The Crouching Sin

Parshat Bereshit

by Rabbi Avi Billet

The stage is set. The first two sons of Man have brought their offerings to their God, and He has favored the younger's dedication. The older brother is disheartened, and it shows on his face.

Says God, "What are you so frustrated? Why has your face fallen? If you do good, you will lift up! But if not, then sin lies crouching at the door. It desires to get you, but you can rule over it." (4:6-7)

            

In the next verse Kayin kills his brother.

The story is incomplete. Why Kayin killed Hevel is unclear. Was he provoked? Was it self defense? Did he even understand that his act could be fatal? Was the murder premeditated? Or an error? There are a myriad of interpretations hinged on the question of what the "sin crouching at the door" might be. As God's statement was the last thing Kayin heard before he committed murder, one can argue it was the trigger that unleashed his rage. But what did God mean?

In a lecture on repentance delivered in 1987, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein explained the "sin that crouches at the door" as the most blatant obstacle to proper observance of the Law and commitment to God which plagues a particular hashkafic (philosophical) community.

"…[It] is not the same sin at every door. Each door, each domicile, each community has its particular sin, a specific spiritual danger indigenous to it, endemic to that group or that individual." Quoting the Chafetz Chaim, he notes that different generations have different pitfalls. Some "succumb to idolatry, others to desecration of Shabbat, some to sins between man and his Maker, and others to interpersonal sins."

At the same time that he declared the sin plaguing the Religious Zionist community (ie "Modern Orthodox" community in the United States) to be one of "shikhecha," forgetting God, or "lacking the immanent sense of God felt so deeply, keenly and pervasively in other parts of the halakhically committed Jewish world" (which is indeed a problem), he defined "avodah zara" – beyond idolatry – as "superstition and misguided conceptions of God."

Rabbi Lichtenstein does not need my stamp of approval. His assessment of our community is spot on. But I think his definition of avodah zara is also quite noteworthy.

Looking to rabbis (people) as role models is wonderful. Idolizing them and turning them into flawless human beings is idolatry. Many rabbis exhibit excellent judgment all the time. Some make mistakes. The real Gedolim acknowledge their mistakes.

Kosher laws are quite special. Making an obsession about invisible parasites – and thus declaring water, lettuce, broccoli and strawberries unkosher – is idolatry. (No one is interested in eating infested vegetables. Remind people that bugs are not kosher, but don't wage war on fruits and vegetables!)

Modesty is one of the most important Jewish traits. But making a religion solely about personal definitions of such – when the law is somewhat flexible, and in some cases changes based on the standards of the general society – is idolatry! Modesty is not just about length of clothing and size of head coverings.

A chupah is a public event that declares a man and woman united in marriage. This allows them to be seen together in public, and to sit together at a wedding or any simcha other than their own wedding. Who has separate seating at their family Shabbat table?

Why do advertisements for communities and retirement homes in magazines only feature males in the photographs? Is it such a crime to see a photograph of a little girl, a mother in modest dress, or an elderly woman in a wheelchair? This is our world. This is life.

           

Mandating to others how to live, and judging their "frumkeit" based on externals (not calling a Kohen or Levi to the Torah or not counting a bar mitzvah for a minyan on account of a T-shirt or their not being from "your crowd") is not only the most disgusting form of sinat chinam (baseless hatred), but is also a form of idolatry. 

I received the following email in response to a debate about metzitzah that I posted on my blog, in which a pro Metzitzah b'Peh person told me that he cares not about Jews or people (or babies) in general, but only about "God and Halacha": "The 'pious' Jew who only cares about 'God' and His rulebook is clearly off the derech… whatever he is worshipping it is not God. He [has] invented a God to worship and [has] created an imaginary rule book… to replace the much more challenging reality [of what it means to be an observant Jew]."

Kayin could not overcome his crouching sin, perhaps his passion, and it caused him to kill his brother.

           

For some Jewish people, worship of the "avodah zara" I have described is their crouching sin. On account of it Judaism is ultimately denigrated, the shouting matches which ensue, and the negative feelings exacerbated through criticizing others all come at the expense of the, perhaps unanticipated, desecration of God's name which appears in television, newspapers and blogs fueled by misinformation, yes, but also improperly presented information which depicts Orthodox Jews as being hopelessly stubborn or blinded by their own faith.

            

In Kayin's case, his sin lay in his inabilities: to discern the flaw in his gift to God, to learn from his mistakes, and to see that he could live in harmony with his brother, despite their differences, and that each had a unique way of relating to God. If they could only respect the other approach – live and let live and stop telling the other what to do in the most intolerant of ways – they could have lived in harmony.

The saga of brother versus brother need have never unfolded so tragically.