A final approach held by some is that aveirah l-shmah is a concept that is only to be used ex post facto—once a deed has already been done. According to this view aveirah l-shmah is never to be invoked as a positive norm dictating one to perform a sinful action. Rather, aveirah l-shmah is a principle that in retrospect, once an action has been done, adds Halakhic legitimacy to what occurred.
One’s conceptual approach to aveirah l-shmah will bear upon their reading and translation of the term “l-shmah.” Those that approach this concept as a legal principle, like the first approach, would favor reading the term aveirah l-shmah as “a sin done for the sake of a commandment.” The ambiguous term l-shmah refers to another commandment that justifies transgressing a sin. Here an aveirah l-shmah is almost a two-step process—the initial sin and the later commandment the sin enables. Conversely, if aveirah l-shmah is really a conceptual affirmation of the power of intention—that even a sin with the proper intention can be holy—then it would make more sense to read the term aveirah l-shmah as a sin for the sake of God. In this reading, the term aveirah l-shmah is not a narrow legal principle justifying sin for a particular commandment but an affirmation that regardless of the sinful status of an action, when coupled with the proper intention, any action can be performed for the service of God.
Sin as a Technical Means for Good
The first approach, as mentioned, views aveirah l-shmah as a technical legal principle that allows in certain circumstances for the Halakhah to be broken for the sake of preserving another Halakhic value. As opposed to the other approaches, this conception of aveirah l-shmah is somewhat reductionist. The principle is not telling us about the inherent value of our intentions or the Godliness that may be implicit in acts of sin; rather it is a narrowly defined Halakhic principle that allows the law to be broken under a strict set of criteria.
One of the greatest contemporary Halakhists is Rabbi Hershel Schachter, a rabbinic leader in the Modern Orthodox world who has taught at Yeshiva University for over fifty years. Like the approach of many other Halakhists, Rabbi Schachter limits the applicability of aveirah l-shmah and presents the concept within a more minimalistic legal framework.168 He points to a seemingly unrelated passage in the Talmud as a case study in the modern applicability of aveirah l-shmah. The Talmud (Shabbat 4a) presents a case whereby someone unwittingly places bread dough in an oven on Shabbat—unaware that this is prohibited. In such a case would someone else be permitted to remove the bread dough from the oven—a rabbinic prohibition—in order to help prevent the person who initially placed it there from violating the biblical prohibition of baking on Shabbat? The Talmud seemingly rejects this suggestion here by citing the opinion of Rav Sheshes, who rhetorically asks, “[d]o we ever tell someone to commit a sin in order to save someone else?!” The Talmud here clearly assumes that we would not allow someone to commit a sin in order to help someone else avoid a sin. Many of the medieval commentators point out that the conclusion of the Talmud in Shabbat seems to contradict another Talmudic passage (Gittin 41b), which allows someone to free a partial slave in order to complete a minyan. Normally, it is prohibited to free an indentured slave—so why in this situation does it seem that we allow a sin to be violated (freeing the slave) in order to avoid another sin (not having a proper quorum to pray with)? There are several answers presented to resolve this contradiction. Two are relevant to our discussion. The Tosafists explain that the incident involving the minyan is different—since it is a commandment that involves not just an individual but a quorum.169 For a communal commandment, explain the Tosafists, we would allow an individualistic sin to be committed in order to avoid a communal sin. Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet offers a different answer. He explains that we never allow one to violate a prohibition to save someone else. We do allow, however, one to commit a small sin to prevent oneself from committing a larger sin. The incident involving the minyan, explains Rabbi Aderet, is different because we are only violating a prohibition in order to save ourselves from sin.
