Q&A: A Sin for Its Own Sake
A Sin for Its Own Sake
Question
I read your article on the Torah portion Vayera about a sin for its own sake.
I came away with more difficulties than answers.
In the end I didn’t understand how you resolve these difficulties:
1. What is the difference between saving a life overrides the Sabbath, which is considered a commandment, and a sin for its own sake, which is considered a transgression but permitted?
2. If a sin for its own sake is something positive and perhaps even necessary, why is it still considered a sin?
3. What is the solution to the problem of incommensurability?
Answer
1. Saving a life overrides the Sabbath is a halakhic rule of override. The outcome is the directive of Jewish law itself. A sin for its own sake is an extra-halakhic principle, not a rule. It is a decision made by an ordinary person in a particular situation he finds himself in, not by halakhic decisors who establish a general legal rule. Since Jewish law itself does not determine that it is permitted to commit a sin for its own sake, then from a halakhic standpoint it is still considered a transgression.
2. The term “sin” in this context is only technical. That is, this is an act against Jewish law. But it is indeed a blessed act, and one should do it.
3. I have addressed this in several places. There is a common measure for all values, namely the measure of the good within them; the measure of the good determines the force of the moral value. That creates a hierarchy among them, a scale of values. And even between a halakhic value and a moral value there is a shared measure, namely the measure of fittingness or appropriateness within them.
Discussion on Answer
Probably not. There is also no need to do repentance for the transgression.
Why, really, do we need to arrive at a sin for its own sake? In other words, why didn’t the Sages establish a halakhic rule that “certain extreme situations override prohibitions/commandments,” and then we would turn a sin for its own sake into “X overrides Y,” and the whole concept of a sin for its own sake wouldn’t exist at all, only a halakhic rule like that?
So you’re saying that a value is not really a value because it serves another value, namely the good.
The question was: if values are values, that is, non-instrumental, then we have a problem.
And you come along and dismiss it by saying: values are not values, they are only tools for achieving the good.
That doesn’t answer the question, it just sidesteps it. Doesn’t it?
There is a possible technical explanation: that it is impossible to establish rules in this matter, since it varies according to the circumstances, which are usually unique.
And perhaps the Sages want to leave it as a halakhic transgression, for example because of the spiritual damage it causes, and yet sometimes it still has to be done.
As for your final question, it seems to me that I didn’t understand it. The good is not a value but a scale for measuring values. Just as a centimeter does not serve the meter, but is a measuring unit that measures it. When I ask how good it is to give charity, it is not correct to say that giving charity serves the value of the good. Giving charity is itself good. How good? That measurement is what determines the scale of values.
Will a person be punished for a sin committed for its own sake?