Category:Yetzer Hara (subject)

Yetzer Hara / Evil Inclination

• Devil

Overview

In Rabbinic Judaism, yetzer hara (Hebrew: יֵצֶר הַרַע‎) refers to the congenital inclination to do evil, by violating the will of God. The term is drawn from the phrase:

• "the imagination of the heart of man [is] evil"
• (Hebrew: יֵצֶר לֵב הָאָדָם רַע, yetzer lev-ha-adam ra),

which occurs twice in the Hebrew Bible, in Genesis 6:5 and 8:21.

The yetzer hara is not a demonic force, but also comes from God. Humans don't acquire a yetzer tov ("a good inclination") until an age of maturity—12 for girls and 13 for boys—has its source in Chapter 16 of the Talmudic tractate Avot de-Rabbi Natan. They are not responsible before that age.

While God has created man with both good and evil inclinations, the two powers or tendencies that pull him in opposite directions, God commands each man to choose the good and right path over the evil.

4 Ezra, 2 Esdras

The first occurrence of the concept of the yetzer hara is in 4 Ezra at the end of the 1st cent. CE.

Capter 3

[20] "Yet thou didst not take away from them their evil heart, so that thy law might bring forth fruit in them. [21] For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him. [22] Thus the disease became permanent; the law was in the people's heart along with the evil root, but what was good departed, and the evil remained. [23] So the times passed and the years were completed, and thou didst raise up for thyself a servant, named David. [24] And thou didst command him to build a city for thy name, and in it to offer thee oblations from what is thine. [25] This was done for many years; but the inhabitants of the city transgressed, [26] in everything doing as Adam and all his descendants had done, for they also had the evil heart.

Chapter 6

[45] I answered and said, "O sovereign Lord, I said then and I say now: Blessed are those who are alive and keep thy commandments!

[46] But what of those for whom I prayed? For who among the living is there that has not sinned, or who among men that has not transgressed thy covenant? [47] And now I see that the world to come will bring delight to few, but torments to many. [48] For an evil heart has grown up in us, which has alienated us from God, and has brought us into corruption and the ways of death, and has shown us the paths of perdition and removed us far from life -- and that not just a few of us but almost all who have been created!" [49] He answered me and said, "Listen to me, Ezra, and I will instruct you, and will admonish you yet again.

[50] For this reason the Most High has made not one world but two. [51] For whereas you have said that the righteous are not many but few, while the ungodly abound, hear the explanation for this. [52] "If you have just a few precious stones, will you add to them lead and clay?"

[53] I said, "Lord, how could that be?"

[54] And he said to me, "Not only that, but ask the earth and she will tell you; defer to her, and she will declare it to you.

[55] Say to her, `You produce gold and silver and brass, and also iron and lead and clay; [56] but silver is more abundant than gold, and brass than silver, and iron than brass, and lead than iron, and clay than lead.' [57] Judge therefore which things are precious and desirable, those that are abundant or those that are rare?" [58] I said, "O sovereign Lord, what is plentiful is of less worth, for what is more rare is more precious."

[59] He answered me and said, "Weigh within yourself what you have thought, for he who has what is hard to get rejoices more than he who has what is plentiful.

[60] So also will be the judgment which I have promised; for I will rejoice over the few who shall be saved, because it is they who have made my glory to prevail now, and through them my name has now been honored. [61] And I will not grieve over the multitude of those who perish; for it is they who are now like a mist, and are similar to a flame and smoke -- they are set on fire and burn hotly, and are extinguished."