According to the opinions of the Tosafists (that you can commit an individualistic sin to avoid transgressing a communal obligation) and Rabbi Aderet (that you can commit a sin to prevent yourself from committing a greater sin), what is the Halakhic principle that allows for this negotiation? Although it is not mentioned explicitly by either, Rabbi Schachter posits that the principle of aveirah l-shmah is in play. According to Rabbi Schachter, aveirah l-shmah is the operating mechanism that, according to these opinions, allows one to commit a sin in certain circumstances to avoid another. In this context aveirah l-shmah is a Halakhic principle that allows for certain transgressions in order to avoid other sins. In Rabbi Schachter’s presentation, aveirah l-shmah is a legal principle that dictates when certain sins can be legally committed in order to avoid others. This principle, however, differs from other principles such as saving another’s life or the general principle that a positive commandment overrides a concurrent negative commandment , since in those cases the sin in question is deemed completely permitted. If one violates Shabbat in order to save a life there is no requirement afterwards to repent for having violated Shabbat. Contrastingly, in situations where aveirah l-shmah is invoked the existing sin being committed is still operational and requires repentance.170 Aside from the sin’s remaining in force and thereby requiring repentance, there is another important distinction between aveirah l-shmah and other legal principles that allow a prohibition to be abrogated. Rabbi Schachter explains, based upon a premise developed by Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin, that in order to invoke aveirah l-shmah the proper intention while committing the sin must be fully realized. Normally in cases of violating a prohibition to save a life or overriding a negative commandment to perform a contingent positive commandment, there is no requirement for having the proper intention. Regardless of one’s intention, if a life is at stake Shabbat can be violated. With aveirah l-shmah, however, the intention is an inherent part of the legal allowance to commit the sin. The permissibility to commit a sin in order to avoid another, even in circumstances where this can be invoked, demands that the proper l-shmah—intention—be realized.171
In this approach aveirah l-shmah is not a commentary on the potential holiness of sin or an expression of any sort of antinomian sentiment. Instead, like other legal principles codified in Shulkhan Arukh, aveirah l-shmah is a precise legal mechanism that allows in certain circumstances for a sin to be committed in order to avoid other sins. Not everyone, however, agrees with this approach. Others have approached aveirah l-shmah much more broadly. They view aveirah l-shmah not as a legal principle but as a philosophical idea: an idea that was at the heart of one of the greatest controversies and heresies in all of Jewish history.
The False Messiah’s Sin
Jewish history is littered with false messiahs. All throughout Jewish history there have been men—but so far no women—who have proclaimed themselves as the messiah ushering in redemption.172 Arguably none have been as successful or as deleterious for the Jewish community as Shabbtai Zevi (1626–1676). The Shabbatean messianic movement, which began in 1665, swept through the Ottoman Empire and fomented controversy throughout the rabbinic establishment. It is hard to say definitively what made Shabbtai Zevi so successful. Gershom Scholem, the prolific scholar of mysticism, points to several factors.173 Certainly the Jewish people, reeling from the recent 1648 Chmielnicki massacres and preoccupied with the mystical eschatology from the teachings of Lurianic Kabbalah, were looking for a savior. Shabbtai Zevi capitalized on the mystical fervor sweeping through Europe. Peddling his own brand of mysticism through his chief proselytizer, Nathan of Gaza, Shabbtai Zevi convinced laypeople and rabbinic leaders alike that his messianic revolution was authentic. The movement began to deteriorate in 1666 when Shabbtai Zevi converted to Islam, shocking his followers. For most, an apostatized messiah was simply inconceivable and the movement began to lose momentum. Others continued to have faith in him as a redeemer, attributing his conversion to some mysterious mystical q
uest. Even following his death, several factions within the Jewish community—some secretly, others openly—clung to their belief in the Shabbatean movement. No doubt, the movement has become the locus classicus for understanding the psychological determination of those looking for a messiah.174
One distinctive factor of particular relevance to our discussion is the Shabbatean movement’s relationship to sin. Even prior to his apostasy, Shabbtai Zevi had a markedly antinomian persona. Throughout his life he performed rituals that openly flaunted his abrogation of Jewish law. While sinning, he was known to make a heretical blessing to God “who allows the forbidden” , a repurposing of the traditional blessing to God who “frees the imprisoned.” One year he celebrated all three of the yearly Jewish festivals Pesah, Shavuot, and Sukkot all in one week. Against Talmudic law, he pronounced the ineffable name of God and was known to eat the forbidden fats of an animal. Eventually, once his movement reached a euphoric peak, he abolished the fast days of the seventeenth of Tammuz and the ninth of Av and replaced them with days of celebration.
