[Kuruharan]

I'll take a stab at answering that.
(An act similar to turning loose a rabid water-buffalo in a darkened china shop.)

As I understand it, the Elves migration was the idea of the Valar rather than a command from Iluvatar. Whether disobeying it was a 'sin' depends on your perspective.

The Elves that refused the call did not gain the wisdom that those who went to Valinor did. So in that sense they were less than the Elves that saw the Light of the Trees. But they were allowed to sail to Valinor after the fall of Morgoth, so they were not punished unless you consider having to endure the trials and tribulations of Middle earth to be punishment. (Which it was in the case of the Noldor, but that was the opposite situation later on down the road.)

The Valar gave up direct intervention in the world because their attempts to do so generally did not turn out too well. Take for example the command for the Elves to migrate to Aman. It did not entirely work because many of the Elves refused. It took them several attempts against Morgoth to finally get rid of him, and even then his work remained. Their gift of Numenor to the Edain backfired because the Numenorians turned on them and invaded Valinor. They figured that the indirect method would work at least as well as the direct, and that it might work better.

[ July 09, 2002: Message edited by: Kuruharan ]