Before You Criticize Someone Else, Look Within

Parashat Ki Tavo is read close to the most consequential days of the Jewish year: Rosh Hashanah and the Ten Days of Repentance. It contains many messages that can help us prepare for this unique period, particularly through the Torah's description of the blessings and curses. In striking detail, the Torah presents the consequences of our actions, both for good and, God forbid, for the opposite.

One of the central purposes of reading these passages before the Days of Judgment is to awaken us from spiritual complacency. The blessings and curses convey a powerful message: our actions matter. Good deeds have consequences, and harmful deeds have consequences. Each person bears responsibility for his choices.

This idea is expressed in the Unetaneh Tokef prayer recited during the High Holidays: "It is true that You are Judge and Admonisher, Knower and Witness, Who records and seals, counts and calculates. You remember all that is forgotten. You open the Book of Remembrance, and it reads itself, and every person's signature is in it."

The Creator is the Judge, the One who admonishes, the One who knows and witnesses, the One who records and counts. And every person, so to speak, signs his own entry through the choices he makes. Nothing is forgotten. Everything matters, and our actions help determine what the coming year will bring.

Parashat Ki Tavo contains some very difficult words of rebuke. Yet when God rebukes the Jewish people, we know that the rebuke comes from our Father, the Merciful Father. It is ultimately rooted in compassion and boundless love.

What happens when the person giving the rebuke is not God, but another human being?

The Challenge of Rebuking Another Person

One of the Torah's commandments is the mitzvah of tochacha, rebuke: "You shall surely rebuke your fellow, and you shall not bear sin because of him" (Leviticus 19:17).

This is a particularly challenging mitzvah. When one person criticizes another, the rebuke does not always come from genuine concern for the other person's welfare. Sometimes, consciously or unconsciously, criticism becomes a way of elevating ourselves by pointing out someone else's shortcomings.

The recipient may sense this as well. If he is unsure that the criticism comes from genuine love and concern, the rebuke can easily create resentment and tension rather than positive change.

Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, in his commentary Ruach Chaim on Pirkei Avot, offers a remarkable approach to correcting others. His insight can also transform the way we approach our own self-examination.

The Mishnah states: "Which is the proper path that a person should choose? One that is honorable to the person who does it and brings him honor from others" (Pirkei Avot 2:1).

On a straightforward level, a person's actions should be worthy of respect. If someone knows that after doing something he will need to apologize for it or invent excuses to justify his behavior, that itself may be an indication that the action was not appropriate. By contrast, when a person feels an honest sense of inner dignity about what he has done and does not need to search for excuses, that can be a sign that his behavior was positive.

Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, however, offers another striking interpretation.

Other People Can Become Our Mirrors

The Book of Proverbs states: "As water reflects a face back to a face, so is the heart of one person to another" (Proverbs 27:19).

Water functions like a mirror, reflecting the face of the person looking into it. Rabbi Chaim teaches that our encounters with other people can function in a similar way.

Do you want to understand what is happening in your own heart? Do you want to know whether your thoughts and motivations are pure? Sometimes, Rabbi Chaim suggests, you should pay attention to what you notice most strongly in other people.

On one level, the verse "As water reflects a face back to a face, so is the heart of one person to another" teaches that human hearts communicate with one another in ways that are difficult to disguise. When someone harbors anger, resentment, or hostility toward another person, even if he says nothing openly, the other person can often sense it. The closer the relationship, the more powerfully these unspoken emotions may be felt.

Rabbi Chaim takes the concept even further.

The Talmud states, "Whoever disqualifies another does so with his own blemish" (Kiddushin 70b). Rabbi Chaim explains that a person with a pure heart may not be quick to detect cunning and wrongdoing in everyone around him. But someone who is himself familiar with a particular failing may recognize it immediately in others.

He compares this to a polished mirror. If a person looks into a mirror and sees a darkened face, he understands that the image is reflecting something about himself. Similarly, when we are especially quick to identify a particular fault in another person, Rabbi Chaim suggests that we should first examine whether some version of that same fault exists within us.

He writes that the wrongdoing a person recognizes in someone else can serve as a mirror, prompting him to search his own actions and character.

Before Criticizing Someone Else, Look Within

The practical lesson is powerful.

When you see another person doing something wrong or notice what appears to be a moral failing, your first response should not be criticism, but self-examination.

Ask yourself: Why did this particular behavior stand out so strongly to me? Is there anything similar within my own inner world? Could my interpretation of the other person's behavior be influenced by my own experiences, habits, or shortcomings?

Human beings naturally interpret the world through the lens of their own experiences. Psychological exercises sometimes demonstrate this by showing people ambiguous pictures that can be interpreted in several different ways. What a person sees can reveal something about what he brings to the image.

The same phenomenon appears in everyday life. Someone who buys a particular model of car suddenly notices that model everywhere. Someone who gets new glasses may suddenly pay more attention to everyone else's glasses. What occupies our minds affects what we notice around us.

The same can happen when we judge other people's behavior.

Before rebuking someone because you believe he has sinned, stop for a moment. Are you certain you have interpreted his actions correctly? Could you be viewing what he did negatively because of something within your own experience? Is there another way to understand his behavior? Could you judge him favorably?

Clean the Mirror First

Throughout the generations, great Torah leaders were often able to find merit in individuals and in the Jewish people as a whole. Their own inner worlds were refined, and therefore they were able to see goodness and purity in others.

This does not mean pretending that wrongdoing does not exist. The Torah itself commands us to offer rebuke when necessary. But if we want our words to be heard and accepted, Rabbi Chaim's teaching suggests that the first person we should examine is ourselves.

Perhaps the fault we see in another person is reflecting something that we need to repair. If so, work on yourself first, and then look at the other person again. You may discover that you can now judge him more favorably. Perhaps there is no need for rebuke at all. And even if rebuke is still necessary, it will come from a far cleaner and more compassionate place.

This gives new meaning to the Mishnah's question, "Which is the proper path that a person should choose?" According to Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, the way we perceive and judge other people's actions can help us recognize the areas in our own lives that require attention.

Sometimes the Best Rebuke Requires No Words

There is an additional lesson we can draw from this idea.

The Jewish people are described as one interconnected body. When one person improves himself, his growth naturally influences those around him. Sometimes, therefore, the most effective way to inspire another person does not involve criticizing him at all.

Correct yourself, refine your own behavior, and become the example you wish the other person to follow. When someone sees your patience, integrity, kindness, humility, and commitment, that example may accomplish far more than criticism ever could.

Before trying to change someone else, look into the mirror. Sometimes the most powerful way to correct another person is to begin by correcting ourselves.