[Avodah] yehareig v'al ya'avor

[Micha Berger]

The question presumes that there is only one axis to measure mitzvos
on. On the contrary, an issur can be worse in one way, but the other
issur might be worse in another.

Also, I am not sure the answer is always the same regardless of
context. For a person who times the shofar blasts to make shur his
shul's teqi'os match the shevarim-teru'ah, perhaps the priorities
are different than for someone who isn't such a medaqdeiq, but
actively chases opportunities to give tzedaqah.

As for these particular three... why are they more previous than life
itself? And given that
    typical aveirah X < value of life < YVAY,
isn't there at least one very important way in which they are "worse"?

The Maharal holds that these three aveiros are each the worst violation of
one of the amudei olam in Avos 2:1. That life is to be forfeited because
committing one of them means taking an axe to the entire foundation of
life itself.

Here's how I blogged it
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2008/08/three-desires.shtml> (the post
itself is a comparison of different shitos all of which discuss
man as having three basic kinds of desire):
    [The Maharal] continues to explain that that if existence is based
    on three principles, then any act which takes an ax to one of these
    pillars should not be committed even under pain of death, existence
    itself would have a lower priority. Idol worship is obviously the
    antonym of avodah. Murder is the ultimate denial of chessed. The
    Maharal explains the link between Torah and sexual immorality:

	The glory of the Torah is that it is separated from the physical
	entirely. There is nothing that can separate man from the physical
	but the Torah of thought. The opposite is sexual immorality,
	which follows the physical [chomer] until one is thought of like
	an animal or donkey [chamor], it is a creature of its flesh's
	desires, in all things physical.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If you won't be better tomorrow
micha at aishdas.org        than you were today,
http://www.aishdas.org   then what need do you have for tomorrow?
Fax: (270) 514-1507              - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov