[Avodah] Rambam on Sin

[dfinch847 at aol.com]

Micha Berger writes:

"Not that all sin is due to the passions, but [by Rambam] the concept 
of sin can only apply to the domains of the sensory and the emotional."

Rambam says in Shemona Perakim I that "reason, that faculty peculiar to 
man, enables him to understand, reflect, acquire knowledge of the 
sciences, and to discriminate between proper and improper actions." A 
failure of reasoning at the margins of halacha (i.e., the ubitquitous 
"gray area" of conduct) might lead to sinful action or inaction without 
implicating the sensory or emotional domains. Rambam's discussion in 
Shemona Perakim II relates to "diseases of the soul" that lead to 
dysfunctional disorders of thoughts, desires, and conduct that usually, 
but not necessarily, involve sinful behavior. SP II focuses on the 
sensory and emotional, but in the context of vice and corruption, which 
are patterns of behavior, not sin per se.

Perhaps, then, it'd be more accurate it say that vice and corruption 
derives from the domains of the sensory and emotional, but sin can 
derive from any domain which, if not perfected, leads to non-halachic 
conduct.

David Riceman cites SP III:8 in this connection as well. Here Rambam 
draws on the Aristotelian form/matter dichotomy and states: "All man's 
acts of disobedience and sins are consequent upon his matter and not 
upon his form, whereas all his virtues are consequent upon his form." 
At first reading, this supports Micha's argument that sin applies to 
the sensory and emotional domains. But Rambam clarifies his form/matter 
distinction by stating that man's form "is in the image of G-d and His 
likeness," and therefore that sin, being by definition unG-dly, must 
"be bound to earthy, turbid, and dark matter" of man himself. In short, 
sin cannot be a matter of form because form must follow the image of 
G-d.

David Finch
dfinch847 at aol.com

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