[Avodah] worst aveirah

[Zev Sero]

On 7/01/2011 12:05 PM, Micha Berger wrote:

> But none of the three yeihareig ve'al ha'avor are pushiable by seqilah.
> They're clearly worse -- which means there must be another dimension
> than that used by derashos miqal vachomer.

Why are those three clearly worse?  Who says that the severity of an
averah is what should determine whether it's nidche by pikuach nefesh?

For instance, murder is on the list not because of any measurement of
its severity but because it's not logical for pikuach nefesh to override
it: "who says your blood is redder than the other person's?"   In other
words, maybe in theory PKN would override it, except that by its nature
*someone* has to die, so why should it be the other person and not you?
Another avera may be worse than murder, but PKN overrides it because
it's not necessary for *anyone* to die.

Also, it's obvious that kibbush ha'aretz overrides PKN; otherwise it
would be impossible.  The reason it's not listed among "the three" is
simple: it's an asei, not a lo sa'aseh, so the language "yehareg ve'al
ya`avor" is simply inapplicable.  But one must do this mitzvah, if it
comes to ones hand, despite a high risk of death, and the certainty
that some participants will die.  And yet nobody will argue that
because it overrides PKN it's therefore more important than other
mitzvos.  Tefillin doesn't override PKN, not because it's less
important than kibbush ha'aretz but because its nature doesn't require
anyone's death.



> And since hevei zahir bemitzvah qalah kemitzvah chamurah, because you
> don't know their rewards, it would seem that severity in terms of beis
> din shel maalah is yet another axis by which one define "worse", even
> if one can't actually measure along that axis.

That refers to mitzvos, not to averos.  We *do* know the ranking of
averos, by the punishment they attract.  It follows that mitzvos are
ranked by their reward, but the problem is that we don't have that
information.  We know the reward for *some* mitzvos, but not for most,
so we can't tell whether any given mitzvah might get an even better
reward than "lema'an yirbu yemeichem", etc.




-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher