This week I have been dealing with three (!) separate, unrelated matters – all of which point to injustice. Coincidence? Never. It is forcing me to think about justice in this world.
In all of the cases, there is one party who is honest and trying to do the right thing, and another party who is dishonest and fully motivated by self-interest. In all of the cases, a compromise will be reached, despite the fact that the compromise rewards the party with self-interest, and seemingly removes the label of “justice” from the outcome.
At first, this really bothered me. Why should one party, who is causing trouble just to extract some benefit which is self-serving and which is harmful to the other party, come out with anything? Why can’t the true nature of these people be revealed? Why are the instigator and the victim put into the same box when analyzing potential outcomes?
This reminds me very strongly of the cases of agunot, and many stories of domestic abuse. I know too many people who have suffered or are suffering at the hands of abusive spouses, and the system rewards the abusive spouse for this behavior by promoting “shalom bayit” or compromise. Is that just? Is it fair?
The whole discussion revolves around the issue of truth. When truth is hidden, injustice occurs.
I once saw a movie on an airplane called “The Invention of Lying.” The premise of the movie was that the world was one of uncompromising truth. Everyone always told the truth, and people were not aware that there was any alternative to that. That was life, until one guy discovered by accident that if he lied, he could fully take advantage of the truth-based society that he lived in, and could become rich, powerful and loved. It was a disturbing movie for me, because it made me hyper aware of the fact that our society is unfortunately very far from a truth-based one. It also was a stark reminder that there are people in the world who actually do this regularly on a personal level. They take advantage of innately truthful people, who have a hard time understanding that not everything should be taken at face value.
So where is the justice?
I have come to realize that although we must fight for justice, there is a limit. Sometimes compromises are made in order to be able to live in this world, and not be consumed with the matter at hand. Sometimes truth is compromised for the sake of peace. And sometimes, mistakes are made and the instigator is rewarded because of poor judgement.
If we have done our part, to the best of our abilities, we cannot be upset by these outcomes. Why? Because ultimately we do not know how the system of justice works. We don’t have the perspective of time or of G-d’s plans to know why a certain outcome has come about.
We are not supposed to seek revenge, and we are not supposed to hate. So when put into these challenging situations, the focus needs to be inward. How can I improve? What positive steps can I take in my life? We must rely fully and completely on Hashem – that He will reveal the truth when the time is right. Maybe not in our lifetimes, and that’s OK. Maybe not in this world, and that’s OK too. But ultimately, we need to turn our thoughts away from “the other person harmed me or is trying to harm me and therefore he or she should get just punishment” to “the other person does not concern me at all. It is not in my hands and it is irrelevant to my life. I just need to live the way I need to live, with constant חשבון נפש and forward movement.”
Perhaps it is to get us to this higher level of thinking that these injustices come into our lives at all.