[Avodah] The Main Idea of Judaism

[Chana Luntz]

RDR:

<<If a change in
perspective >can transform a neutral act into a virtuous act, why can't it
also change a prohibited act into a virtuous act?>>

Me:

<< Can't it (in extremis)?  How do you deal with the concept of an averah
lishma and the discussion of Horayos 10b?>>

RDR:

>The entire sugya deserves more extended remarks, but that particular
citation can be dealt with concisely.  See the Maharsha ad. loc. citing an
>unspecified Tosafos in Yevamos that Yael did not enjoy the event.  He
construes "lishmah" to mean without physical pleasure. 

How does that help you?

Or in other words, does that explanation not continue to raise the problem?

Here we have a situation where something would be a prohibited act, and
Yael's change of perspective (ie not deriving any pleasure from the event)
changes it into a virtuous act.

I am not sure that the Maharsha is right though, since in the Yerushalmi
Sotah 4:4 the same Rabbi Yochanan accepted that pleasure derived from being
forced is irrelevant:

כהדא איתתא אתת לגביה רבי יוחנן אמרה ליה נאנסתי. אמר לה ולא ערב לך בסוף אמרה
ליה ואם יטבול אדם אצבעו בדבש ויתננה לתוך פיו ביום הכיפורים שמא אינו רע לו
ובסוף אינו ערב לו. וקיבלה.
(A woman came to Rav Yochanan and said she has been raped.  He said to her,
didn't you enjoy it in the end.  She said if a man dips his finger in honey
and forced it into your mouth on Yom Kippur, is it not bad for you and is it
not enjoyable for you in the end, he accepted her).

Unless you want to say that, from this Rav Yochanan, that Rav Yochanan
denies the possibility that there can never any pleasure in the end, unless
someone is functioning on the level of Yael.  But that is a pretty extreme
reading of this gemora, more logically, the question is how does one
characterise a situation where there was force initially and later
enjoyment, does the later enjoyment nullify the force, or does it not.

But that does not matter, because whether you say that the essence of the
change in perspective was an absence of enjoyment in the act, or an
intention to do the act not for personal reasons but to save klal yisroel
(which I think is a far more straightforward pshat), the key factor is that
what was going on in Yael's head is what makes this averah lishma greater
than a mitzvah.

>The Maharsha stops there, bit I will add that the halacha is that a passive
woman is guilty of adultery only if she has pleasure (that's the sugya of
>Esther karka olam haysa).  So it's lack of physical pleasure that changed
the potential aveirah into a non-aveirah.

Err, I don't think so.  I mean, it is a great defence to adultery - actually
your honour (or whatever you call a member of the Sanhedrin), I didn't enjoy
it, so that's alright then.  

Rather the aspect of passivity is not enjoyment or lack of enjoyment, but
solicitation or lack of solicitation.  A woman can be subject to rape even
if she is asleep (or, for that matter, dead), her consciousness is not at
all required.  Similarly with a rape, where she is fully conscious, but
unwilling, the key fact is lack of active consent.  

And that is precisely, as you say, the sugya of Esther karka olam haysa.  If
it were merely a matter of enjoyment or lack of enjoyment, what difference
would it make to Esther whether she went to the king to plead for the Jews
or not, her lack of enjoyment in the actual act would remain the same.  But
part of the whole understanding of this sugya, is that when Esther says:
v'kasher avaditi, avaditi, it means sheavaditi me'beis aba kach oved m'mecha
(Megilla 15a).  By voluntarily doing an act which would amount to
solicitation of attention from Achashverosh, she was no longer karka olam,
and would become forbidden to Mordechai.

Similarly, if Sisera had raped Yael, then there would have been no question
of it being an averah on her part, lishma or otherwise "ain l'na'arah ches
maves" (Devarim 22:26) anymore than there is a sin on behalf of the victim
of a murder to whom the Torah likens the case.  The issue only arises
because of the understanding that Yael was instrumental in arranging the act
in question to take place- albeit that she did it in order to save klal
yisroel.  

>Incidentally, the Yalkut Shimoni (#44) disputes R. Yohanan's contention
that Yael misbehaved.

Does it?  Where do you see that?  (The version I get up on Bar Ilan - #45 -
I don't see it in #44) doesn't seem to me to dispute it - although it brings
the averah lishma language in the name of Rabbi Nachman, and it brings other
aspects as well).

>But I think there's a more general issue.  The sugya is clearly thinking in
terms of mitzvos; "lishmah" in the sugya means l'sheim mitzvah, not l'sheim
>servitude to God.  Now I think one can (and RYL has at least hinted in that
direction) try to argue that this is a distinction in terminology rather
>than content,

Yes but if we go deeper, and that is why the Yael scenario is of particular
relevance - why was Yael doing whatever she did?  Whether you want to argue
lack of pleasure or whatever, Yael's fundamental motivation (ie what
replaced any question of pleasure) has to be for the greater good, beyond
the specific act - and it is this acting for the greater good that renders
the averah aspect of the specific act greater than a mitzvah.

> but I also think that anyone arguing that solving math problems for
pleasure is a kiyum mitzva is pushing that argument farther than it >ought
to go.

I didn't think anybody was suggesting that solving maths problems for
pleasure was a kiyum mitzvah.  I thought they were arguing that solving
maths problems for the sake of servitude to G-d (or perhaps for the sake of
knowing G-d, eg as the Rambam appears to understand it) could be a kiyum
mitzvah, even if one got pleasure out of that combination. 

>David Riceman

Regards

Chana