Old/New World Discourse: Elul is for sifting, Part II: Judging favorably

It is so simple to pass judgment. A cognitive reflex, really, is usually the entirety of the substance behind such thoughts. As such, that type of mental movement casts our higher selves away, in favor of something base.

Sometimes such sliding is the result of habituated ideations. Other times, such toppling derives from sloppiness. We've chosen, for an instance, to relinquish the safeguarding of our most precious part. Other times, we simply don't know better.

Baruch Hashem, Elul heightens our awareness of such mentations, consequently allowing us to recast our thinking.

Consider the talk partners who think they are observing untoward behaviors belonging to us and whom elect to "instruct" us by telling us off. We leave such exchanges feeling mistakenly identified, or, if culpable, with little wiggle room for self-esteem, i.e. for a place from which to evoke change.

Consider, as well, the opposite experience, the cases in which a conversant informs us that he or she feels judged. We might not have meant to sound condemnatory. We might not have even have thought about the possibility of assessing other persons, yet we find ourselves understood as acting in that way. In such circumstances, likewise, it's difficult to reframe ourselves.

Interestingly, the upshot of those two types of conversations, the one in which an individual feels judged, and the one in which an individual is told that they are acting judgmental, is in some ways, identical. In both of those kinds of discourse, communicative intentionality does not necessarily equate understood communication.

Since meaning is negotiable, communicators who sharing ideas often infuse their exchanges with sense vis-à-vis very subtle communication actions. It's more common than not, in turn, that meaning gets mistaken.

The Torah dictates that we ought to judge others favorable. However, for many reasons that command is not as well adhered to as is possible. Perhaps people who seemed to be invested in chastising us really understand their remarks to be loving corrections. Analogously, perhaps the words we believe to be tender come across as so many shards of glass or broken nails. Maybe there is assessable guilt, but that motivation for making words can be overlooked.

It is impossible to escape all interpersonal misunderstandings. We can not, to the finest of sensibilities coordinate the import we assign to words. We can not guarantee, for instance, that when we refer to "vegetable," and have in mind "turnip," that our communication partners are not thinking "carrot."

It is viable, though, to give our conversation partners the benefit of the doubt. Does it really matter if someone signaled "turnip" instead of "carrot," or if someone thinks we made an analogous "error?" Unless we are cooking up something more palpable that the exchange of ideas, our referential specifics remain, to some degree, unimportant.

In this season of shuva, we pray to Hashem to Forgive our foibles and to bring us closer to Him. We also pray to Him to Help us emulate his qualities, including His quality of compassion. When others seem to judge us or to tell us that they feel judged by us, we can invite them to join us in communicating more gently.

Such tweaks in our actualization of kindness and consideration can bring about greater harmony. Peace is a good thing.