Throughout our daily lives we constantly make judgements about other people. We judge them to be wise or foolish, good or bad, capable or incapable, etc. Unfortunately, it is common for us to make incorrect judgments about others and it creates many problems for us.

This occurred a number of times in the relationship between Yosef and his brothers, and many of the unfortunate events of their relationship were brought about through the improper judgements that occurred in their relationship.

The Torah teaches us (37,2) that Yosef had witnessed certain behaviors that his brothers were involved with that he thought were inappropriate. He shared this information with his father with the hope that Yaakov would be able to help them to improve their ways. The commentaries explain that the reality was that even though it seemed that the brothers were sinning, they actually were not doing anything wrong. Yosef didn’t know the whole story and he came to the wrong conclusions.

The fact that Yosef was informing Yaakov that the brothers were doing serious sins caused his brothers to be concerned that Yosef was going to eventually cause them significant harm through sharing more negative information with their father. The Sforno (42,21) explains that the reality was that Yosef was not actually intending to hurt them with his words and stories, and there wasn’t really a need for them to have been so concerned.

Later on, after Yaakov passed away the brothers saw that Yosef had stopped having family meals together. The real reason for that was not based on his being angry with them, however the brothers interpreted it in that manner.

The Torah teaches us that we are responsible to judge others properly. There is a mitzvah to (Vayikra 19:15) “Judge your fellow with righteousness.” This responsibility is echoed by the Mishnah in Pirkei Avos, which says (1:6), “You shall judge every person favorably” and (2:4) “Do not judge your friend until you have reached his place.” In order to judge other people properly, we need to be “in their place.”

It Is possible to infer a number of important points from the Mishnah’s statements.

1. When we are making a judgment, we are assessing the information that we have and coming to a conclusion based on that information.
2. It is difficult to understand another person’s perspective, where they are coming from, or why they think and act the way they do.
3. We often have a very small part of the information necessary to assess the information and come to a proper conclusion about another person. In order to make a proper judgment of the person, we would need to know their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We would also have to understand their nature, their environment, and what their environment and experiences have been throughout their lives. We obviously only know a tiny little piece of that information about most people. It is almost laughable to think we can come to definitive conclusions about other people.
4. We often do not have enough expertise to be able to judge properly whether someone is wise or foolish, good or bad, capable or incapable, etc., even if we did have all the necessary information in front of us.
5. We have a tendency to be overconfident about our capacity to make the proper assessments and judgments.
6. We have a tendency to be critical of others, and we often come to conclusions about others that are more derogatory than what the reality Is.
7. When we are able to understand where the other person is coming from, it helps us to be less critical of and be more compassionate toward the other person.
8. We have a responsibility to be careful to not inappropriately judge others in a negative way.
There are many benefits to understanding where other people are coming from and judging them appropriately.

Many of the problems we face in our relationships are created by judgments that we made about the other person’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. Based on those judgments, we conclude that the other person did something against us inappropriately (for no good or understandable reason), and that causes us to be angry or upset at the other person.

When the Mishnah in Pirkei Avos (2:4) says, “Do not judge your friend until you have reached his place,” it seems to be telling us that it is extremely hard to really know and understand what is going on in someone else’s world. We are unlikely to actually “reach his place.” It is also telling us that when we do understand what is going on in another person’s world, we will often be less critical of them. As a result, it is likely that we will be able to have more compassion toward them and to have a better relationship with them. So, if we do have that understanding, then we can judge them, because it will be a compassionate and productive judgment.

Often, someone will do something that seems to indicate that they are a bad person, they do not like us, we have good reason to be angry with them, and the relationship does not seem to have any hope.

Therefore, it is important to realize that there is often more to the story than we are aware of and we should not judge the other person so quickly because there may be a good reason for their behavior. Even if we do not know what that reason is, it is likely that there is one. They may not be such a bad person, they may like us more than we thought, there may not be any real reason to be angry at them, and there may be a lot of hope for the relationship.

The fact that there is a lot about the other person that we do not know or understand can motivate us to learn about the other person so we can have a better understanding of what the other person’s experiences, struggles, and accomplishments have been. We can also gain a better understanding of why they have not been successful in some of their experiences in life. When we have new information about the other person, we will often end up being more understanding of them; more compassionate and empathetic toward them; and more respectful of them.

Overall, our relationships will certainly be improved when we do not prematurely jump to negative conclusions and judgments of others, especially when we learn more about the other people in our relationships and understand them better.