Classical Rabbinic sources

Rabbi Nahman bar Samuel bar Nachman said in the name of Rabbi Samuel bar Nachman: ... "And behold it was very good" (Genesis 1:31) - this refers to the yetzer hara. But is the yetzer hara indeed very good?! - Were it not for the yetzer hara, a man would not build a home, or marry a woman, or have children, or engage in business. (Genesis Rabbah 9:7)

Maimonides (1135 ca. - 1204):

Maimonides gave instructions for how to view the Evil Inclination and ensuing hardships on that account:

Therefore, let a man prepare his own mind and request from God that anything that should ever happen to him in this world, whether of the things that are by God's providence good, or of the things that are by Him evil, that the reason [for their occurrence] is so that he might attain true happiness. Now this was stated with regard to the Good Inclination [in man] and with regard to [his] Evil Inclination, that is to say, that he might lay to his heart the love of God and his [continued] faith in Him, even at an hour of rebellion or of wrath or of displeasure, seeing that all of this revolves around [man's] evil inclination, just as they have said: 'In all your ways acknowledge Him' [8], [meaning], even in a matter involving transgression.[9]

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707-1746):

"Man is the creature created for the purpose of being drawn close to God. He is placed between perfection and deficiency, with the power to earn perfection. Man must earn this perfection, however, through his own free will... Man's inclinations are therefore balanced between good (Yetzer HaTov) and evil (Yetzer HaRa), and he is not compelled toward either of them. He has the power of choice and is able to choose either side knowingly and willingly..."[10]

Good and evil inclination

‘The good inclination and the evil inclination.’ In the typical Rabbinic doctrine, with far-reaching consequences in Jewish religious thought, every human being has two inclinations or instincts, one pulling upwards, the other downwards. These are the ‘good inclination’—yetzer ha-tov—and the ‘evil inclination’—yetzer ha-ra. The ‘evil inclination’ is frequently identified in the Rabbinic literature and elsewhere with the sex instinct but the term also denotes physical appetites in general, aggressive emotions, and unbridled ambition. Although it is called the ‘evil inclination’, because it can easily lead to wrongdoing, it really denotes more the propensity towards evil rather than something evil in itself. Indeed, in the Rabbinic scheme, the ‘evil inclination’ provides human life with its driving power and as such is essential to human life. As a well-known Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 9: 7) puts it, were it not for the ‘evil inclination’ no one would build a house or have children or engage in commerce. This is why, according to the Midrash, Scripture says: ‘And God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good’ (Genesis 1: 31). ‘Good’ refers to the ‘good inclination’, ‘very good’ to the ‘evil inclination’. It is not too far-fetched to read into this homily the idea that life without the driving force of the ‘evil inclination’ would no doubt still be good but it would be a colourless, uncreative, pallid kind of good. That which makes life ‘very good’ is the human capacity to struggle against the environment and this is impossible without egotistic as well as altruistic, aggressive as well as peaceful, instincts.

The Rabbinic view is, then, realistic. Human beings are engaged in a constant struggle against their propensity for evil but if they so desire they can keep it under control. The means of control are provided by the Torah and the precepts. One of the most remarkable Rabbinic passages in this connection states that the Torah is the antidote to the poison of the ‘evil inclination’ (Kiddushin 30b). The meaning appears to be that when the Torah is studied and when there is submission to its discipline, morbid guilt-feelings are banished and life is no longer clouded by the fear that the ‘evil inclination’ will bring about one's ruination. The parable told in this passage is of a king who struck his son, later urging the son to keep a plaster on the wound. While the plaster remains on the wound the prince may eat and drink whatever he desires without coming to harm. Only if the plaster is removed will the wound fester when the prince indulges his appetites. God has ‘wounded’ man by creating him with the ‘evil inclination’. But the Torah is the plaster on the wound, which prevents it from festering and enables him to embrace life without fear.

It follows that for the Rabbis the struggle against the ‘evil inclination’ is never-ending in this life. Nowhere in the Rabbinic literature is there the faintest suggestion that it is possible for humans permanently to destroy the ‘evil inclination’ in this life. (Eschatological references to the total destruction of the ‘evil inclination’, and its transformation into a ‘good angel’, are irrelevant. The World to Come is not the world in which humans struggle in the here and now.) For the Rabbis, the true hero is, as stated in Ethics of the Fathers (4. 1), one who ‘subdues’ his ‘evil inclination’, one who exercises severe self-control, refusing to yield to temptation. It is not given to anyone actually to slay the ‘evil inclination’. Nor are there references in the Rabbinic literature to the idea, prevalent in the Jewish mystical and moralistic literatures, of ‘breaking the evil inclination’.