Q&A: Sin
Sin
Question
With God’s help,
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask: what is the idea behind the concept of sin or transgression? Suppose a person defied God’s command—what exactly does that mean? Does it mean that God is angry at him (justifiably)? Or is it something more metaphysical, as if his soul became stained and acquired a blemish? Or perhaps something in our spiritual intuition has been damaged?
I can still understand the concept of repentance, in the sense of returning to God. But why do sins need atonement? And why do the Sages say that sometimes sins are atoned for through other people—for example, the death of the righteous? Or that suffering brings atonement?
What exactly is going on here? What’s the framework? This is a topic that isn’t very clear to me. If you’ve ever written an article about it, I’d be happy to read it.
Answer
First of all, it is the very act of violating the command. You’re asking what the consequences are. If the commandments have some rationale, then not observing them undermines that rationale. If the rationale is some kind of spiritual benefit, for the person or for the world, then harming the commandment leads to the absence of that benefit or to spiritual damage. What exactly is the nature of that damage or blemish? I don’t know. I don’t think there’s much point in dealing with this or writing an article about it. How could one even know anything about it?!
Discussion on Answer
Sources from Jewish thought literature aren’t really interesting from my point of view. They can know about this about as much as I do. Even the Hebrew Bible is a problematic source. The prophets may indeed know about it, but the interpretation of their words is so flexible and inconclusive that you can read almost anything into them. I don’t think I ever wrote about these matters, if only because I can’t figure out what there is to write about them.
As for everything that follows, it’s really not clear to me what connection it has to the discussion. But since you asked, I’ll answer:
A. You’re mixing up the question with the answer. In the question, I show that what a person calls an “evil inclination” is his true desire. And the answer is that this is not correct. Sometimes a person chooses not to choose, and then he gets dragged into doing things that are not his will.
B. I did not hold that values cannot be changed. Again, you’re mixing up the question with the answer.
C. And therefore?
In short, as far as I’m concerned, this message is in Chinese.
I don’t know—this itself is my question: what is the nature of the damage or blemish? But there are various sources, from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) to contemporary Jewish thought literature. You once wrote a lot about these things. But they were a bit more advanced relative to the question I’m asking. They dealt more with repentance, etc. For example, in your nice article, “On Repentance: Between Technique and Essence.”
In my opinion, by the way, you contradicted yourself on the issue of free choice relative to your current view:
A. On the problem of weakness of will, nowadays, as far as I remember, you hold the approach that choosing not to choose is a solution. But there you called it: “What he calls the ‘evil inclination’ is apparently his true desire.”
B. You held that values cannot be changed, but as far as I know today you do support that—for example, that a person is “locked in.” Maybe there is a distinction between a value external to us and an internal value, like whether to choose. But perhaps his evil inclination clouds his inner axioms.
And also a bit regarding panentheism—you used expressions that today I think you wouldn’t write:
C. “The only way to describe such a process is to give up the assumption that the Holy One, blessed be He, and we are two sharply separate entities.”