"Shivat Hakhata'im: Rishima Khelkit" ("The Seven Sins: A Partial List") by Aviad Kleinberg, Yedioth Ahronoth & Hemed Books, 202 pages, NIS 78

Historian Aviad Kleinberg's new book, "The Seven Sins," lends itself to two entirely separate interpretations, and therein lies its appeal. First of all, it encourages us to take stock of ourselves. Reading Kleinberg's compilation of sins and his description of them, along with his personal confession at the beginning of the book and allusions to issues that have personal relevance to him throughout it, we are moved to examine ourselves. Am I, or was I, guilty of sloth, greed, gluttony, lust, envy, pride or wrath? These are the sins - known as the seven deadly sins in Christian tradition - that Kleinberg chooses to explore in his book. A personal journey of this kind has great value. For the sinner, it brings relief and healing.

The other way of looking at the book is academic: It is an excellent and intriguing study of the history of these seven sins and their significance, especially for Christianity, combined with keen observations that link them to our times. While one could approach the book from a theological, historical or literary standpoint, the perspective I have chosen for this review is psychological.

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Modern psychology, the offspring of philosophy, which entered the cultural world as a separate field of study in the late 19th century, does not dwell on sin and punishment. Because the first psychologists aspired to be scientists at all costs, and to turn psychology into a science on a par with physics, or at least biology, they gave up studying or judging human behavior according to moral or religious criteria. The word "sin," therefore, is never to be found in psychology books. Instead, we find a variety of words, like "urge," "drive" and "need," that are more or less synonymous.

This linguistic change, of course, shapes the way we think. Talking about undesirable behaviors as manifestations of "motivation" makes them more tolerable and allows us to forgive the sinner. Biological needs like hunger, thirst and sex are shared by human beings and animals, and as we all know, animals don't sin. So if they are part of our human (or animalistic) nature, then we have no choice but to accept these needs and refrain from treating them as sins.

In psychology, for example, we talk about hunger as a need. Sometimes this need malfunctions and causes people to consume more food than necessary, but we do not call this "greed" or "gluttony." As it has in other realms, academic psychology has given up the opportunity to say something meaningful about sin, for the sake of being "scientific" and "objective."

The sex drive is natural

Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, who despite his tremendous impact on culture was never lovingly embraced by the academic world, also believed in motivation, but his word for it - "instinct" - was much more evocative and powerful than words like "need" or "motivation." At the same time, it was a word that still had some connection to medical terminology, or so he hoped. The sex drive, which became the sex instinct and the death instinct in later works, dictated all our behavior. Controlling sexuality (and all the other "sins" derived from it) was not something that came out of morality or religious injunction, but was rather a necessary outcome of living together in human society, where there had to be some regulating force. That, as we all know, is the origin of "civilization."

A son's desire to sleep with his mother, better known as the Oedipus complex, cannot be acted upon for the sole reason that it would destroy the foundations of the family. The concept of "sin," even in this context, was no longer relevant. One way or another, Freud sought to cleanse humanity of its sense of sinfulness and the tyranny of the superego. The sex drive, which controls human behavior, is natural. Hence it is not a sin.

Only recently, in transpersonal psychology, which is still largely shunted to the sidelines, has there been any interest in the spiritual dimension of human existence - a subject that very much preoccupied Freud's student and rival, Carl Gustav Jung. Reading Kleinberg's book, one realizes the extent to which academic psychology has chosen to forgo the study of core human issues, and ultimately impoverish itself for the sake of scientific discourse.

This book not only prompts us to take another look at psychology. It encourages us to do some soul-searching of our own. I am convinced that every reader will find in the experiences of St. Augustine and Achilles something that resonates personally.

Is there anyone among us who has not sinned? The very use of the word "sin" necessitates a moral, ethical or religious code that establishes what is good and what is bad, and how a person should behave. All normal human beings carry such a system within them, whether or not they are capable of articulating it in an organized way. When we stray from this code, we know that we have sinned. For an ethical person, sin leads to feelings of guilt, confession, regret and an attempt to make amends. But the sweetness of sin can also be addictive, regardless of the consequences for ourselves and others.

This is hardly the place to deliver my own private confessions inspired by Kleinberg's beautiful book. But as you read, there are questions that are worth asking yourself: What was the first sin I can remember committing as a child? Have I changed my ways? Did I ask for forgiveness, and was I forgiven? What was the greatest sin I committed as a teenager? As an adult? In the past? In the present? Have I become a better person over the years, or God forbid, moved in the other direction? What sins do I "sanctify" and know in my heart that I will not give up? How can I justify this behavior?

There is only one sin I will confess to in this forum, and that is the sin of envy. I envy Aviad Kleinberg, who is in a field that allows him to write and say what he thinks, where he can offer any interpretation he likes of Jesus, literary classics or religious tradition. I envy his ability to speak in the plural, with all of society attuned to his words and no one demanding proof - empirical, or heaven forefend, statistical.

How freely, for example, he expresses himself in this enlightening passage on what Kleinberg deems the "eighth" sin - self-righteousness: "Self-righteousness has become part of Israeli culture as a whole. We are convinced that we, as a nation, are right, and, it goes without saying, more right than others. We are thus prepared to do to others (Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, foreign workers) what is hateful to us - to trample their rights, steal their property, and sometimes even spill their blood - all without the slightest harm to our glorious self-image.

The author ends, in a wink at certain readers, with the logical conclusion that sins are what makes us human, thereby adding yet another dimension to the theories already expounded in this secular book. "Sin is an expression of our desire for freedom," writes Kleinberg.

Inspired by Kleinberg, I will dare to offer an opinion of my own: I think that people who feel free are ultimately free of any sense of having sinned.

Prof. Amia Lieblich's book "Yaldey Kfar Etzion ("The Children of Kfar Etzion") was published by Keter and the University of Haifa (in Hebrew).