As we approach Rosh Hashana, the great Day of Judgment on the Jewish calendar, many may feel at total loss on what this means for them. Slightly cynical of the whole judgment idea, perhaps. “What will I be judged for, considering that my Jewish practice pales comparison to that of my ancestors?”

In the end, some of us just show up in Shul without any real introspection. After all, we hesitate to imagine the outcome of G-d’s judgment for us.

The laws of Jewish Courts of Justice in this week’s Torah portion shed a little light on our understanding of how G-d judges us, enabling us to look forward to a more meaningful Rosh Hashana.

In Temple times, the Torah’s punishment system was only put in place in Israel. This meant that Jews form the diaspora who would fail in their observance would go to Israel in order to receive their due punishment as a way of atonement.

Nevertheless, Judges would be appointed in every Jewish community even outside Israel, despite their inability to actually administer the punishment. That is because the only people who could judge the Jews of the diaspora were the Judges who lived in their cities. G-d recognised that it would take a fellow Jew from the Diaspora to understand the challenges that may rise when living outside of the Jewish homeland. The Israeli judges would not really understand the difficulties of the diaspora Jews and could therefore not pass judgment on them.

The beautiful lesson that we can learn from this is that every person is judged according to their own situation, upbringing and challenges. We’re not all thrown into the same boat.

So when the High Holidays come around we shouldn’t despair, knowing that G-d judges us according to where we are. We should think, “How could I have done better in the past?” and “what are feasible changes that I can make in the coming year?”

When we do our best, then G-d will shower His blessings upon us and we have a truly sweet year.

Adapted from the wisdom of the Rebbe, LK"S V.2 Parshat Shoftim