CHASSIDIC PEARLS BY RABBI LAZER BRODY PARSHAS KI TEITZEI
"You shall not have in your pocket a weight and a weight" (Devarim 25:13).
Before the age of the digital and mechanical scales, people conducted their business with balance scales, where an exact predetermined weight was placed on one side, and the goods were placed on the other side. So, when a storeowner put a one-pound weight on one side of the scale, and six tomatoes on the other side of scale, if the sides of the scale stood perfectly balanced, then the owner and the customer both knew that they were conducting a transaction over one pound of tomatoes.
Dishonest merchants used to walk around with two sets of weights in their pockets. For selling, they'd use a deficient weight; for example, their one-pound weight might have weighed only fifteen ounces instead of the prescribed sixteen. The average customer wouldn't discern the deficient ounce and would be cheated by six percent, paying for sixteen ounces, but receiving only fifteen.
On the other hand, for buying, the dishonest merchant would have a one-pound weight that weighed seventeen ounces. When he'd buy tomatoes from a local gardener, he'd pay for sixteen ounces, or one pound, but by using a false weighing stone, he'd get seventeen ounces of tomatoes thereby cheating the gardener out of an ounce. Such dishonesty is not only a blatant violation of Torah law punishable by lashes, but it is also called an abomination.
Two sets of stones not only refer to cheating in commerce, but symbolize a double standard between the way we judge ourselves and the way we judge others. Naturally, human beings are subjective – lenient with themselves but stringent with others. We have fifty four reasons why we neglected to return another person's greeting – we were preoccupied with pressing matters, we were guarding our eyes, we were reviewing the day's learning in our mind – the list goes on and on. Yet, if someone else fails to return our greeting, we're devastated. We accuse the other person of arrogance, of snobbery, and are ready to throw the book at him or her.
The double standard is downright dangerous. Notice that the subject of two weights – the overweight and the underweight – appear in Parshat Ki Tetzei which always comes out in the middle of Elul when we're preparing for Rosh Hashanah. Rebbe Nachman of Breslev writes (Likutei Moharan II: 1.14), "When a person speaks about another person, it resembles Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Judgment. Therefore, one must look carefully at himself if he has the right to judge the other person." Rebbe Nachman explains that no one has Hashem's measure of mercy, and therefore no one can judge his fellow man as mercifully as Hashem. What's worse is that when we judge others stringently, according to our non-merciful standards, we forfeit – heaven forbid – Hashem's loving mercy, for a person is judged the same way as he or she judges others.
Either we should judge others with at least the same leniency that we judge ourselves, or refrain from judging them altogether. Sometimes, even learned people fall into the trap of judging others on a different standard as they'd judge themselves,
"You shall not have in your pocket a weight and a weight" (Devarim 25:13).
Before the age of the digital and mechanical scales, people conducted their business with balance scales, where an exact predetermined weight was placed on one side, and the goods were placed on the other side. So, when a storeowner put a one-pound weight on one side of the scale, and six tomatoes on the other side of scale, if the sides of the scale stood perfectly balanced, then the owner and the customer both knew that they were conducting a transaction over one pound of tomatoes.
Dishonest merchants used to walk around with two sets of weights in their pockets. For selling, they'd use a deficient weight; for example, their one-pound weight might have weighed only fifteen ounces instead of the prescribed sixteen. The average customer wouldn't discern the deficient ounce and would be cheated by six percent, paying for sixteen ounces, but receiving only fifteen.
On the other hand, for buying, the dishonest merchant would have a one-pound weight that weighed seventeen ounces. When he'd buy tomatoes from a local gardener, he'd pay for sixteen ounces, or one pound, but by using a false weighing stone, he'd get seventeen ounces of tomatoes thereby cheating the gardener out of an ounce. Such dishonesty is not only a blatant violation of Torah law punishable by lashes, but it is also called an abomination.
Two sets of stones not only refer to cheating in commerce, but symbolize a double standard between the way we judge ourselves and the way we judge others. Naturally, human beings are subjective – lenient with themselves but stringent with others. We have fifty four reasons why we neglected to return another person's greeting – we were preoccupied with pressing matters, we were guarding our eyes, we were reviewing the day's learning in our mind – the list goes on and on. Yet, if someone else fails to return our greeting, we're devastated. We accuse the other person of arrogance, of snobbery, and are ready to throw the book at him or her.
The double standard is downright dangerous. Notice that the subject of two weights – the overweight and the underweight – appear in Parshat Ki Tetzei which always comes out in the middle of Elul when we're preparing for Rosh Hashanah. Rebbe Nachman of Breslev writes (Likutei Moharan II: 1.14), "When a person speaks about another person, it resembles Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Judgment. Therefore, one must look carefully at himself if he has the right to judge the other person." Rebbe Nachman explains that no one has Hashem's measure of mercy, and therefore no one can judge his fellow man as mercifully as Hashem. What's worse is that when we judge others stringently, according to our non-merciful standards, we forfeit – heaven forbid – Hashem's loving mercy, for a person is judged the same way as he or she judges others.
Either we should judge others with at least the same leniency that we judge ourselves, or refrain from judging them altogether. Sometimes, even learned people fall into the trap of judging others on a different standard as they'd judge themselves,
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