[Avodah] yom kippur thought

Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Fri Dec 9 07:15:17 PST 2016


On Fri, Dec 09, 2016 at 01:50:53PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
>:> *Having* a thought can't be an aveira, because it's involuntary, but
>:> *consciously entertaining* it can be one, and often is. That would
>:> certainly require teshuvah.

>: The famous Ibn Ezra on "lo tachmod" seems to disagree. He gives the
>: example that no one would dream of marrying a princess (at least in
>: pre-Disney days -) ). So one can train oneself not to have evil thoughts

: Yes-but in current western society I have yet to meet someone that
: this mashal resonates with.

First, to sum up: I think we're saying that a person isn't all that
culpably for having a thought beshe'as ma'aseh, but he could be held
culpable for not working on rerouting his train of thought BEFORE
the moment.

Mussar, with a capital M.

(Although that too requires thought. So although there is cuplability,
that too may not be absolute. But we can go meta again, and increase
their culpability yet further. The culpability not to decide to change
how we relate to changing our train of thoughts will itself be greater,
than the culpability for avoiding this particulr thought, etc... But I
bet it's not just tinoqos shenisheb'u for which the sum doesn't reach 1.)

To me, the IE is talking about things beyond what REED calls one's
bechirah point. So, whie few of us could know what it's like to relate
to royalty as royalty, so that dating a princass is beyond the
bechirah point. But current western society is big on declaring some
negative decision too *close* compared to the bechirah point for someone
to avoid. E.g. we can talk about an "online porn addiction".

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If a person does not recognize one's own worth,
micha at aishdas.org        how can he appreciate the worth of another?
http://www.aishdas.org             - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye,
Fax: (270) 514-1507                  author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef



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