Within Shabbateanism aveirah l-shmah was a philosophy, not just a Halakhic principle. Rituals that contravened Jewish law were performed for the sake of some other, higher order commandment. Sin in the Shabbatean movement confirmed a messianic age that evolved from the allegedly temporal constraints of Jewish law. Torah itself, in Shabbatean thought, had evolved. Pre-messianic Torah and law were no longer necessary. The Shabbateans attempted to usher in a mystical antinomian age that required reorienting the Jewish people’s relationship to their laws. As Scholem explains:
Through a revolution of values, what was formerly sacred has become profane and what was formerly profane has become sacred…. Prior to the advent of the Redeemer the inward and the outward were in harmony, and this is why it was possible to effect great tikkunim by means of outwardly performing the commandments. Now that the redeemer has arrived, however, the two spheres are in opposition: the inward commanded, which alone can effect a tikkun, has become synonymous with the outward transgression. Bittulah shel torah zehu kiyyumah: the violation of the Torah is now its true fulfillment.175
In the supposed messianic age of Shabbateanism, sin was not the subversion of God’s will—it was its expression.
Truth be told, even before the advent of Shabbateanism the messianic idea in Judaism had some antinomian undertones. Messiah is always identified as the offspring of King David, who himself was a descendant of Ruth the Moabite.176 The entire Moabite family originated from an act of incest between Lot and his daughters, who had thought that their act was necessary to preserve humanity (Genesis 19:31–32). In fact the Talmud references the story of Lot and his daughters as a possible source for the very concept of aveirah l-shmah.177 The messianic idea itself emerges from antinomian behavior. This connection was not lost on the Shabbatean movement. Scholem recounts Shabbatean apologists who pointed to the licentious origins of messiah as a justification for Shabbtai Zevi’s antinomian behavior: “Lest no one, therefore rashly cast aspersions at the Lord’s Anointed (i.e. Shabbtai Zevi).”178
Given the support in mystical texts for some of the Shabbatean movement’s more extreme ideas, even mystics who opposed the Shabbatean movement found themselves subject to communal suspicion. In the radical world of mysticism it was hard to know the difference between mystical ideas that were radical but traditional and those that were heretical. One such figure, who had to publicly distance himself from the Shabbatean movement, was the renowned kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Luzzato, known by his acronym Ramhal. Rabbi Luzzato composed an entire work, Kinat Hashem Tzevaot, explaining the differences between the Shabbatean usage of aveirah l-shmah and its proper place in traditional Jewish thought.179 In this work Rabbi Luzzato makes several distinctions outlining the proper use of aveirah l-shmah, including the requirement of hora’at sha’ah, a temporary negation of the law, as well as some more mystical distinctions. It is not entirely clear whether these somewhat muddled distinctions helped Jews separate Rabbi Luzzato’s mysticism from that of the Shabbatean movement. This problem—differentiating “traditional” mysticism from Shabbatean mysticism—would continue to plague many scholars, most notably among the Hasidim of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov.
From its inception the Hasidic movement of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov had to distance itself from Shabbateanism. In the mid-eighteenth century, when the Hasidic movement began, the Jewish community was still reeling from the Shabbatean movement and its later offshoot, the Frankists. The rabbinic establishment could hardly be faulted for its distrust of a new sectarian movement. Much of the early opposition to Hasidim, known as mitnagdim, cast the Hasidic movement as a new Shabbatean movement.180 To be sure, some in the early Hasidic movement did take liberties with strict Halakhic practice. Many Hasidim prayed past the prescribed time in Jewish law. Others prayed with an ecstatic fervor foreign to traditional synagogues.181 In response to the many antinomian actions within the Hasidic community, Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin, the prized student of the Gaon of Vilna, penned Nefesh ha-Hayyim, which articulated some of the primary concerns that the mitnagdim had with the Hasidic movement.182 In Nefesh ha-Hayyim, Rabbi Hayyim emphasizes the importance of strict adherence to the details of Jewish law. Proper intention, Rabbi Hayyim cautions, cannot come at the expense of the proper execution of the commandments. However lofty one’s intentions may be, he notes, what good is matzah eaten after the night of Passover?183 In fact Rabbi Hayyim advanced the questionable theory that the concept of aveirah l-shmah is no longer applicable following the giving of the Torah at Sinai.184 Before receiving the Torah there was more latitude when deciding to perform a sin or a commandment in the service of God. Following the giving of the Torah, he warned, the Halakhah is the only avenue to fulfilling the will of God.
