The Smallest Bias Can Alter One’s Entire Thinking

 

"לא תקח שוחד" [דברים ט”ז – י”ט]

 “Do not take a bribe” [Devarim 16-19]

 

The Torah says in this possuk a judge is forbidden to take a bribe. The Torah itself explains the reason, “for the bribe will blind the eyes of the wise…” Rashi explains, after the judge receives a bribe it is impossible that the bribe will not sway his heart toward the litigant who gave the bribe.

The Torah here is giving us an example of a blatant bribe. The taking of a bribe makes the judge partial and biased towards this litigant and will render a favorable decision on his behalf.

Chazal add[1] that it is not only a blatant bribe that that can sway a persons thinking, but even a more subtle bribe can do the same. A judge is forbidden to listen to a litigant before the second litigant arrives, since even this will make the judge partial to the first litigants claim, even if the second will refute the first litigant after he arrives. The reason for this, explains the Maharal[2], once the judge hears the first litigants claim, it leaves an indelible impression on his mind which is hard to remove. It is not easy for a person to change his previous thoughts.

Perhaps there is a third step and even a more subtle blinding of the judge, namely when we ourselves are the judges.

We are all judges. We decide what is right for us to do, and what is wrong. Even to the best of us, the מדות of a person can influence him to do wrong things and then he rationalizes his wrong deeds. We have to purify out hearts not to be mislead by our bad Midos and false rationalizations which blind us constantly.

We see from here a powerful מוסר השכל. We must constantly be on guard against the יצר הרע who is relentlessly trying to blind us from seeing the truth.

May Hashem help us to purify our hearts so we can serve Him with truth. "וטהר לבנו לעבדך באמת"  Amen VeAmen!