[Avodah] The Main Idea of Judaism

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 11:29:16AM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
> On a more general level I don't understand your point.  The Maharsha  
> construes the gemara as praising "lishmah" in the sense of "having no  
> personal benefit from the act". The Yerushalmi is discussing whether the  
> raped wife of a cohen needs to get divorced.  One would expect different  
> criteria for these very different contexts.

They're not just different criteria for different context, they're
different topics altogether. We're talking about whether a thought can
turn a sin into something positive. A kohein not being married to his
wife the rape victim has nothing to do with whether or not she sinned
altogether. The divorce is not punitive. The whole topic of guilt vs
merit doesn't apply.

-Micha