Seeing the World Through a Clearer Lens

Over thirty years ago, a tragic event shook a quiet community. A young yeshiva student was murdered by an Arab woman late at night in a public park. As soon as the story reached the media, many commentators rushed to “analyze” the situation. They asked why an “ultra-Orthodox young man” would be in a park at that hour, and they offered every kind of cynical guess.

The simple truth that he was looking for a quiet place to review a page of Gemara (Talmud) somehow didn’t come up. Why didn’t it occur to these professional journalists? Why were their minds drawn to the worst possibilities rather than the obvious, innocent one?

Today, in the age of social media and independent news sites, anyone can report on events. On the one hand, this gives people more access to facts. But it also gives more space to personal opinions disguised as “expert analysis.” And many of us aren’t always careful to check if what we’re reading is truth or just someone’s personal filter.

Journalism is supposed to be objective. But let’s be honest: it often isn’t. Why do people so quickly assume the worst? Why do they sometimes miss the simplest explanation in favor of the most negative one?

The answer isn’t new. Thousands of years ago, Chazal, our Talmudic Sages, explained this phenomenon with deep insight: “A person sees all blemishes except his own.”

In other words, we tend to spot flaws in others while being blind to those same faults in ourselves. We believe we’re “normal,” and it’s everyone else who needs fixing.

The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement, took this idea even deeper. He taught that when we notice a fault in someone else, it’s often because that very same fault exists inside us even if we don’t realize it.

Modern psychology would call this “projection,” but our Torah already taught it long ago.

So what happens? A person who lies easily believes others lie. A thief assumes others are stealing. Someone with impure thoughts imagines everyone else is thinking the same way.

And on the flip side, someone who is truly honest may be too trusting. It’s hard for an honest person to believe that someone could be so deceptive. He doesn’t carry that trait within himself, so he has no way to recognize it in others. That’s why good people can sometimes be fooled.

This brings us back to the journalists. They couldn’t imagine that a yeshiva student would sit in a park late at night simply to learn Torah. Because they themselves would never do something like that.

Where they saw something suspicious, the young man had seen something beautiful, a peaceful place to connect to Torah, to Hashem, and to his own inner world.

So what do we do in a world that often sees only darkness?

The answer is in the Torah. We must work to purify our thoughts, to strive for holiness and truth. As we elevate ourselves, we begin to see others and the world around us with cleaner, clearer eyes.

Because when someone tells you their interpretation of a story, they’re not just revealing the story, they’re revealing themselves.

“Tell me your interpretation,” the rabbis say, “and I’ll tell you who you are.”