Who's afraid of the big bad sin...?

 An Avot mishnah for Shabbat (perek 2: parashiyot Mattot-Masei)

This week’s pre-Shabbat post takes us back to Perek 2.

Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai had five special talmidim, each of which he praised by reference to a special quality. Of one of the five, he had this to say (Avot 2:11):

רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן נְתַנְאֵל יְרֵא חֵטְא

Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel fears sin.

This seems strange. Shouldn’t fear of sin come with the territory for any self-respecting rabbi? And here we are talking about a generation of rabbis which, in terms of its piety, knowledge and commitment to serving God, we regard as being well above and beyond our own. What’s more, while we habitually praise people for their Torah learning, their commitment to religious observance, their high level of personal integrity and so on, to say of anyone nowadays that he or she “fears sin” sounds archaic and also inapposite, for how can we know what anyone else truly thinks or fears?

We can’t even be sure what sort of fear of sin Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel is being praised for? Does he fear to commit sins himself, or the consequences of others committing them? Does his fear apply to all sins, or specifically to those against God, against fellow human beings or against oneself? And what message does this description have for us?

If all we can learn here is that Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel distanced himself from sin by being strict upon himself and denying himself even that which was permitted, as the Bartenura and Rabbenu Yonah learn, has he done any more than build himself a fence around the Torah (see Avot 1:1)? And if he is only being zahir, careful, as Rambam understands, Avot teaches that too (see 4:1). What added value can we find here, what extra nuance?

R' Reuven P. Bulka (Chapters of the Sages) offers us this perspective on our Tanna:

“He thinks through very carefully and meticulously before speaking about them”.

This chimes in with the notion that the word חֵטְא (chet), which we translate here as “sin”, really means “miss the mark”, in the way that an archer’s arrow or a sling-shot might miss its target (see Judges 20:16). Our message from this Mishnah is that Rabbi Shimon ben Netanel’s great quality is that he is a perfectionist; he literally quakes at the thought of missing his target, at getting something even a little bit wrong. Can we learn from this and incorporate it into our own lives? That’s another matter.

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