She was pretty and she smiled at the men approaching
I could see her in profile
A sweet thing and cheeky too
Embarrassed males turned away.
Quickened their pace; looked guilty, some blushed.
But undaunted she met with an expectant smile the next,
Only again to be refused.
Soliciting, I thought; a prostitute, out in broad daylight;
Until she turned,
And I saw that she was selling buttons for charity.

He stumbled down the steps and fell.
A crumpled mass on the footpath.
His bottle broke and liquid spilled across the walk.
He's drunk, I thought. Disgust. Disdain. Until. . .
Two girls rushed from a nearby car and cried,
“It's Daddy. Please help. He's ill.”

These words from the poem “On the Street” written by Roger Bush highlight what happens when skewed conclusions lead to hasty judgments, when first impressions lead us to make wrongful assumptions.

As we do every year, this Rosh Hashanah we come before God to be judged. Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment, is another name for this sacred occasion. Our tradition tells us that today God reviews all of our deeds and passes judgment upon them. As we read in our prayerbook:

As the shepherd seeks out his flock, and makes the sheep pass under his staff so do you muster and number and consider every soul, setting the bounds of every creature's life and decreeing its destiny.

This Rosh Hashanah as God judges us let us reflect on how we have judged others. Sadly, we have hurt those whom we love with hasty assumptions. Unlike God's judgment, we judge without facts and knowledge. We do not muster and number and consider; we do not weigh the situation. We simply jump to painful conclusions, as Doc Childre and Howard Martin of the company HeartMath Solution teach: “Remember, the mind likes to assume it "knows what it knows" but often its perceptions are just not accurate. Yet strong judgments are made all the time based on limited information...When we judge someone and then adopt an attitude toward them, that shuts down other possibilities and locks us away from the insight of our hearts.” We know that misinterpretation of a situation can lead to hurt feelings . . . that rash judgment can end a relationship . . and yet, we continue to do so.

This behavior is not new-it is traceable to biblical times. In fact, we observed it this morning's Haftarah portion. . We heard our President, David Oppenheimer read it just moments ago. I'm going to rephrase a short section:

Scene 1:

Quietly, Hannah slips away from the festivities. She walks into the Temple at Shiloh, to pray. Fervently she begins to pray for a son, vowing to dedicate him to God. She becomes totally focused on her plea, unaware that her lips move and her body is swaying.

Scene 2:

Eli, the priest, walks into the Temple at Shiloh, taking his customary route through the large space. He sees Hannah, Elkanah's wife. She is swaying, and her lips are moving. Thinking of the festivities going on outside the Temple, he assumes she is drunk and quickly moves to reprimand her.

Scene 3:

Hannah is jarred from her prayer when Eli says, “How long do you propose to carry on drunk like this! Get rid of your wine!” Hannah replies, “Not so my lord. I am a woman distressed in spirit, I have had neither wine nor beer but have been pouring out my soul before the Eternal. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman. All this time I have been speaking out of my abundant sorrow and torment.” Then Eli replied: “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant your request.”

As a childless woman, Hannah had little right to be in the Temple. Her desperate plight led Hannah to sneak in to the Temple to prostrate herself to God. Fervently, Hannah lifted her voice in prayer.

It was in this moment of personal intensity that Eli judged and sentenced her. However, rather than slink away when caught, she bravely spoke out in her defense, correcting Eli. Marcia Falk writes, “Though she speaks deferentially, respecting convention and social order, the fact that she speaks at all, that she asserts herself and explains herself to Eli, is surely an act of courage.” (Out of the Garden, 98) Hannah's lesson to us is all the more important when we understand how brave she was.

A rabbinic ruling summarizes Hannah's message: “one must not let a false charge to oneself go uncorrected: one must defend oneself and not be apathetic to what others think” (Out of the Garden, 99, and Bab. Talmud, Berachot 31b)

From ancient times to modern, Hannah's courage leads me to think of Rosa Parks, who, against all odds, fought the tyranny of prejudice-that most ignorant form of judgment-in silence. Rosa Parks fulfilled the Talmudic dictum: she did not let the false charge, that blacks were inferior to whites, stand. And through her brave and carefully measured response, a formal movement was born.

Her brave response is not all that Hannah teaches us. Let us also dwell, for a moment, on Hannah's choice of words. Her statements are “I statements”: I am a woman distressed in spirit … I have been speaking out of my abundant sorrow and torment.” The Conflict Resolution Center at the University of Colorado defines them as: “I-statements are a way of communicating about a problem to another person without accusing them of being the cause of the problem.” Hannah, by using “ I statements”, was able to speak out, in an unfortunate situation, effectively.

We, like Hannah, must find the courage to voice our dissension when a hasty sentence is leveled at us. Through thoughtful and careful words, aimed at explanation and consideration, we can, like Hannah, teach and instruct, correcting our accuser.

We turn now to Eli, our other main character, whose response is equally telling. Faced with Hannah's forthright correction, he quickly retreated from his rash judgment and offered Hannah God's blessing. Mitch Albom writes, “There's a song that goes, 'I'm sorry seems to be the hardest words.' But it's not the words that are difficult. It's meaning them.” By using his power as priest to invoke God's blessing, Eli shows how regretful he is in his judgment of Hannah. He means it. Eli's actions led the ancient rabbis who developed the Talmud to derive an important principle: “ . . . one who wrongfully suspects their fellow must bestow a blessing upon them, for Eli ended by saying, 'The God of Israel grant your petitions” I believe that the Talmud is teaching us that we must, through apology, take responsibility for our deeds. As Eli did, we, too, must learn to accept responsibility readily for our misjudgments.

Hannah and Eli teach us how to respond when being judged, or judging, unfairly. Through them, we can learn much about improving our behavior. Ultimately, though, there is one more aspect that we must reflect upon. Remember, in the beginning of our scenarios, Eli commits the first sin. He judges Hannah without ascertaining the facts. “What would it have been like if instead of automatically assuming that this woman talking to herself was a drunk, Eli had paused to listen to Hannah, bearing witness to her spiritual expression? Might he have learned. . . about the prayer of the heart?” (Out of the Garden, 101). These questions, posed by Marcia Falk ask us to rewrite the story. Imagine the power of Hannah's prayer if Eli didn't rebuke her, but joined her in empathy and sympathy! Imagine the power of two voices, helping to shoulder the grief of the other, sharing the burden of the agony. . . Imagine our lives, without assumptions. . . without embarrassed apologies. . . . Imagine the possibilities for enriched community; heightened communication; avoided conflict; new understanding. .. . Let us imagine the possibilities without such presumptions, as Marcia Falk invited us to, and move from imagination to reality.

This is the lesson we must on this Rosh Hashanah strive for. We must try to refrain from rash judgments, and carefully assess the scene that unfolds before us. We must not condemn until we have all the facts. We have the power not to judge, but to explore; not to assume, but to investigate.

On this Day of Judgment, let us resolve not to judge hastily. On this Rosh Hashanah, let us strive to, as God does, muster and number and consider.

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