GEN790 Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa said: Any person in whom the fear of sin comes before wisdom, his wisdom shall endure; but anyone in whom wisdom comes before fear of sin, his wisdom shall not endure.  Pirkei Avot III:11.  Here we have a clear, superb statement of one of Judaism’s basic insights:  Wisdom, thought is subservient to the will, which is so inextricably bound up with the motions; therefore, unless a person be first imbed with “fear of sin,” a strong moral sense, his wisdom cannot itself be influential in any fundamental way, no matter how marvelously developed it may be.  For sooner or later the mind and its wisdom become a rationalizing handmaiden, subservient to the wishes and demands of the self that wills.  When Abraham journeyed to the Land of the Philistines, as a measure of self-defense he concealed the fact that beautiful Sarah was his wife, and announced instead that she was his sister. [this verse]. Later Abimelech king of the Philistines felt hurt that Abraham should have suspected his people of being wife-snatchers, wince taking another man’s wife was forbidden, under one of the Seven Noachian Laws, as a crime punishable by death. Abraham replied, however, that “I though: there is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me on account of my wife.” Genesis 20:11 By this he meant: Of course you have a law that no one may take another man’s wife. But where there is no “fear of God,” no wisdom, no abstract knowledge of the law is enough to overcome the evil inclination. You would probably find some way of disposing of me, and then there is no law to prevent you from marrying Abraham’s attractive widow!  Where “fear of sin” does not come before wisdom, to form a basis and background for it wisdom cannot endure. Consider the man who swears that he will never touch a single dollar that belongs to the next fellow. Under his breath he may well add, “Try to convince me that this dollar really belongs to the next fellow.”  SINAI1 273-4