God is funny. Without pouring into a huge discussion of my personal understanding of God (and it is not a giant cloud man who controls our lives from afar) let me just state that sometimes, I feel like God is presenting me with lessons so clear and obvious that they may as well be gift-wrapped and sporting a Hallmark greeting card. Today was just like that.
You see, I am in nursing school. After completing my bachelors in Anthropology, I went back and decided to go into nursing. It is such a beautiful way to perform tikkun olam and I am grateful for this path every day of my life. That being said, sometimes school can feel really stupid; like when you have an instructor who seems to lack even the most baseline understanding of her content. Over the last few weeks, my entire nursing class has been full of anger and frustration over this instructor that never seems prepared for class. Normally, I would join (if not lead) my fellow students in frustrated tirades against this instructor; citing our victimization at the hands of her subpar education.
But now, I have this middah (judging others favorably) in my head, so I just can’t do that. One of the quotes that accompanies this middah is by the Talmudic sage Ben Ezra and says,
A man should be judged by what [s]he meant to do, not by what [s]he did.
Regardless of her success or failure, this woman is an educator. She has literally dedicated her professional life to teaching nursing students to care for patients. Is it true that she is ineffective? Yes. Is that frustrating? Yes. However, it does not belittle her as a human being. She tries. It does not mean that it is even necessarily “OK” but it does mean that there is a human behind that failure and she probably feels worse about it than we do.
So the challenge is: should I feel guilty for thinking judgmental things about this instructor?
My answer is no. Why? Firstly, another quote from the middah study comes to mind:
The Talmud says that we should always judge other people favorably. We must also judge ourselves favorably. –R. Nachman of Breselav
If that’s the case, then I have to accept the fact that sometimes I am going to judge other people. That, in itself, does not make me a bad person. What is important is that I can recognize that I am judging, and see what else I can notice. Where is the good stuff here? What does she contribute to my life?
Secondly, I am struck by the words of my therapist today. We were discussing an entirely unrelated topic and she said to me:
cling to nothing. push nothing away.
She described the mind like a conveyer belt of thoughts. There is no point in clinging to thoughts of anger or judgement. There is certainly no point in then creating some kind of “self-deprecating sub-plot of judgement” over judging someone else, as I am apt to do. JUST AS IMPORTANTLY, there is no point in pushing these thoughts away. They will breed, build up, and make you sick (emotionally, spiritually, or physically). Allowing our mind to be a conveyer belt means accepting thoughts as they come, and accepting them as they leave. It’s an incredible way to live (at least it has been for the last 4 hours or so).
All in all, it has been an excellent day in the realm of middah practice. My big lessons today were:
- we must allow our thoughts to come and go
- consider intention instead of results alone
- judge yourself favorably, too
And You Shall Love 