On this last Shabbat of the year — a Shabbat of reflection and accounting — our Sages teach us a fundamental spiritual law: the pain we cause others ultimately returns to us.
Judaism does not use the term karma, but the Talmud speaks of Middah K’neged Middah, measure for measure: “With the measure a person measures, so it is measured to him.” When Hillel saw a skull floating on the water he said, “Because you drowned others, you were drowned.”
It is not arbitrary punishment, but a natural consequence. Like fire that burns the hand placed within it, wounding another wounds our own soul, for every human is created in the Divine Image. This is why our Sages say it is better to throw oneself into a fiery furnace than to publicly shame another, and why Yom Kippur cannot atone for sins between man and man until we humbly seek forgiveness and repair the hurt.
May the new year bring us the wisdom and sensitivity to never hurt or humiliate another, to guard our tongue, uplift one another, and merit a year of compassion, dignity, and peace.