Taste of Torah with Rabbi Susan Leider 8.5.11

As Moses opens his discourse in the book of Deuteronomy, we hear a lot of complaining. The word 'burden' occurs twice within four verses. Moses says "I cannot bear the burden of you by myself. . . How can I bear unaided the trouble of you, and the burden. . .?"
Ibn Ezra tells us that this burden was that B'nei Yisrael asked for things all the time -- bread, water, meat and that the burden for the entire people was on him. But RASHI gives a different description of this burden that Moses felt -- it was a burden of pre-judgment and misjudgment. RASHI says:
If Moses went forth early from his tent, they said, "Why does the son of Amram leave so early? Perhaps he is not comfortable in his own home?' If he left late, they said, "What do you think? He is sitting and devising evil schemes against you, and is plotting against you."
Moses couldn't win for losing. No matter how he lived his life and did his work, B'nei Yisrael always thought the worst of him.
While the burden that Ibn Ezra describes is bad, I think the burden the RASHI describes is worse. It is a burden that transcends meeting the physical needs of the people. It is a burden that lives on in the psyche of the people he was trying so desperately to serve well.
How many times have we placed an undue psychological burden on others by unfairly judging them? Do we put others in a position of not being able to win for losing?
Pirkei Avot tells us, דן כף זכות לכל אדם -- give the benefit of the doubt to every person. One of the worse things we can burden each other with is the burden of constant and unfair judgment.
This week, let the burden go. The burden of judging others is better left to someone else - you don't need to carry it.
Shabbat Shalom.

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