Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
DEADLY
SINS
A V E R Y PA R T I A L L I S T
Aviad Kleinberg
Translated by Susan Emanuel in collaboration
with the author
3 Sloth: Acedia 32
4 Envy: Invidia 44
5 Lust: Luxuria 62
6 Gluttony: Gula 81
7 Greed: Avaritia 97
10 Self-Righteousness 150
Notes 167
Index 185
1
THE LIZARD’S TAIL
There is no sin without context. There is no sin in itself. The very no-
tion of sin is always the result of a comparison, explicit or implicit, be-
tween a specific ideal and a specific reality. Without this comparison, in
which an act is weighed in the moral balance and found wanting, there
is no sin—there are only actions and passions. Human actions and pas-
sions become sins only in a given moral and cultural context. As con-
texts and rules shift, so does the definition of sin. What once consti-
tuted a sin (masturbation, for example) ceases to be wrong; what once
did not constitute a sin (beating up young children or selling human
beings) ceases to be right. Right and wrong are continually defined and
redefined by society. The moral balance tilts toward one direction, then
toward the other. Morality expresses itself in absolute terms: “Never”
and “Always.” It presents itself as a seamless, timeless garment. A closer
look reveals the seams of time and place. Sin is a cultural construct.
Strata of ideas, beliefs, and preconceived notions are features of
every culture. We observe the world, and ourselves, from the upper-
most stratum: the present. But the lower strata, saturated with the past,
have not disappeared. The present is nothing but the latest aggregation
from past events and processes. Our roots traverse all the layers of our
sedimented culture. In pushing up toward the present, contemporary
T H E L I Z A R D ’ S TA I L
notions are imbued with the stains of our fathers—with someone else’s
recollections, someone else’s guilt. Worse still, we are not a chorus sing-
ing in cultural unison; we are would-be soloists stubbornly singing off-
key. Ethical imperatives are addressed to collectives, but ethical choices
are always individual. In the realm of right and wrong, everything is
personal.
Every person is an accident, a collision between individual im-
pulses and cultural options. Before attaining the age of reason, we ab-
sorb, without real examination or scrutiny, the internal contradictions
of our environment. The irresponsible judgments, the arbitrary assess-
ments, the passing remarks of adults are filtered through our immature
minds, then mixed with a powerful blend of emotional likes and dis-
likes, and little by little our moral fiber makes its hesitant appearance.
Reaching maturity, we try to impose order on the affective and moral
chaos of our childhood, the impossible compromises and contradic-
tory urges, the personal aches and general anxieties. We try to be rea-
sonable.
It is not easy to be reasonable. The ground seems to slip away be-
neath our feet. The custodians of public morality try to mandate their
own balance, to decree absolute values where everything is relative,
to proclaim clarity where everything is obscure, to declare objectivity
where everything is subjective. They brandish their moral timetables,
promising that those who arrive on time at the station will safely reach
their moral destination. We always arrive too early or too late. We are
too quick to forgive ourselves the unforgivable, and too willing to let
the sour grapes of our fathers set our teeth on edge.1 We sin in our own
individual fashion, breaking rules made especially for us. Succeeding
or failing, we do it our way.
There is no sin without context. And there is no impersonal writ-
ing on sin. All writing on sin is autobiographical, even when the writer
analyzes abstract ideas or discusses the sins of others. This book is not
a confession. To a certain extent, it is a way to avoid confession. Yet
2
T H E L I Z A R D ’ S TA I L
the book does deal with me, especially when I am not speaking about
myself.
When does the awareness of sin arise in us? When does infantile
narcissism—the conviction that everything belongs to us, that any plea-
sure and satisfaction denied us constitutes a moral scandal—transform
itself into a feeling of guilt, into a sensation that we have done evil in
the eyes of the Lord and of men? Freud thought that this awareness
emerges together with the Ego, with the realization that the child is not
the flesh of its mother, that the separation between mother and child is
definitive and irreparable. Feelings of insufficiency constitute a basic
element of human personality. We understand that we are not all-pow-
erful. We recognize the primary mortal failings—weakness, solitude,
and despair—for it is those (not pride, envy, and anger) that constitute
the prototypes of sin. We measure ourselves against our impossible
dreams of perfection, and the paradise of wishful thinking (to be al-
ways whole, to be always without fear or pain, to be always satisfied)
and we find ourselves wanting. We suffer. We realize that we have been
punished. All suffering is punishment. We search for the reasons for
this punishment. “God of Mercy, we have sinned before You. Have pity
on us.”
But is it right to begin like that, with universal reflections—not
with this particular man, Aviad Kleinberg, but with Everyman? Is it
honest to start with generalities, beyond the embarrassing particulars
of memory, beyond the body, beyond the body of evidence? Surely this
is wrong. There is no sin without context, no writing on sin that is not
autobiographical.
In primary school I had a classmate called Micky. He was lonelier
than me and much weaker. I was endowed with considerable physical
strength and with a talent for sarcasm. This did not win me many
friends, but it was usually enough to paralyze my adversaries. While we
were all trying to become (each according to his possibilities and incli-
nations) caricatures of the typical Israeli macho, Micky remained a
3
T H E L I Z A R D ’ S TA I L
4
T H E L I Z A R D ’ S TA I L
There was a pear tree near our vineyard laden with fruit,
though attractive in neither color nor taste. To shake the
fruit off the tree and carry off the pears, I and a gang of
naughty adolescents set off late at night after (in our pesti-
lential way) we had continued our game in the streets. We
carried off a huge load of pears. But they were not for our
feasts but merely to throw to the pigs. Even if we ate a
few, nevertheless our pleasure lay in doing what was not
allowed. Such was my heart, O God, such was my heart.
You had pity on it when it was at the bottom of the abyss.
Now let my heart tell you what it was seeking there in that I
became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wicked-
ness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I
5
T H E L I Z A R D ’ S TA I L
Setting aside, for the moment, the psychological and ethical ques-
tions raised by Augustine’s description, I would like to focus on the ba-
sic assumption underlying this text. Augustine is certain that the rules
of the ethical game are clear and that a man who is honest with him-
self always knows the specific weight of each of his acts. For him, there
is no Freudian denial; there are only lies. What is more, evil is never
banal; it is always radical.5 Misdemeanors, like stealing worthless pears,
may be insignificant so far as their consequences are concerned, but
the motivation that underlies them is not really different from that
which pushes us to horrible crimes. We love evil for its own sake. And
our faults are never really hidden. God walks in our gardens and His
spirit hovers over our abysses. He sees, remembers, and exacts ac-
counts. The intrusive presence of God in the Augustinian world para-
doxically transforms intentional evil into a heroic act, tragic in that it is
essentially without hope. It is impossible to contest the tyranny of di-
vine justice, impossible to escape punishment. The sinner brings about
his own ruin in the name of an impossible and absurd desire for free-
dom.6
“Therefore in that act of theft what was the object of my love, and
in what way did I viciously and perversely imitate my Lord?” wonders
Saint Augustine.