The Nature of Unintentional Transgression and Causing a Secular Jew to Sin

Rabbi’s opening post

The Nature of Unintentional Transgression and Causing a Secular Jew to Sin

Posted on 7/3/2006

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The Nature of Unintentional Transgression and Causing a Secular Jew to Sin

The question of causing a secular Jew to commit a transgression has already come up several times. My sense is that this has no significance at all, and this can be justified from several angles. The first is the following idea: as is well known, one who sins unintentionally is obligated to bring an offering for his inadvertent sin. The accepted view is that an act of transgression committed unintentionally is itself a transgression, since there is something problematic about the lack of knowledge (and the medieval authorities already wrote this, such as Nahmanides in his commentary on the Torah, among others). The question is: what is the relation between the act of transgression and the lack of knowledge? As stated, according to the accepted view, an act of transgression committed unintentionally is also a transgression, and its negligence stems from the lack of knowledge. That is, the lack of knowledge is a condition for liability for the act, but the liability is for the inadvertent desecration of the Sabbath itself. But one can also think of a different understanding: the transgression is the lack of knowledge itself, and performing the transgressive act is only a condition for becoming liable for that lack of knowledge. For example, one is not punished for an attempted transgression (he intended to eat pork but what he ended up with was lamb), even though the intention was malicious and wicked, and only sheer bad luck prevented him from carrying out his design. In other words, an actual transgressive result is required in order for punishment to apply.

And it seems to me that evidence can be brought for the second side, even though it runs against the accepted view. Offerings for inadvertent sin are brought according to the number of lapses of awareness. If several transgressions were committed during one lapse of awareness, only one offering is brought. If several different transgressions are committed during one lapse of awareness, that is considered several lapses of awareness, since there is separate ignorance regarding each sin individually. For example, as a matter of law, a person raised without knowledge of Judaism is considered an inadvertent sinner, and he is obligated to bring an offering for every type of transgression in the Torah for which deliberate violation incurs excision. The assumption is that he has probably committed each sin that would require a sin-offering at least once. If he commits that same transgression again, the number of sin-offerings does not change, since this is the same lack of knowledge (= the same lapse of awareness). If so, it is proven from here that the offering is brought for the lapses of awareness and not for the acts. The acts are a condition for liability for the lapse of awareness, and therefore what determines the matter is the number of lapses of awareness, not the number of transgressive acts.

If our argument is sound, then causing a person raised without knowledge of Judaism to commit one additional transgressive act has no significance. After all, he is already obligated to bring an offering for the lack of knowledge from beforehand, and the assumption is that he committed the transgression under discussion at least once even without my causing him to do so (for the Talmud’s assumption, and that of the decisors, is that such a person has violated all the transgressions that incur a sin-offering), and therefore the addition of one more act has no significance as a sin. I emphasize that according to the prevalent approach, in which an inadvertent transgressive act itself is the liability-generating transgression and the lapse of awareness is only a condition, it is clear that causing a transgression does add a sin. On that too I can make various arguments, but for the moment I do not want to mix the discussions. My claim is that if the second approach is correct, then there is no significance to causing a person raised without knowledge of Judaism to commit a transgression.

In summary, I would be glad to hear your esteemed opinion on three points: 1. Is the proof and the conclusion correct that liability for a sin-offering is for the lapse of awareness and not for the act? 2. Can one infer from this that the transgression is the lack of knowledge and not the act itself (which is only a condition for liability), or perhaps the conclusion of point 1 concerns only the structure of the offering obligation and not the definition of the transgression. 3. Is the conclusion from the above really correct, namely that there is no problem in causing a person raised without knowledge of Judaism to commit inadvertent transgressive acts?

It should be added that causing a person to commit a transgression, even if from his own standpoint it is not a transgression, can still be problematic. For example, one who clothes another person in a garment of wool and linen: if the wearer is unaware, the one who dressed him is lashed for the prohibition of mixed fabrics (see Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Forbidden Mixtures, end of chapter 10). For now, however, I would be glad if we set that problem aside. I want to discuss the question whether such a person commits a transgression or not. If one wants a practical difference, it would be the duty to keep him from a prohibited act in a case where one is not causing the transgression.

Source (the “Stop Here, Think” forum): http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=1832431&forum_id=1364