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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>There was a discussion on Areivim about a particular person who was accused of committing a particularly evil crime. Someone posted, among other comments, “I will add that the "rabbi" who committed these horrific acts is objectively G-dless. Apikores is too mild a term for him.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>My response to this fits more for Avodah than Areivim: <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I know this man and most of the other players in this story. And while I haven’t interviewed him recently to test R’n TK’s assertion, it is my opinion that as reprehensible as these events are, it doesn’t mean that the person who committed them is Godless. Is any sinner Godless? More likely, a sinner like this carries around a huge measure of denial and/or conflict. But that doesn’t make him or her Godless. The Gemara says, in fact, that some sinners – during the moment they’re sinning(!) are close to Hashem (Berachos 63a). I’ll elaborate:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In truth, the argument can be made that any time a person sins he or she is Godless. Tomer Devorah in the first perek makes the contrapositive point – that Shuras HaDin would dictate that Hashem remove himself from a person at the time of his sin, resulting in the sinner’s instant death. His response to that is that Hashem’s mercy is what keeps the person alive – Hashem does not remove himself from the person, and keeps sustaining him or her even while he or she is sinning with the very power invested by Hashem in them that enables them to sin. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>But probably most times well-meaning people sin, their sin comes from one of the following three: ignorance, negligence, or lust. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Ignorance: Not knowing or remembering something is forbidden. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Negligence: Not caring enough to take care not to inadvertently sin. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Lust: Being blinded to the evil that one is doing because of the strong desire to benefit from it. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In all those cases, the person who is sinning is not thinking about Hashem. He’s – in your terms – “objectively Godless.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>But can he really be called that? Let’s talk about two extremes: The person who walks in front of another person who is saying Shemoneh Esrei (relatively minor), vs. the person who is not shomer negiah (relatively major). In both those cases it’s not that the person is not thinking about Hashem (which he admittedly is not), but that the person is not thinking about sin. Or, more succinctly, the person is just not thinking. Not Godless, but thought-less. And that can sum up all of the three categories – ignorance, negligence, and lust cause people to sin by not thinking. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>So what happens when a person is a thinker? There are two possibilities. The person can be like Nimrod, "<span lang=HE dir=RTL style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>éåãò øáåðå åîúëåéï ìîøåã áå</span><span dir=LTR></span><span dir=LTR></span>" – he knows Hashem and doesn’t listen to him, although he recognized Hashem’s existence. That’s a plain old Rasha. But he’s not Godless – <span lang=HE dir=RTL style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>éåãò øáåðå</span><span dir=LTR></span><span dir=LTR></span>.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The second possibility is that that person does think about Hashem. He does think about his actions. He does know how bad it is what he’s doing. In other areas, not his weakness, he does keep to Hashem’s will. He is <span lang=HE dir=RTL style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>éåãò øáåðå</span><span dir=LTR></span><span dir=LTR></span> but he’s not <span lang=HE dir=RTL style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>îúëåéï ìîøåã áå</span><span dir=LTR></span><span dir=LTR></span>. Such a person, I think, is incredibly conflicted. He knows about Hashem and he’s rebelling against him on the one hand, while trying to obey him on the other. That person might be evil, might be scum of the earth, but he’s not Godless. On the contrary. And although we have to condemn such a person and his horrible actions, and we don’t envy his punishment in the World to Come, we might also be a little jealous of his relationship with Hashem. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This may well be the reason the Gemara tells us that a person who says Lashon Hara about a talmid chacham falls in Gehennom, since the talmid chacham definitely did Teshuvah (Berachos 19a). How do we know he definitely did teshuvah? Because a talmid chacham, by definition, is a thinker. He didn’t indulge in non-thinking – that’s not in his nature. And even if he had a moment of weakness and did something wrong, he certainly rebounded and regretted it the next day. (Contrast the talmid chacham with the non-thinker of before – he just continues blissfully on with his life not realizing or caring that he sinned. That’s why we are not required to presume that he did Teshuvah.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A Godless person, properly defined, is one who denies Hashem’s existence completely. We have no basis, in this case or in many others, to assert that those are the circumstances we’re dealing with.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>KT,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>MYG<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>