The Seven Deadly Sins: Jewish, Christian, and Classical Reflections on Human Nature

According to Schimmel, the seven deadly sins underlie many of today's personal neuroses and social ills. Unlike those who call substance abuse a disease or an addiction, this psychotherapist points to sloth, greed and anger at work. Behind the passions evoked by the Persian Gulf war, he detects the sin of pride. He faults society for a massive failure of self-control and perceives the hand of envy, lust, gluttony and the other vices in rampant divorce, overeating, pornography, abuse of public trust and indifference to the suffering of others. A professor at Hebrew College in Massachusetts, Schimmel draws on the moral teachings of Judaism, Graecostet -Roman philosophy and Christianity, along with insights gleaned from his clinical practice and nuggets from Dante and Shakespeare. His point that the high self-esteem advocated by modern secular psychology often slipsok, or spills?/I like slips better.gs over into selfishness is well taken. More than an old-fashioned hellfire sermon, this is a surprising, humane handbook for self-transformation. (May)