Is Virtue Absolute or Relative?

Rav Dessler and The Paradox of the Virtuous Sinner

Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler teaches that we won’t be judged for where we’ve ended up (spiritually), but for how far we’ve come. Virtue, in other words, is to be measured not in absolute, but relative terms. What we’re aiming for is maximum “delta,” not a fixed target. You hear this kind of teaching in yoga class—don’t look at the person on the mat next to you; it’s not about achieving difficult pose Y, but of mastering concentration and attention to the breath. The poses are just there to help.

In the context of virtue ethics, Rabbi Dessler’s point is that we get more credit for overcoming temptation than we do for not being tempted. All the delta is to be found on the frontier where we are challenged, not in the places where things are easy for us.

It’s counter-intuitive, and paradoxical, because one might think that the point of moral aspiration is to become saintly, to actually be the best person or close to it, whatever that might mean. But if you follow the Dessler/yoga model, the real saints are those who, in micro-moments, conquer their yetzer hara, their evil inclination. To an outsider such a conquest might be imperceptible. It may even be the case that a terrible person is a saint insofar as he or she makes tremendous moral progress, given the circumstances.

Yet if you are at all persuaded by this line of argument, then you should be asking not what is goodness in an absolute sense, but how I do maximally improve, given my own circumstances?

Philosophy—which is the measure of the absolute—will then have two take second seat to mussar, the technique of character improvement.

P.S.—Check out my new mega thread on Maimonides.

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