Two weeks ago, in my column in this newspaper, I suggested a few good middos that we could learn from President Trump. One of them was that he made peace with many of his former enemies, even appointing them to several important positions in his administration. Although I received a few compliments for this piece, I was roundly criticized by one individual, which I wear as a badge of honor. I firmly believe that, even based on his first term, the president deserves our gratitude. All the more so based on everything he has done so far in his second term.
However, I must confess that I overestimated the degree of enmity that still exists in liberal and other left-wing circles. Nevertheless, since we are Torah Jews, not politicians, there is another lesson we must now absorb. There is a Torah way to view everything, and even antagonism can, ironically, be a very positive phenomenon. Last week’s Sunday Opinion section of the New York Times produced incredibly biased and virulently hateful articles about the president. Yet, strangely enough, the titles of each of these speak loudly in his defense and even praise. Please take note of these hit pieces and read not between the lines, but the subliminal message in the headlines themselves.
The first one screams in large letters, “There is No Going Back.” This is true, not in the way that Jamelle Bouie means it. The next one, by two authors no less, trumpets “Reimagining the American War Machine.” That is actually exactly what the president is doing, better than any previous Democratic administration for sure. The Times’ own editorial announces condescendingly, “With Trump’s second term, America faces a new reality, and the nation’s citizens need to pay attention.” This is surely true, but we must read the article itself to discover the daggers being wielded. Of course, for us, the most hurtful article, apparently by a fellow Jew and obviously meant as such, is by Michelle Goldberg. Her title is “Trump’s Gaza Plan: Luxury Hotels and War Crimes.”
In her tirade, Ms. Goldberg accuses “far-right Israeli ministers of fantasizing about building Jewish settlements in Gaza.” Doesn’t Ms. Goldberg realize in her comfortable cocoon that there were beautiful, peaceful Jewish flowers, fruits, and vegetables growing in Gaza before Hamas ruined the paradise, creating the true purgatory it is now for their own people? We, who visited when Gaza was totally in Jewish hands, all remember the sweet smells of Gush Katif, the hot houses with the aroma of roses and lilies wafting through the air for everyone, Jew and Arab alike. Now that Hamas committed their atrocities and destroyed the beauty of Gaza, would Ms. Goldberg really want us to go back to that horror chamber for all?
So what, indeed, is the Torah message from all this?
Chazal (Kiddushin 70b) tells us the story of Rav, who called someone a slave. Shmuel in the Gemara explains that his proof that this man was a slave was that he regularly called people slaves. He teaches us that “one who disqualifies someone else uses his own flaw as the epithet of choice.” Shmuel reveals that this is true of everyone who puts others down and doesn’t give them a chance to succeed on their own. This is what all the pundits are doing, but many of their headlines are a dead giveaway that they are only following the party line but don’t necessarily mean a word of it.
One of the great roshei yeshivos and baalei mussar, Rav Yechezkel Sarna, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Chevron (Deloyos Yechezkel 5:264), takes this idea much further than we could ever apply it to politicians and their loyal media. He writes, “It is a sign of a good person that he never speaks derogatorily about anyone. He truly believes that everyone else is better than him. If a person has a good heart, he believes that everyone is good. If he imagines that someone has even a bit of evil in him, he should think that he is looking into a mirror and seeing a reflection of his own faults.” Rav Eliyohu Eliezer Dessler (Michtav M’Eliyohu 5:434) adds that Chazal taught that one should not gaze at the face of someone wicked. He cites an amazing proof from the story of Yitzchok Avinu at the Akeidah. The Gemara states that Yitzchok became blind because he saw Eisov Harasha.
The Medrash (Bereishis Rabbah 65:10) offers another source for Yitzchok’s blindness: “He wasn’t completely blind at all, but he was blinded to Eisov’s sins because he had seen the glory of the heavens.” Rav Dessler says that Yitzchok became incapable of seeing evil in anyone, even Eisov. After the saga of the blasphemer, Hashem announced that “Just as he will have inflicted a wound on a person, so shall be inflicted upon him” (Vayikra 24:20). Rav Moshe Sternbuch sees in this posuk a source for the well-known adage of the Chovos Halevavos (Shaar Hakeniah, Gate of Submission, Chapter 7) that if someone speaks lashon hara about a person, Hashem removes the sins of the victim and gives them to the speaker. Conversely, the speaker forfeits all his mitzvos, which are transferred to the victim of the lashon hara. This exchange of mitzvos for sins because of evil speech is exactly what all our gedolim meant about the dangers to oneself from speaking lashon hara.
Although not all of the warnings and teachings of our sages apply to the rest of the world, there are always universal conclusions that we can draw. One is certainly that those who refuse to give a new president a chance to improve the country and the world will undoubtedly have this bounce back to hurt them in the end. Rav Dovid Cohen (Ohel Dovid to Yirmiyah 7:73) goes even deeper to the beginning of the world. He points out that we know that before his sin, Adam Harishon did not have an evil inclination inside of him. However, later, because Adam was infected by the presence of the yeitzer hara inside of him, he was incapable of realizing Hashem’s perfection. Once he himself became imperfect, the rule of kol haposel kicked in and didn’t allow even the great Adam Harishon to understand Hashem directly except through emunah. This, then, is the universal aspect of this middah.
Since we are all progeny of Adam Harishon, it is difficult for anyone to completely see the good in someone else. To be sure, tzaddikim such as the Berditchever Rebbe and the Chofetz Chaim achieved this level. But for the rest of us, it is certainly an ideal and goal, but it cannot be fully expected of everyone. Our advice to politicians, therefore, and those upon whom we have influence is to try our best but to realize that there is a universal fault that pushes us in that direction. The Shelah Hakadosh (Vavei Ha’amudim 27, page 261) also indicates that our preoccupation with evil, that of ourselves and of others, has kept us in this bitter exile all these centuries and millennia. Rabbeinu Yonah (Shaarei Teshuvah 459, with commentary of Meshivas Nofesh) is also of the opinion that the worst thing that has happened to mankind is that since it is our nature to find fault with others, it has withheld the geulah from arriving. Although we have seen that this is not easy, it certainly behooves us to try our best to see the best in others.
Let us give Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv the last word in this matter. He writes (Shiurei Rav Elyashiv, Brachos 31b, page 339) that Chazal (Shabbos 97a) say that one who suspects someone who is innocent of something will suffer in his own body. The usual translation of this phrase is that the person who suspects another will himself suffer bodily harm. However, Rav Elyashiv explains that what it really means is that what he suspects in someone else, he is actually guilty of himself. It is a definition, not a prediction of punishment.
If we are speaking of ourselves or presidents, we must steel ourselves against unfair criticism and not take it seriously. On the other hand, to the extent that we can reduce the rancor that often comes with disagreement, we can actually change the world for the better in just a few words and moments.
