The Power of Individual Sin

This week in class, we learned a lot about the sins of King Achaz and how, even though he was horrible and his people were sinning a lot, the kingdom of Yisrael was even worse.  To recap, Achaz became king during the time of Pekach, king of Yisrael.  His rule was stained with sin from the very beginning: He worshiped idols and went so far as to sacrifice his own son in the practice of molech.  On top of this, Achaz did not recognize G-d's control over the world.

The most important thing that happened in the time of Achaz was the war with Aram and Yisrael and the alliance made with Assyria.  At the time, Assyria was the rising world power.  Achaz thought that it would be  better overall if he made an alliance with Assyria and simply let them pass through the land of Yehuda instead of fighting their way in.  Retzin, king of Aram, and Pekach, king of Yisrael, approached Achaz about making an alliance with them to fight off Assyria.  Achaz refused.  His next action is crutial: he made an alliance with a foreign nation when G-d didn't tell him to.  In the end, Retzin and Pekach went to war against Yehuda and Assyria stepped in and won the battle.  The question is: why?  Why didn't Yehuda lose?  They were sinning horribly and probably deserved to lose.  The answer is that Yisrael was doing even worse.  The problem in Yehuda was that the people were being immoral to one another but they still recognized Hashem as G-d and still maintained some aspects of Judaism.  The people of Yisrael had completely strayed from the path of Hashem.  They had started worshiping idols, a path that was started on long ago by Yiravam, the first king of Yisrael who totally rewrote the religion to suit his needs.  The people of Yisrael needed to be punished more at that particular time.

Hashem sent Yishayahu to give a message to Achaz.  As we learned before, Yishayahu's mission had changed and now, he was supposed to keep giving his warnings but no one would listen.  Therefore, Yishayahu went to Achaz prepared for rejection.  He told Achaz exactly what G-d wanted him to do but knew he wouldn't: recognize Hashem's control over the world and stop trying to manage the situation when G-d has it under control.  Yishayahu told Achaz not to worry about the alliance of Yisrael and Aram attacking because G-d is pulling the strings here and will make them lose.  Yishayahu also gave Achaz a sign/mashal: a child will be born and will be named Immanuel.  This child will eat milk and honey before he knows the difference between good and evil.  The message G-d was trying to get across was that if Achaz simply lets Assyria in, they will destroy Yehuda and decimate everything in the land because G-d is pulling the strings and will make it happen.

In my opinion, this story contains a powerful message about the power of individual sin.  How do you get a whole nation to sin?  You start with one person.  That person can influence another who can influence another and so on.  As a teenager in a Jewish school, I have been told all my life about sinning and the consequences.  Until now, it has felt like something I have to deal with later or on Yom Kippur or just another time.  I see now how that kind of thinking can get you in a lot of trouble.  One person leads another to sin and one sin leads to more sins and before you know it, you have a situation similar to that of the one in Yehuda and Yisrael.  That is obviously an extreme case of individual sins joining together to become national sins.

I just thought to mention that leaders' individual sins have a much greater impact than some average Joe living in the middle of the country.  We saw here that Achaz did Avodah Zara and Pekach did as well.  Both of these kings sinned so much and allowed their people to sin to such an extreme extent that in the end, G-d was choosing the lesser of two evils to punish.