the bad in people similar to Bilam, However if we look at the good qualities of any individual, it is a sign of the characteristic we attribute to ourselves – the goodness with emulates Hashem.

There is a famous medrash that states that after 120 years, when a man passed away from this precious world, he goes up stairs, with a faintly daunting voice exclaiming - IT'S YOUR JUDGMENT DAY!!! The Angelic voice says, BRING IN ALL YOUR MITZVOT!! In turn carriages worth of Mitzvot are slammed down on the scale and the person can almost see the light of Heaven. However almost instantly a scary angel comes out and says, BRING OUT ALL HIS AVEIROT!! This angel brings in many sins and the scale is almost balanced, however as the Sins are being poured in, a bunch of other sins are being hurdled at the scale - The man shouts I AM BEING BLAMED WITH MANY SINS, I DID NOT COMMIT THESE AVEIROT!! The deep angelic voice says, those sins are from the people that learned from your questionable actions, the angel says, Do you remember the time you were seen breaking Shabbat? Well some teenagers saw you and started breaking Shabbat from learning from your actions... Do you remember the time you were seen speaking Lashon Hara about your friend??? Well other people were inspired by your sinful juicy gossip and it surged them to speak badly in their conversational sessions. The man innocently answers back!! THAT'S NOT FAIR THEY SHOULD HAVE JUDGED ME FAVOURABLY!! When I was seen driving on Shabbat it was an emergency!!! When I was what seemed to be relating derogatory information about other people it was meant to be for constructive purposes!! They should have judged me favorably!! Then the deep voice turns round and answers back 'DID YOU JUDGE PEOPLE FAVOURABLY?? IF YOU JUDGED PEOPLE FAVOURABLY THEN YOU COULD DEMAND TO BE JUDGED BACK IN THAT MANNER, IF NOT, YOU DONT DESERVE FAVOURABLE JUDGMENT!!'

May we all strengthen ourselves everyday to try and judge people in all scenarios in the appropriate manner!!! May you all have a fantastic Shabbat!! Shabbat Shalom Umevorach!!