Judging Your Fellow Jew Favorably

(6) Yehoshua ben Perachiah and Nitai of Arbel received from them. Yehoshua ben Perachia says, "Make for yourself a mentor, acquire for yourself a friend and judge every person as meritorious."

(6) "and judge every person as meritorious:" when the matter is hanging in the balance and there is no way to decide it in this way or that way. For example, a man from whose actions we do not know if he is righteous or wicked, who preforms an act that is possible to judge favorably and possible to judge unfavorably, it is pious to judge him favorably. But it is permissible to judge a man who is established to be evil unfavorably. As they only stated (Shabbat 97), “one who suspects righteous people is afflicted on his body” - [and so] it is implied [from this] that one who suspects evildoers is not afflicted.

(1) And all this even if the story were about a plain man, who usually was careful not to sin, but sometimes stumbled into it. How much more so if it were about a Gd-fearing man, to whom there applies even more the mitzvah of "In righteousness shall you judge your neighbor" (viz. Rambam on Avoth 1:6 and Rabbeinu Yonah, Sha'arei Teshuvah 218). And he [the hearer] transgresses this and judges him in the scales of guilt, agreeing with the speaker in his demeaning of him! Of a certainty he transgresses the issur of accepting lashon hara.

(1) And know that just as we have written in the name of the poskim that according to the Torah it is forbidden to believe demeaning things that others say about their friends, so the din is that even if one knows that what was told him is true, but that they could incline [his judgment] in one direction or another, and the one who told him judged him in the scales of guilt, wherefore he demeaned him — and it is known that it is a mitzvah for the hearer to judge him in the scales of merit (and this is a din in the Gemara (Shevuoth 30a) and a positive commandment of the Torah according to several poskim) — and if one transgresses this and does not judge him in the scales of merit, and agrees with the speaker, who demeans him — not only does he transgress (Vayikra 19:15): "In righteousness shall you judge your neighbor," but he is also called "an accepter of lashon hara." For because he did not judge him in the scales of merit, the demeaning words came to be believed of him.