We are told not to judge a book by its cover, but most of us do. In their inimitable way, our Sages tell us, “Don’t look at the cask; look at the wine. Aged casks can be filled with new wine, and new casks can be filled with aged wine” (Avot 4:20).
Now, how many of us reserve judgment until we look under the lid?
We live in the Cancel Generation. When we want to dismiss people, we find a single inappropriate comment they made and use it to cancel everything they do or ever did. It doesn’t matter that they spent a lifetime doing good, that the inappropriate comment was a single misstep, or that the exception is different from the norm. We insist that the exception proves the norm: the rest of their lives are carefully constructed lies, and the single unguarded moment reveals their truth.
Even if we were right, we would still not be justified in canceling them. Is there even one person who has no character flaws? We have them; everyone has them. We don’t judge people for their flaws; we judge them for their efforts to combat them. If someone spent a lifetime doing good and revealed their flaws in one moment, should we dismiss their lifelong efforts because they have a flaw?
We all know this. We know it is true of others because we know it is true of us. Yet, our obsession with character assassination continues because tearing others down is much more fun than building ourselves up. Moreover, so long as the spotlight is on them, it is not on us.
An old Yiddish proverb says, “Don’t spit in the well; you might drink from it later.” The inference is obvious. If we take others down because of their flaws, the culture we create might backfire on us. People in glass houses should not throw stones. When the stones are hurled back, they crack our carefully constructed walls.
Spitting in The Well
There is a more profound reason to avoid hurting others. It is not just for self-preservation. It is also because it is the right thing to do.
Our Sages recorded an aphorism that was common in their time, “Don’t throw a stone into a well from which you drank” (Baba Kama 92b). Unlike the Yiddish proverb, this refers to a well from which we have already drunk. It is ungrateful to harm something from which we benefitted. We are talking about an inanimate well that did not go out of its way to help us. It was simply there for the taking, and we drank its water. Still, be mindful and grateful. Don’t lash out at something from which you benefitted.
The great Rabbi Yitzchak Alfasi once fell ill and needed a hot bath. He stopped at a public bathhouse for a leisurely refreshing bath. A while later, the bathhouse owner fell on hard times and needed to sell the bathhouse to pay off debts. The creditors asked Rabbi Alfasi to handle the halakhic aspect of the sale. He refused because he had benefitted from the bathhouse and didn’t want to see it sold under value. The bathhouse is an inanimate object, but it helped Rabbi Alfasi in his time of need. He would not throw a stone into the well from which he drank. (Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Bagdad, Ben Yahoyada, Pesachim 53b.)
The Egyptian
The Talmud asks for proof that the Torah agrees with this common adage. The Talmud’s response is based on a passage from this week’s Torah reading. “Do not despise an Egyptian for you were a stranger in his land” (Deuteronomy 23:8).
Yes, we were strangers in Egypt, all right, but they treated us like dirt. They enslaved our men, killed our babies, and oppressed our women. We suffered in that land, and we thank G-d daily for saving us from it. Why should we be grateful to the Egyptians?
Before they enslaved and tortured us, they were nice to us. When there was a famine in the region and food in Egypt, Joseph invited his family to Egypt, and Pharoh welcomed them. He gave them a home, though they were strangers. He provided for them, though he owed them nothing.
To be sure, he did this for self-serving reasons. Joseph, his viceroy, was known in Egypt as a slave imprisoned by his master and liberated by Pharaoh. No one knew his pedigree. No one knew who he was before he arrived in Egypt. It was in Pharaoh’s interest to showcase Joseph’s distinguished pedigree.
Pharoh’s reasons notwithstanding, he still did us a good turn. For that, we must be grateful and show our gratitude. No matter how severely they tortured us, they were kind to us before they were mean to us. We can’t forget that kindness. We can’t forget that they helped us when we needed it most.
The people we cancel in our generation often have long records of public service. If they were not in public service, they provided other services. They might have provided entertainment, and we enjoyed their offerings. Even if they genuinely turned on us and became hateful people, we would still owe them a debt of gratitude for their past deeds. How much more so if they did not truly become hateful, but we insinuate it for self-serving reasons?
One Good Line
In his introduction to the Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides urges his readers not to mock anything they might not understand in his treatise. It is possible, admonishes Maimonides, that you misunderstood because you read it superficially. Your erroneous assumption harms me and earns you no benefit. Moreover, you intend to hurt me though I intended to help you, thus repaying me with evil for good.
He adds that even if the reader reads the entire book and learns only one point, he must consider the book worthwhile and be content with what he learned.
With these parting words, Maimonides takes this lesson to the extreme. Until now, we have said that if objectionable words or behavior are the exception, we must not misconstrue them as the norm. Maimonides says that the book is worthwhile even if it is almost entirely objectionable so long as it contains one good point.
Let’s apply this to Cancel Culture. It is rare to find someone with no strengths or no faults. Most of us are a blend of both. When we form opinions about others, we have two choices. We can assume they are good and dismiss their faults as flukes or faulty and dismiss their strengths as flukes.
The rational approach is to judge by the preponderance of evidence. If they have more faults than strengths, it is sensible to suppose they are bad. If they have more strengths than faults, it is reasonable to assume they are good.
Maimonides tells us that though this approach is rational, the Torah demands more from us. The Torah expects us to dismiss all their faults and judge them by their few strengths. It doesn’t mean that we must trust them with a loan or with our children before we know more about them, but it does mean that we may not criticize them just because we can. Perhaps we misunderstood, and they are really good.
We can only see the surface. Only G-d knows what they are like on the inside.
Rabbi Eliezer (Lazer) Gurkow, currently serving as rabbi of congregation Beth Tefilah in London, Ontario, is a well-known speaker and writer on Torah issues and current affairs.