Admit Your Mistake and Cut Your Losses

It had all the markings of Greek tragedy. The degrading spectacle of a highly successful lawyer, politician and NSW Supreme Court judge stripped bare in front of the entire country.

By the time the cross-examination was completed, it became obvious that His Honour was in very deep hot water. He was able to converse with a neighbour and hospital staff, yet he couldn't remember going to his office... until a security check of the building revealed that he had entered. When he finally recalled entering his office, he couldn't remember taking anything with him... until a security camera showed a picture of him holding a bag. There really seemed to be a very strong possibility of the judge being not only indicted for drink-driving, but far more seriously, for conspiring to obstruct the course of justice.

What moral lessons can we as Jews learn from this unfortunate chain of events?

1. Had the honourable gentleman learnt a basic Jewish tenet, he would have saved himself a lot of indignity: Far worse than sin, is the lack of acknowledgement of sin. To sin is human, and unfortunately for most of us, to be expected. Not acknowledging sin, and not repenting sin - that is the real crime.
   
   Indeed we learn the vital importance of acknowledging sin from our ancestor - Judah. (Jews are called Jews because most of us derive from the tribe of Judah). When confronted with damning evidence of a major indiscretion on his part - he immediately confessed his sin, although he could have probably got away with it.
   
   Indeed this is one of the reasons that he is called Judah. Judah is derived from the word meaning "acknowledgement". As a reward for his confession and honesty, Judah was rewarded with being the Patriarch of the Jewish Monarchy. All Jewish kings, including Moshiach, trace their ancestry to Judah.
   
   
2. And isn't it strange that a person who, in his capacity of judge, must have heard every unlikely story in the book, should have himself resorted to giving a highly unlikely and hardly believable account of what occurred? But this too has been predicted by our sages who explain that when a person is a party to a matter, his eyes are blinded, and he is no longer able to see things clearly and objectively. This is why not even Moses and Aron, our nations greatest prophets, are permitted to give testimony regarding each other.
   
   
3. And a final lesson: When Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, saying "I am Joseph", his brothers went into a state of total shock. One can just imagine what went through their minds. Suddenly all those years of deceit came crashing down. In a moment they were confronted with a Truth that they had attempted to hide even from themselves.
   
   The Talmud says that whenever Rabbi Elazar read this story he burst out crying. He said, "If this is the rebuke of a human being, can you even imagine what it will be like on our Day of Judgement, when we stand before G-d"?
   
   All the years of self-delusion, of pretense, of making paltry excuses will be exposed.
   
   If this is hard to comprehend, just imagine how His Honour must have felt when they played the videotape showing him entering the Supreme Court holding a bag...
   

Let's not kid ourselves. Most of us are in the position of the Supreme Court judge in at least some aspects of our lives. There aren't too many of us who won't be embarrassed on our Day of Judgement. After all, Rabbi Elazar was a great and holy man, and he still cried!

To save ourselves the further embarrassment of being accused of hypocrisy, we would be well advised to avoid judging others in those situations where our opinions would be better kept to ourselves.