You shall judge your fellow justly. (Vayikra 19:15)
This pasuk speaks of the mitzvah of דן לכף זכות, viewing every person favorably. Igeres Haramban goes even further and says that a person should consider all those around him to be better than him. This outlook is hard to grasp. Does it mean a person should delude himself?
R. Yisrael Salanter explained that this mitzvah is not about how we view others intellectually. It is about how we view others emotionally, similar to how a person views himself.
What does this mean?
A person knows himself. He knows his weak areas, his aveiros and his improper thoughts. If he would know that his fellow has all these negative qualities, he would distance himself from him and consider him a thoroughly evil person. However, even though he has all these negative qualities himself, he does not see himself as a rasha. He has an excuse for every one of his lackings and an explanation for each one of his sins.
For instance, a person who learns Torah most of the time feels confident that he is a true masmid. Although he speaks idle talk here and there, he doesn’t attribute importance to those moments. But when his masmid friend starts talking for a moment, he immediately strikes him off the “masmid” list.
Or he sees his fellow all wrapped up in tefilah, swaying kind of unusually, and looks at him critically, saying to himself, “O come on, is that how you stand before a king?” He doesn’t remember that yesterday when he had a sick family member, he looked exactly the same when he was praying, and considered it totally fine and correct.
It’s all because “a person is his own relative” and loves himself. His emotions overpower his intellect and explain away every fault he may have. (This phenomenon is actually one of Hashem’s kindnesses, because otherwise a person would constantly be miserable over his true state, and would not be able to live with himself.)
The forgiving eye we have for ourselves is how we should look upon others. We should have love and emotion for them, rather than cold, intellectual judging.
We don’t know what is in the mind of the other person or understand why he behaves the way he does. Let’s say you see that Reuven or Shimon or Yehudah hardly learns Torah, and doesn’t daven properly either. But you don’t know why. Because of your lack of true knowledge in this area, all those things happening in the world are not pertinent to you. It's not your job to judge them. The only thing in the world that is pertinent to you is your own self, because you know yourself. The only person you should be evaluating is you.
