Opportunity Costs in Avodat Hashem

 In Judaism, the concept of sin is often misunderstood. We tend to think of an Aveira as actively doing something forbidden: violating a Halacha, hurting someone, or disobeying Hashem’s mitzvot. But Jewish tradition encourages us to see that the real tragedy of sin is not only in what we do wrong, but in what we could have done right instead. Every moment we spend on something spiritually negative is a moment we are not building, not learning, not growing, and not giving. The word the Torah uses for sin is "chet", which comes from the root meaning “to miss the mark.” It implies not only a mistake, but a failure to live up to one’s potential. Sin is not just a matter of breaking laws — it’s about misusing the precious, finite time and energy we’ve been given. An aveira is not simply a negative — it’s an absence of a positive. It’s not only that we did something wrong, but that we failed to do something right. This idea is echoed in the writings of the Vilna Gaon, who taught that every moment not used for Torah or mitzvot is a loss that can never truly be recovered. Similarly, Rav Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin taught that a person will be held accountable not just for the sins they committed, but for the Torah they could have learned and the mitzvot they could have performed instead. In a sense, this perspective raises the bar for us. Living a Torah life is not just about avoiding wrongdoing, but about actively pursuing good.  This is what David Hamelech is teaching us in Tehillim Chapter 34: “Who is the man who desires life, who loves days to see goodness? Guard your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceitfully. Shun evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.” Avoiding evil is just the beginning. Life is really about doing good-deeds and seeking peace. It has been suggested that a physician’s first responsibility is “Do No Harm”. Even if that is in fact an important aspect of medicine, everyone agrees that doing no harm is merely the context in which healing and saving lives- the real purpose of medicine- can occur. Towards the beginning of Parshat Naso the Torah mentions the obligation of Viduy, confessing one’s sin as an integral step in the Teshuva process. The obligation is worded as follows (5:7): וְהִתְוַדּ֗וּ אֶת־חַטָּאתָם֘ אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשׂוּ֒. “They shall confess the sin that they did.” The last two words seem superfluous- if you are confessing a sin, it’s obviously a sin that you did. The Kotzker Rebbe explained that the reason a person should not sin is not because it is forbidden or repulsive to the person. Rather a person should not sin because they have no time to sin. If a person sticks to a schedule of daily activities, Torah and mitzvot, they should have no time to do anything else. If a person sins, they must review their entire schedule and examine where they have been lax in allowing for “idle hands” which allows for the possibility of sin. This is how we should read the pasuk: One must confess their sin, and then they must consider what they could have and should have been doing instead of the sin. When we reflect on our mistakes, we should look beyond guilt and ask a more powerful question: What could I have been doing instead? That shift changes our relationship to sin and to life itself. It reminds us that each moment is an irrecoverable opportunity for kedusha.