Pensamento Judaico sobre II Reis 4:9

One need only remember that the absence of a harmful substance by no means implies the presence of a beneficial substance. If one does not feel hot, it does not follow that one feels cold. On the other hand, it is true that the more extreme the description of a virtue or failing respectively, the more extreme will be its opposite. It follows then that some "opposites" are much closer to one another than others. The opposite of a moderately sinful individual, would be a moderately pious one. The opposite of a thoroughly depraved individual, would be a person who is pious and saintly in the extreme. We understand then that just as sinful conduct occurs in varying degrees of extremes, so all attempts at pious conduct are found in corresponding degrees of intensity. When the Torah lists a string of depravities at the end of the last Parshah, it is natural that the call for holiness comes hard on its heels. The Torah lists a variety of commandments, which while representing abstinence from sinful conduct, are not yet the height of saintly conduct either. The more extreme the description of a negative trait in a human being, the more superior is its counterpart as a positive virtue. Achievement of holiness and purity then, are the opposites of all the negative traits listed. The categories of unsatisfactory conduct can be classified as follows: a) sinful conduct, i.e. violation of ritual laws; b) wicked conduct, i.e. anti social behaviour; c) immoral, immodest conduct, i.e. violation of the laws of incest, sodomy and bestiality. The opposite of the above categories would then be: a) piety; b) social responsibility; c) G'dliness. The middle category, i.e. socially acceptable human conduct, is not yet G'dliness. Not acting in the worst way of bestiality is still a long way from becoming saintly, holy.

On sexual intercourse, I need not add anything after I have pointed out in the commentary on Abot (i. 17) how it is treated by our Law, which is the teaching of pure wisdom—no excuse whatever should induce us to mention it or to speak of it. Thus our Sages said, that Elisha the prophet is called holy, because he did not think of it, and consequently never found himself polluted with semen. In a similar manner they say that Jacob had the first issue of semen for the conception of Reuben. All these traditional stories have the object of teaching the nation humane conduct. There is a well-known saying of our Sages, “The thoughts about the sin are more dangerous than the sin itself.” I can offer a good explanation of this saying: When a person is disobedient, this is due to certain accidents connected with the corporeal element in his constitution; for man sins only by his animal nature, whereas thinking is a faculty of man connected with his form,—a person who thinks sinfully sins therefore by means of the nobler portion of his self: and he who wrongly causes a foolish slave to work does not sin as much as he who wrongly causes a noble and free man to do the work of a slave. For this specifically human element, with all its properties and powers, should only be employed in suitable work, in attempts to join higher beings, and not in attempts to go down and reach the lower creatures.