Early mitnagdim and some later scholars attempted to paint the Hasidic movement as a monolith with regard to their approach to aveirah l-shmah. It is easier to dismiss a movement or cast aspersions on their approach when all such movements can be heaped together. As Yehoshua Mondshine, the noted Chabad scholar and librarian at the National Library of Israel, humorously noted, “Sometimes it seems that, in the opinion of some scholars, the followers of hasidism spent most of their time studying Sabbateanism, and the remainder of their time they devoted to obscuring and camouflaging this pursuit.”185 Instead, Mondshine emphasized that aveirah l-shmah was used in a variety of ways throughout Hasidic literature. “I hope,” he writes in his important article on aveirah l-shmah in Hasidic thought, “that I have succeeded in demonstrating the instability, indeed the fluidity, of categories in Hasidism, which by its nature resists the imposition of constant and firm definitions.”186
Fluidity of categories, to use Mondshine’s phrase, was not restricted to Hasidic thinkers. As we have seen, there were several different approaches to the concept of aveirah l-shmah in Jewish intellectual history. The notion of fluidity, however, resonates throughout. If religion is to dictate all of the contours of our lives, there are situations where ideals will inevitably need to be negotiated. If Halakhah provides firm categories for the rituals of our lives, aveirah l-shmah is a mechanism that allows the chaos and fluidity of our individual lives to fit those molds. Certainly there are varying views on the scope of such negotiations, but their existence is simply a fact of life. Aveirah l-shmah ensures that even the crevices where our ideals cannot reach are still filled with holiness.
6
DOES GOD REPENT?
Dearest Father,
You asked me recently why I maintain that I am afraid of you…
…I too believe you are entirely blameless in the matter of our arrangement. But I am equally entirely blameless. If I could get you to acknowledge this, then what would be possible is—not, I think, a new life, we are both much too old for that—but still, a kind of peace; no cessation, but still, a diminution of your unceasing reproaches.
—Franz Kafka, Letter to His Father
Somebody’s Son
Few peo
ple have heard of Richard Pindell, but many people have heard some version of his famous story “Somebody’s Son.” Of course, most people don’t know the story by its formal title, but if they heard the story it would sound familiar. Likely it was a story they heard at a campfire or a moving speech at a religious retreat. The story begins with a boy named David who runs away from home. David, we learn, had a big fight with his father and decided to continue his life on his own—until he changes his mind. David begins to regret his decision and writes a note home to his mother in the hopes that she can convince his Dad to let him back home. This is David’s letter from the original story:
Dear Mom,
If dad will permit it, I would like to come home. I know there’s little chance he will. I’m not going to kid myself. I remember he said once, if I ever ran off, I might as well keep on going.
All I can say is that I felt leaving home was something I had to do. Before even considering college, I wanted to find out more about life and about me and the best way for us (life and me) to live with each other. Please tell Dad—and I guess this’ll make him sore all over again—I’m still not certain that college is the answer for me. I think I’d like to work for a time and think it over.
You won’t be able to reach me by mail, because I’m not sure where I’ll be next. But in a few days I hope to be passing by our place. If there’s a chance Dad will have me back, please ask him to tie a white cloth to the apple tree in the south pasture—you know the one, the Grimes Golden beside the tracks. I’ll be going on the train. If there’s no cloth on the tree I’ll just quietly, and without any hard feelings toward Dad—I mean that—keep on going.
Sin-A-Gogue Page 9
