Masechet Avot, Perek Aleph, Mishnah Vav. The Mishnah says, “Yehoshua ben Perachya v'Nittai HaArbeli kibelu mehem.” Yehoshua ben Perachya and Nittai HaArbeli received the tradition from Yose ben Yoezer and Yose ben Yochanan. They took over as the next pair to lead the courts of the Jewish people. And they said, “Yehoshua ben Perachya omer, Ase lecha Rav.” Firstly, Yehoshua ben Perachya said, “Make a rabbi for yourself. Make a teacher for yourself.”
Don't be a person who goes around and shops around for different answers or different ideas. But stay consistent with somebody. Make them your rabbi. Understand their Torah, and make sure that you have it set in your mind and that you go to somebody for help. Additionally, be somebody who doesn't make decisions on your own. Whenever it comes to life, whether it comes to Torah, whether it comes to family, whatever you may be going through, have somebody who's a Rav, somebody who is above you, somebody who is superior and has the objective analysis to give proper answers and help you make decisions.
Number two: “K'nei lecha chaver.” Buy, acquire for yourself a friend. We see the importance of a friend. We use the word K'nei—buy for yourself—as opposed to Ase, make for yourself with a rabbi. Here we're saying buy for yourself to show you how important it is to figure out a way to have the right friends. Even if you have to go buy it, figure out a way to have the people around you who are your friends and who care about you. A friend has more influence in a certain sense than a rabbi because a friend really knows you. They know you intimately, and they'll have the ability to give you proper mussar or proper feedback if they notice something different. A rabbi may see you only in synagogue. He may see you in your best moments, so he doesn't have the ability to be overly critical. Additionally, a friend has a tremendous amount of influence on a person. If that person is around a friend who's not a good friend, that evil influence would happen.
And thirdly, judge every person favorably. If you have a person who is a tzaddik (righteous person), of course you have to judge him favorably. A rasha (wicked person), you would not have to judge him favorably. If you know that he's probably doing something wrong, you don't have to give him the benefit of the doubt. But when you have somebody who's in between, you don't know if he's righteous, and you don't know if he's wicked, you should give that person kaf zechut (judge every person favorably). If you see them doing something that may seem like an aveirah (transgression), maybe come up in your own mind with a situation in which they may not be violating the Torah, but they're doing something that's permissible.