You’ll recognise this: it’s rush hour, you are sitting in a queue of cars waiting to turn right while cars in the left lane rush past you.
Just before you arrive at the front, a vehicle from the left lane pushes into the gap ahead, skipping the queue to turn right. You’re furious! You’ve waited with all the other drivers, and this car has ignored that and pushed in line. The ‘road-rage-amometer’ starts boiling. You shout, curse and gesture and, even though they ignore you and drive on, you cannot let this go for the rest of your journey.
Welcome to the Torah of the Traffic, Rabbi Greg’s guide to navigating the busy streets and the many Torah principles that can be learned during your commute.
Let’s start with the above scenario. You are angry, and cannot focus on anything else. Neither playing Spotify nor John Maytham interviewing his guest soothes or distracts you, and the grinding of your teeth will cause an ache in your jaw for the rest of the day. What tools does our Jewish toolbox offer in such situations?
Let’s quickly travel back to Jerusalem 2 200 years ago to sit at the feet of one of the earliest rabbinic grand masters, Rabbi Joshua ben Perachya. He said (Mishnah Pirkei Avot 1:6) “Dan et hol ha-adam l’chaf z’chut – Judge everyone with the scale weighted in their favour.” In other words, if you could put all the bad stuff someone does on one side of a scale and, on the other side, all the great things they do, if the scales were exactly even, you should tip the scales in their favour towards the good.
That means that, whenever we consider someone’s behaviour as annoying or destructive, we should start not by condemning them but by wondering why they did that. “Why on earth would this person do this thing that annoys me so much?” And, as we wonder, we might think of many reasons that explain their awful action as understandable or even excusable. As this happens, we see our anger fall away and empathy take its place.
Think about the car that cut into the line: what if they were rushing for a medical emergency? What if they were so late for a meeting that, if they didn’t save some time, they might lose their job? You see where Rabbi Joshua is nudging us?
Travel from Jerusalem to the Ukraine 200 years ago, where Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav in Likuttei Moharan, added a beautiful teaching to Rabbi Joshua’s:
“Know that one must judge every person in a way that inclines toward merit, and even someone who is thoroughly wicked, one must find in such a person some small bit of goodness, a grain of good in which that person is not wicked… Because even if that person is wicked, how is it possible that there is not in that person yet a little good? For how is it possible that this person has never done some mitzvah or some good thing ever?... And likewise, one must find the same within one’s self. For is it really possible that one has never done some mitzvah or good thing ever?... And so, one must search out and gather more and more points of goodness, and in this way, niggunim (melodies) are made. For the origin of melody is in sorting out the good from the ill, and by sorting out and gathering the good points from amid the ill, by means of that, melodies are made.”
What a way to understand dan l’chaf zechut! Instead of screaming at the driver, we seek out the good in them and then the good in ourselves and, in so doing, we create a melody. Better than anything you might have heard before.
Safe journeys!
Temple Israel http://www.templeisrael.co.za
- JULY 2025: Read the June 2025 Digital Edition in your browser as a Flipbook or a PDF.
- SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the Cape Jewish Chronicle for just R450/year (or R38/month debit order) and you will remain connected. Simply email us at subscriptions@ctjc.co.za and click here for payment info.
- ADVERTISE in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website. Contact Lynette on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za.
