LEV160 A most upsetting factor in rendering a just and impartial judgment is the subjectivity of the judge himself. The obtrusive influence of self-interest and personal bias is most difficult to overcome. Scrupulous honesty and penetrating insight are required to detect the presence of such extrinsic motivations. To report a plague in one's own house, the Bible directs a person to say, "Something like a plague has appeared in the house" [this verse]. Learned though he be, where he is involved he cannot render a final decision. Only a cohen, an outside authority, may first pronounce his house unclean. On the other hand, this very element of subjectivity can often be helpful. To view a situation from the perspective of the one involved is to grasp the situation most fully and profoundly. While objectivity can make for impartiality, it can also make for insensitivity to the consequences of a judgment in terms of its human element. Therefore, some interpret the word m'thunim (deliberate) as though it read n'thunim (subject): Consider yourself as if subject to the judgment. Put yourself in the defendant's position. How would you have acted under similar circumstances? How would you judge yourself? Law implies a universally applicable rule, a general criterion which is a constant: a truth which holds good at all times and in all conditions. Yet, the particular area to which we apply the rule is a shifting and variable one. The problem for the judge is precisely this: to determine the crucial element in the situation which fixes its true character as distinguished from the irrelevant factors.