Are people good or bad?

[00:00:00] In many views, when we talk about people, they say, there's a good person, there's a bad person. [00:00:11] So kind of people fall into two categories, good and evil. People become like this binary system, 0 or 1, and you have to make choices whether this is a good person, this is a bad person, or you tell your children, make sure to be a good person and make sure not to be a bad person. [00:00:31] That's how it's viewed. On the other hand, when you look at person's specific actions, very often in these very cultures, you said, well, you know, when person does something, even if person does something not good, you have to understand why he did it. Maybe it is not so bad. Maybe he had a good motivation, or maybe what he did was not actually bad at all. And when somebody did something good, well, you have to see maybe he did a good thing out of very selfish motivation. So maybe it's actually not so good. So in other words, there are some views and some cultures that perceive people in a binary system either good or bad, but actions kind of in a sliding scale system where sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad. And it's very convoluted and it's very hard to figure out which, which one is good, which one is bad. [00:01:27] The Torah is offering a completely reverse view. [00:01:31] Our actions are either good or bad. Our actions are measured by binary system and it's measured primary by the outcome. There is a philosophical approach called behaviorism, where they believe that whatever people do is the main thing and what their motivation is is only secondary and not so important. So I guess Tor in this respect can fall into this category, which means that we measure people's actions by the actual deed, not so much by what is going through their head, what's their motivation, and whatever it is. [00:02:09] So actions are either good or bad. [00:02:12] People cannot be neither good or bad because people are a potential. And the same person can be doing something very good one moment and something very bad the next. [00:02:26] It was a long, long time ago, I lived in New York. And there is a front page New York Post story that there was a burning house in Bedrus Ivesen, which now actually is up and coming area, but back then was a really, really bad area. [00:02:45] So there is a fire in Bedford Stuverton somewhere and on the second floor of the house there's a lady with a baby and they're screaming for help. And that's middle of the night and nobody's around and there's a fire in the house and there's a construction van With a ladder that's driving by. And he sees the fire, and he sees this lady from the second floor. [00:03:11] And he stops, he takes his ladder, he puts it against this wall and takes down with this little girl. And the lady puts them on the floor, on the ground and drives off. [00:03:25] The whole city is looking for the hero who saved these two people. The whole city is talking about it. He's so selfless. He risked his life because he could have died in this fire over there. And he ran off, took off as soon as he brought them to safety. He's obviously so humble. We want to find him. We want to re. [00:03:44] They found him and they realized why he took off so fast. He was driving off from a robbery over the electronic store Beat street, which was down the road. And he used this very ladder just half an hour before to climb into the vent of the store to steal all the equipment. And his van was full of stolen goods. [00:04:07] So now my question is, is he a good person or he's a bad person? [00:04:12] So he saved two human lives, but in the hour before he robbed the store. [00:04:19] So which one is it, good or evil? So the answer is, people cannot be measured by good or evil. There's no such a thing. [00:04:27] Actions could and should be measured by good and evil. That's, by the way, very important for me. I talk to people all the time, and I tell people all the time, I'm never judging you. I'm judging your actions. Yes, your specific actions could and should be judged. You as a person should not be judged. And I tell the same thing with my kids. [00:04:51] I'm never judging you. I'm judging your actions. That's a very helpful and very healthy approach to the world.