The Prerequisite for Criticism
Now we understand why the Torah allows no one but the Kohen to diagnose another human being as suffering from an illness that renders them severely impure and requires them to separate from the community. The Torah is imparting to us a critical lesson: Before you diagnose another person as being spiritually ill and deserving of temporary isolation, you must make sure that your heart is filled with love toward this person. For it is only then that we are certain that your diagnosis is not coming from your own bias or lack of refinement but is objectively true and thus productive and beneficial. And it is only then that you will no doubt search for every possible way to rehabilitate this wounded soul.
As parents, educators, spouses, employers, and colleagues, we often need to rebuke, denounce, criticize, and sometimes penalize. Yet all too often, these are done more as an outlet for our own anger and frustration rather than as a tool to help these people become the best they can be. We may call it discipline and justice, but if it is not based on kindness and the desire to help the other person, it may end up being more destructive than constructive.
Principals and teachers, at times, feel the need to expel a student from the institution, just as, during Biblical times, the leper was dismissed from the community. The Torah comes and declares: If you are not a Kohen, you are forbidden to issue forth such a verdict! If you do not genuinely care for this youngster, you have no right to expel them! If you will not lose sleep over the fact that you had no choice but to dismiss a student, then it might be you who should be dismissed from your position.
It is easy to define sombody as "impure" if you do not understand their pain, but it is unethical. Before you punish, you must first learn how to be a Kohen, how to really care about others. When criticism, punishment, and even dismissal are motivated by concern for the person rather than your own rage or incompetence, it will have a totally different effect on the person you are punishing. Your criticism will build, rather than destroy, this person's character. What is equally important is that you do not cease to labor to reverse the situation so that the individual returns to their potential glory.
So next time, before you criticize your spouse, stop and ask yourself if you are doing it as a "Kohen," out of concern and care for them, or because of your stress or anger. If the latter is the case, you ought to remain silent until you can transcend your self-absorption and enter into the world of another human being.
RABBI YY JACOBSON
