9. At any rate, Judaism recognizes no sin which does not arise from the individual conscience or moral personality. The condemnation of a whole generation or race in consequence of the sin of a single individual is an essentially heathen idea, which was overcome by Judaism in the course of time through the prophetic teaching of the divine justice and man’s moral responsibility. This sentiment was voiced by Moses and Aaron after the rebellion of Korah in the words: “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt Thou be wroth with all the congregation?”(758) In commenting upon this, the Midrash says: “A human king may make war upon a whole province, because it contains rebels who have caused sedition, and so the innocent must suffer together with the guilty; but it does not behoove God, the Ruler of the spirits, who looks into the hearts of men, to punish the guiltless together with the guilty.”(759) The Christian view of universal guilt as a consequence of Adam’s sin, the dogma of original sin, is actually a relapse from the Jewish stage to the heathen doctrine from which the Jewish religion freed itself. 10. According to the Biblical view sin contaminates man, so that he cannot stand in the presence of God. The holiness of Him who is “of eyes too pure to behold evil”(760) becomes to the sinner “a devouring fire.”(761) Even the lofty prophet Isaiah realizes his own human limitations at the sublime vision of the God of holiness enthroned on high, while the angelic choruses chant their thrice holy. In humility and contrition he cries out: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”(762) The prophet must undergo atonement in order to be prepared for his high prophetic task. One of the Seraphs purges him of his sins by touching his lips with a live coal taken from the altar of God. Under the influence of Persian dualism, rabbinical Judaism considers sin a pollution which puts man under the power of unclean spirits.(763) In the later Cabbalah this idea is elaborated until the world of sin is considered a cosmic power of impurity, opposed to the realm of right, working evil ever since the fall of Adam.(764) Still, however close this may come to the Christian dogma, it never becomes identical with it; the recognition is always preserved of man’s power to extricate himself from the realm of impurity and to elevate himself into the realm of purity by his own repentance. Sin never becomes a demoniacal power depriving man of his divine dignity of self-determination and condemning him to eternal damnation. It ever remains merely a going astray from the right path, a stumbling from which man may rise again to his heavenly height, exerting his own powers as the son of God. Chapter XXXIX. Repentance Or the Return To God