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Weakness of will

שו”תCategory: philosophyWeakness of will
asked 5 years ago

Regarding the problem related to weakness of will.
I’ll repeat it just to make sure we’re talking about the same thing.
You are essentially claiming that when a person sins, he wants to sin, since if it is a matter of surrendering to the instinct, he is forced and does not need repentance. And if it is not forced, the desire to sin outweighs all other desires. In addition, you add, if at the moment of repentance the person wants to change, then this means that he has already changed, and if so, this is a process that seems unnecessary.
I don’t think there is a problem here, and this is for two reasons:
1) First, we can say that the very process of repentance is intended to look at our past and examine where our desires stand and even decide. Let’s put it this way, if the process of repentance did not exist, we would not even try to examine where we stand and it is likely that we would not have changed without the repentance.
2) Inevitably, regardless of the necessity of the process, a person looks at his past and sees a collection of facts. He sees that in all sorts of situations he sinned, that is, his will did not overcome his instinct, or in your terms his hidden desire was to sin. Now, right now, he wants differently. Does this mean that he has changed and does not need the process of repentance? Absolutely not. Where does the confidence come from that he will not sin again? The fact that he wants within his inner mind does not in any way guarantee that he will not sin again. As they say at the end of the High Holy Days prayer, “I should have said again that I would not do it, if only because I had turned away from the evil inclination.” The fulfillment of the repentance process is not meaningless, but rather it is intended to strengthen the desires so that they will overcome the desires the next time. The truth is that during the Temple, when the process was much more external, it is understood that its purpose was to change the desires.
You are right that today the process is much more internal (but there is still the confession). We need to define what this process contributes to, rather than sitting in an armchair and thinking backwards. It is still a different question of defining the process, but in principle the purpose of the process seems quite clear.

I would love to hear if you still claim in light of this that the above problem exists.


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מיכי Staff answered 5 years ago
The Mishnah did not move from its place. I did not understand what you added in these claims. You briefly described my position, and the description is quite accurate. And then you do not answer or address my claims. Therefore, I do not know what I should answer here.

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י' replied 5 years ago

I feel like I addressed your claims.
I argue that one of the assumptions of your structure is simply wrong.
You argue that when a repentant person seeks to change his desire that caused the sin, then he has actually already changed, and the repentance process is unnecessary anyway. I argue that this assumption is wrong because “asking to change” or even “repenting” does not mean that he has changed at all, in order to know if he has changed he needs to undergo the same experience.
In any case, if this assumption is wrong, it undermines the entire structure you tried to establish, since repentance is not unnecessary, its purpose is to change the desire/value that caused the sin.

מיכי Staff replied 5 years ago

I don't understand the argument. If he wants to change from a system of beliefs and desires X to a system of beliefs Y, that means he already believes in system Y. So he has already changed.

י' replied 5 years ago

That's not it. The fact that he wants doesn't mean that in practice he has adopted the Y system, he can want doesn't mean that in practice this is the truth, the truth will only be known at the time of action and it could be that the answer is intended to prepare/symbolize the time of action.
Or simply put, the fact that I want to be virtuous doesn't mean that I will be virtuous.

מיכי Staff replied 5 years ago

Your comparison is misplaced. To have virtue does not mean to believe in something (intellectually) but to instill something in the soul. That is a completely different situation. If I want to adopt a certain value system, then I already believe in it. My argument was that every action is based on faith, and therefore there is a connection between these two levels. A solution to the problem should present a mechanism that disconnects them.

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