DO not sin excessively, scripture says (Ecclesiastes 7:1). What is that supposed to mean? It is OK to sin a little?
Dont steal $1 million, but its OK to steal $10,000? Dont besmirch a persons reputation so badly that he will never find a job again; just take him down a couple of notches so he loses his seniority?
The Talmud says that these absurd implications of the scriptural verse are just what the verse seems to mean, and just what it cannot mean (Shabbat 31b).
So, what does it mean?
The Talmud says: If youve eaten onion and get bad breath, will you eat another onion? That is, if youve sinned once, do not sin twice.
For a deeper elaboration, I turned to an anthology that is hard to read, not because of its style or substance, but because all of the authors, most barely beyond their teens, died in the Holocaust.
In about 1972, the late Rabbi Eliezer Ben Zion Bruk of Jerusalem came across a treasure trove of papers that escaped his notice for some 40 years. They were tucked away in a drawer or cabinet. These were the writings, the interpretations of Torah, written by his friends or teachers back in Poland when he was a student in the Novorodock yeshiva network in the 1930s.
None of these writers survived. In many cases, it isnt even known when or where they died.
These papers were their only memorial.
Rabbi Bruk contacted the late David Zaritsky, a well known writer and novelist in Jerusalem, also a student in the Novorodock yeshiva network in the 1930s. They agreed to collaborate on a volume in memory of these martyrs, victims of Nazism.
The Hebrew book, Parchments of Fire, is some 300 pages long, consisting of short essays, some a few pages long, others not even a single page, each preceded by a brief biography of the author. The book includes a few pictures.
ONE essay elaborates on the verse, Do not sin excessively.
The essay is by Rabbi Isaac Waldshein, one of the senior contributors to this volume. Even at that, he was probably not yet 40 when he died.
I knew Rabbi Waldsheins son in Jerusalem. How the son survived, and the father did not, I do not know. I do know that Rabbi Waldshein took extensive notes of the 12 long lectures delivered by the founder of the Novorodock network, Rabbi Yosef Y. Hurvitz, shortly before he died in 1919. From these notes and those of one other student came Rabbi Hurvitzs classic on Musar or Jewish ethics: The Stature of Man (Madregat ha-Adam).
Rabbi Waldshein offered four readings of do not sin excessively.
One:
What is the difference between an expert horserider and a mediocre one? It is not that the expert never falls. He certainly does. No one is perfect. Rather, when the expert falls, he rebounds. He is resilient. He remounts the horse and keeps going. The mediocre rider lays on the ground, licking his wounds.
Sin? Everyone sins. No one is perfect. The demand is not to wallow in ones sin, not to despair, not remain on the low spiritual level that ones sin has brought one down to. The demand is to rise, to get up, to rebound, to be resilient. Do not sin excessively: After you have sinned, do not say, I can longer continue on a path of spiritual growth.
The implications of Rabbi Waldsheins reading are these:
If I have abused my wife, I should not rationalize it, saying that since I have hurt her so much, it doesnt make any difference if I hurt her some more. If I have fallen away from the Sabbath observance my youth, I should not say: I am hopeless. If my mind strays during the first part of my prayers, I should not give up on reciting the rest.
Two:
To sustain a lie, I need to create a web of lies. One falsehood will never get me off the hook. I have to create a whole story. Do not sin excessively: If you find yourself lying, stop. Do not weave the whole story.
Three:
Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because they were totally wicked. If, for example, a resident offered a visitor hospitality, the resident would be killed. (It reminds one of the Nazis.) Yet, Zoar, a corrupt city adjoining Sodom and Gomorrah, was not destroyed. Why not?
It is said that had Zoar existed one more year, its wickedness would have reached that of Sodom and Gomorrah and it, too, would have been destroyed. Do not sin excessively: When you are near rock bottom, realize that the little good you have left can save you.
Again, some implications of Rabbi Waldsheins reading:
If I am an alcoholic, if I have ruined myself and my family, I should not say: The mere desire to escape from the pit is not enough to save me. Say, rather: the smallest hope can lead me out of the pit.
Four:
Say I am dishonest. Say I am determined to devise a scheme to do in my business partner yet I fail. And the reason I fail is that I have not been crooked enough. Do not say: I have to perfect my scheme. I have to figure out how to be still more dishonest.
Do not sin excessively: If your dishonesty doesnt get you what you want, stop. Dont say: Im not dishonest enough. Do not sharpen your cunning and figure out how to perfect your evil design. Do not sin excessively.
Copyright © 2010 by the Intermountain Jewish News
