https://nafshi.org/mishlei-13-20-habituation/
Thus, after a period of repeated sinning, the process of habituation desensitizes him to the seriousness of the sin, and it is no longer a struggle. Mishlei describes the phenomenon of habituation in terms of being pursued by the evil that the person has created through his own sin. Something similar is happening when he becomes desensitized to the value of the good that he is doing. However, it is not quite the same.
Rav Huna describes here, a mental process that a person goes through in relation to sin. The first time the person commits the sin, the person knows and feels that he is committing a sin, and he has an internal struggle regarding the sin. When he repeats the sin, the excitement and internal struggle decreases, and eventually the person can reach a point where he rationalizes the sin, and considers his action to be permitted.
ReplyDeleteBeyond this stage, things can progress to a point, where the person "connects" to the sin, and he may even feel that this is actually a true expression of his personality.
The is similar to the process of addiction, where the addiction becomes a part of one's being, to the point that he feels that this is who he is, and that he has no more free choice in this matter.
It's the hot bath analogy.
ReplyDeleteHere's one but I don't have a link because it's still not official news. The Conservative synagogue in my town, after years of membership decline, has finally sold their building. Since CoVID they barely used it anyway and even on a good Shabbos, the turnout was so weak they used their weekday chapel, not the sanctuary. Word was that they were going to sell to a condo developer but in the end they sold to a Hindu group who will convert it into one of their "temples." Good news for Jews in the neighbourhood though. The Hindu group has rented them the chapel so they can continue to use it on Shabbos.
OK, but what analogy does this represent?
ReplyDeleteConsrvative are shutting down shop across the USA, and this was the case before Covid, and the Pew report.
Nah, nothing to do with this post. I'm just interested in what our mighty blogmaster thinks about this.
ReplyDeleteJust to make sure that I understand this correctly.
ReplyDeleteThe Conservative Jews sold their building to non-Jews, to be used as a Hindu house of idolatry, and these Jews will continue to pray in this idolatrous temple, and support idolatry with the rental fees that they will be paying to the temple?
Yup. Apparently they asked some Conservative rabbis in Toronto who found them a "heter"
ReplyDeleteI wonder what their convoluted "heter" would be based on.
ReplyDeleteWell Stated, IR!
ReplyDelete