We continue in the Sefer Tomar Devorah, discussing the traits of God that we have to emulate. Trait number one was God's level of tolerance and patience, which we call Savlanut . Trait number two is called Noseh Avon , which literally means to carry a sin. The term first shows up when Kayin tells God, “ Is my sin too great to carry?” Simply, it's poetic, But the Tomar Devorah explains that when a person sins, he creates a negative force, like the Mishna in Avot 4,13 says, One who sins (buys or) creates a prosecuting angel. As we have discussed, nothing in this world can remain alive without Somebody , namely God, keeping it alive. So that prosecuting angel goes in front of God and says, “ So-and-so created me, and I need to be sustained. ” Really, God should say, “ I'm not sustaining a negative force that I didn't create. Go to the one that created you, and he will give you sustenance.” Depending on the level of sin, the sustenance of the negative angel might be the person’s arm, leg or whatever is required in order to satisfy this negative angel’s need. But God doesn't do that. Rather, He carries and tolerates the sin, like He does with the rest of the world. He feeds the sin. Angels live off of heavenly food, and this angel that was created by our sin is fed by God. We created him. We created a negative angel, and yet God feeds him. For how long depends on one of three things. He says, -When a person does teshuva, that causes the negative force to disappear, -or the man will suffer in this world -or he will suffer in the next world. We don't want either of those options. We prefer Teshuva. But until that happens, it could be years that God is sustaining this angel. That's what Kayin meant when he said, “ Is my sin too great to carry ?” and the Midrash Tanhuma says on that, “ You're able to carry (sustain) the whole world and my sin is too heavy? You can't take care of it?” What a tremendous amount of tolerance, to continue to sustain the negative force that the person created. So what is the application to man? If someone wronged you, and the person's negativity is still there, nonetheless you continue to allow him to, and sustain him, even though he is working against you. For example, if a worker was stealing from you, and you still payed his paycheck. Of course, that's an extreme example. We will continue to discuss this, but essentially, being Noseh Avon is when someone is doing something negative, and even though he continues to do negative things, you carry him. We might not do this with our workers, but we do it with our children. We will continue to carry a child and sustain him, even when he’s acting in a way that we don't agree with. And that's really a trait of God. Have a wonderful day.

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