Can we learn more from the lives of the righteous or the sinners?

Rabbi REUVEN BULKA, head of Congregation Machzikei Hadas in Ottawa, hosts Sunday Night with Rabbi Bulka on 580 CFRA.

Yes! Now to explain. We obviously can and should learn from both, as indeed we should learn from everyone and every experience. From the righteous we ostensibly learn what behaviours to embrace; from the sinners we learn what behaviours to avoid.

There is a key difference between the righteous and the sinners. No matter how righteous, every person sins in one way or another. What then differentiates a righteous person who sins from a sinner who sins?

For the righteous, the sinning is an aberration, an exception in an otherwise exemplary life. For the sinner, a good deed is the aberration, and sometimes the camouflage that justifies, in the mind of the sinner, all the perpetrated evil.

Think of someone who spends a lifetime contemplating and carrying out obvious or subtle extortion of others, whether by Ponzi or another method, who then uses some of the profits to support philanthropic causes. No matter how much charity is given, the person remains a sinner. And no matter the level of the giving, the sin is never justified.

In the end, and with rare exception, it is fair to say that there is a little bit of sin in all of us, no matter how righteous, and there is probably a little bit of righteousness in even the biggest sinner. What derives from this is that the world of human behaviour is not “either-or.” It fluctuates within a continuum between righteousness on one end and evil, or sin as you called it, on the other.

In learning from both the righteous and the sinner, we learn we all have the capacity to actualize good and evil, and no matter where we are on the continuum, we should not accept where we are on the continuum as immutable, never-changing. Today’s righteousness does not guarantee tomorrow’s, nor should today’s sin lead anyone to think they are doomed. An evildoer has the ability to change and to embrace righteousness.

Likewise, a righteous person can take righteousness for granted, and slip into a lazy, “I am good enough” mode. No matter how bad, one can become good. No matter how good, one can always be better.

KEVIN SMITH is on the board of directors for the Centre of Inquiry, Canada’s premier venue for humanists, skeptics and freethinkers.

The seeds of sin and righteousness are buried in the minds of our young at Sunday school. If enrolled in Abrahamic religion classes, they are instructed that sin is an act violating God’s will.

However, there is a spectrum of evil, depending on how dogmatic one’s dogma is.

If you’re born into one particular faith, your God might be more benevolent than malevolent; forgiveness for bad deeds is but a few practised hand gestures and prayers away.

If you were chosen to have parents whose lives are controlled by what Christopher Hitchens called the celestial dictator, the one who fashioned Eve out of Adam’s rib, you’ll learn that your sin is bred in the bone. Your diseased soul will be everlasting. Amen.

What despair people under this influence must have, knowing that, whatever they do, God will never be pleased with their actions. Despite a yearning for righteousness, they’ll never achieve it, forever remaining a bad seed.

As one whose morals are not limited to God’s standards, I view their desire to be righteous as a sin. I do not subscribe to a world view where women must be submissive to men, where homosexuals are deemed to be intrinsically disordered — a tribal mentality that is authoritarian and exploitative.

Some might argue that this represents the dark side of fundamentalist beliefs, but even moderate religions adhere to some of these philosophies.

Religious morality is the antithesis of reason, evidence and justice. It is born from the selfish attitude of doing good, not for simply goodness’ sake, but rather for one’s spot in Heaven’s sake.

There is much to learn from the righteous, and from whom they define as sinners.

For atheists, it’s a lesson in what not to aspire to, a rational conversation, I assume, that would never be considered appropriate in Sunday school.