Judge every person favorably: Pirkei Avot 1:6 explained
By the My Daily Torah team · Updated
In short
"Judge every person favorably" comes from Pirkei Avot 1:6. Pirkei Avot is part of the Mishnah, the first written collection of Jewish oral teachings, compiled around 200 CE. The Hebrew, dan l'kaf zechut, literally means "judge toward the scale of merit." When something a person did could look bad or innocent, you tip the scale toward the innocent reading.
Where does "judge every person favorably" come from?
״והוי דן את כל האדם לכף זכות״
“Judge every person on the side of merit.”
It's one line in Pirkei Avot ("Ethics of the Fathers"), a short collection of life advice from the ancient sages. It's in the first chapter, and the words are at least 1,800 years old.
One of the early sages gives three pieces of advice in one breath: get yourself a teacher, get yourself a friend, and judge every person favorably.
Look at the order. First comes the person you learn from, then the person you're close to, then everyone else: the coworker, the stranger, the driver who just cut you off.
What does "dan l'kaf zechut" actually mean?
Dan means judge. Kaf is the pan of a scale, the old kind with two plates hanging from a beam. Zechut means merit, or innocence. Put together, it means judge toward the side of merit.
Picture what someone did sitting on that scale. You don't pretend it isn't there. When the evidence could go either way, you give it a nudge toward the good reading.
The words kol ha'adam usually get translated "every person." They can also be read as "the whole person," which means looking at more than the one moment you happened to catch.
The idea has roots in the Torah, the Five Books of Moses. Leviticus 19:15, in a list of rules about fairness, says "judge your fellow with righteousness," and people often connect that line to this one.
The Talmud story that shows how it works
״ואתה, כשם שדנתני לזכות, המקום ידין אותך לזכות״
“And you, just as you judged me favorably, may God judge you favorably.”
The Talmud is the huge ancient record of Jewish debates and stories. It sums up the rule in one line: whoever judges others favorably is judged favorably by God. Then it tells a story.
A man from the Upper Galilee worked three years for an employer in the south. The day before Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, he asked for his wages so he could go home and feed his wife and kids.
The employer said he had no money. He had no produce either, no land, no animals, not even pillows and blankets. The worker slung his things over his shoulder and went home crushed.
After the holiday, the employer showed up at his door with the full wages and three donkeys loaded with food, drink and sweets. After they ate, he asked what the worker had thought of him when he kept saying no.
The worker had an innocent explanation for every no. Maybe you found a bargain and spent the cash on it. Maybe the animals were rented out, the land was leased, the produce hadn't been tithed yet (the required portion still hadn't been set aside). Maybe you'd given everything you owned to God.
That last guess was the truth. The employer had vowed away all his property because he was upset with his son, and the vow was only undone later. Then he said the line above.
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Is this the same as "don't judge"?
״ואל תדין את חברך עד שתגיע למקומו״
“Don't judge another person until you've stood in their place.”
Not quite. Lots of people look for Bible verses about not judging others, but this line doesn't tell you to stop judging. It tells you how to judge.
Leviticus asks you to judge with righteousness, not to switch your brain off. The worker in the story wasn't naive. He just kept the innocent explanations on the table while the guilty one was right in front of him.
Pirkei Avot does have something closer to "don't judge," in chapter 2: don't judge someone until you've stood in their place. Since you never fully stand in anyone else's place, that's a high bar.
The Talmud's examples are all moments that could honestly go either way. That's where the scale gets the nudge.
What judging favorably looks like in real life
Your friend leaves you on read for two days. Plenty could explain it: a brutal week, a dead phone, a text opened while crossing the street and then forgotten. Feeling hurt is one reading. It isn't the only one.
A coworker is short with you in a meeting. Your mom calls during work for the third time. Your brain writes a story about each one in half a second, and it's usually the unflattering one.
Judging favorably just means writing a second story before you commit to the first. The worker in the Talmud had five ready. Most of us have zero before we start typing the angry reply.
Sometimes the second story turns out to be true. You find out your friend's grandmother was in the hospital, and you're very glad you never hit send.
Questions people ask
What does the Torah say about judging others?
In Leviticus 19:15, the Torah says to judge your fellow with righteousness, and not to tilt a case because someone is poor or powerful. Later Jewish teaching in Pirkei Avot 1:6 adds a warmer layer: judge every person favorably. When what someone did could be read either way, you give them the benefit of the doubt.
Where in Pirkei Avot is "judge favorably"?
It's in Pirkei Avot 1:6. It's the last part of a three-part saying: get yourself a teacher, get yourself a friend, and judge every person favorably. Pirkei Avot is part of the Mishnah, which was compiled around 200 CE.
Are there Bible verses about not judging others?
The Hebrew Bible doesn't say "don't judge." Leviticus 19:15 says to judge fairly. The closest Jewish line is Pirkei Avot 2:4: don't judge someone until you've stood in their place. The famous "judge not" line comes from the New Testament, not the Jewish Bible.
What does it mean to judge others righteously?
In Leviticus 19:15 it means fairness: no special treatment for the rich, no special treatment for the poor, just the facts. Jewish tradition adds dan l'kaf zechut: when the facts are unclear, lean toward the reading that makes the other person look good.
Sources
Every Hebrew line on this page is copied word for word from the source and checked against Sefaria, the free online library of Jewish texts. The English is our own translation.