I agree with your concerns about corrupting your rationality via this exercise. Even if it’s instrumentally a benefit. I would require some proof that this is a good thing. I would use this in limited situation where the “lack of like” is probably due to accidental factors that do not really reflect on the the person.
To mention another famous Rabbinical story, a talmudic rabbi had a wife who, ahem, was kind of evil and always did the opposite of request. His son suggested to ask her to cook the said rabbi’s Least Favorite food in order to get what he really wanted. The Rabbi was excited by the idea at first (I guess he hasn’t thought of it??) but then commented that they should not do this because of “limdu lashonam dvar sheker”—“their tongues have learnt to speak falsely”, so lying instrumentally will lead to further corruption, as I understand this.
BTW the original injunction of “Dan lekaf zchus”—“benefit of doubt” in approximate translation—comes from Ethics of the Fathers, and I believe one of the major commenters (R.Yonah IIRC) suggested, essentially, giving heavy weight to the prior: if the person is generally good you should try to explain an apparently bad act, and vice versa! you should explain an apparently good act of a bad person UNfavorably. Pretty sane thought.
BTW the original injunction of “Dan lekaf zchus”—“benefit of doubt” in approximate
translation—comes from Ethics of the Fathers, and I believe one of the major
commenters (R.Yonah IIRC) suggested, essentially, giving heavy weight to the prior: if the person is generally good you should try to explain an apparently bad act, and
vice versa! you should explain an apparently good act of a bad person UNfavorably.
Pretty sane thought.
I’m not sure. One can see how this goes wrong in Talmudic contexts. For example, there are a lot midrashim that explain away apparently good behavior by Esau and Ishmael, and there are a lot of midrashim that explain away or try to justify apparently bad or deceptive behavior by Jacob. Yet, a simple reading of the Biblical text shows that what is actually happening is that these just aren’t 1 dimensional characters. So this general tendency can be actively distorting.
Edit: For others reading, midrashim are a classical Jewish set of stories generally told in an interconnected fashion to fill in apparent gaps in the Biblical stories.
Nice to see a fellow yeshiva bochur here ;)
I agree with your concerns about corrupting your rationality via this exercise. Even if it’s instrumentally a benefit. I would require some proof that this is a good thing. I would use this in limited situation where the “lack of like” is probably due to accidental factors that do not really reflect on the the person.
To mention another famous Rabbinical story, a talmudic rabbi had a wife who, ahem, was kind of evil and always did the opposite of request. His son suggested to ask her to cook the said rabbi’s Least Favorite food in order to get what he really wanted. The Rabbi was excited by the idea at first (I guess he hasn’t thought of it??) but then commented that they should not do this because of “limdu lashonam dvar sheker”—“their tongues have learnt to speak falsely”, so lying instrumentally will lead to further corruption, as I understand this.
BTW the original injunction of “Dan lekaf zchus”—“benefit of doubt” in approximate translation—comes from Ethics of the Fathers, and I believe one of the major commenters (R.Yonah IIRC) suggested, essentially, giving heavy weight to the prior: if the person is generally good you should try to explain an apparently bad act, and vice versa! you should explain an apparently good act of a bad person UNfavorably. Pretty sane thought.
I’m not sure. One can see how this goes wrong in Talmudic contexts. For example, there are a lot midrashim that explain away apparently good behavior by Esau and Ishmael, and there are a lot of midrashim that explain away or try to justify apparently bad or deceptive behavior by Jacob. Yet, a simple reading of the Biblical text shows that what is actually happening is that these just aren’t 1 dimensional characters. So this general tendency can be actively distorting.
Edit: For others reading, midrashim are a classical Jewish set of stories generally told in an interconnected fashion to fill in apparent gaps in the Biblical stories.