We respond to every follow-up question submitted, but only publish selected ones.
In order to be considered for publication, questions must be on-topic, polite, and address ideas rather than
personalities.
Is there anyway to “weaken” our Yetzer HaRa (the natural drive for misdoing) and/or strengthen ourselves to make it have less of an effect on us? I was told that it’s the “job” of our Yetzer HaRa to try to deter us from following a life of spirituality and selflessness.
Death lessens the Yetzer HaRa. Becoming an angel leaves us without a Yetzer HaRa.
Being human it is natural and part of us, in fact integral to our mission in this world. Without it we would have no choice and would have to do the right thing. Thereby our reward would disappear. We would have no free will and no reason to be alive. Our service to Hashem (G-d) would lose meaning, as would our very existence.
Hashem said when he created the world, “Tov Meod” ([it is] Very Good). The Midrash says that “Tov” is the Yetzer HaTov (the natural drive for virtue) and that “Meod”, very [good] is the Yetzer HaRa.
The explanation is what I explained above – it is poison, but a necessity to be alive and thrive spiritually.
Are both Yetzer HaRa and Yetzer Ha-Tov both needed for Free Will, one is clearly the “natural” impulse, while it must be deduced that the other is an unnatural impulse, wouldn’t the natural impulse include Free Will? Does God have a Yetzer HaRa to assert his Free Will? And if God does not need a Yetzer HaRa to assert his Free Will, why does humanity (formed in the image of God) need a Yetzer Hara to have Free Will? Isn’t making God the creator of an Evil Impulse making God the source of sin, pain and suffering? Isn’t mankind responsible for Evil in the world? Also… Wasn’t it a sin for Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, they were commanded not to (wouldn’t that have been the first negative mitzvah)? Wasn’t aging and death instituted through Adam and eve’s eating of the fruit of the Tree (Gen. 2:17 – dying thou shall die)? Wouldn’t that make Yezter HaRa closely related to the concept of original sin, even created by that sin?
Hello, These are very strong and intelligent questions that, I believe, are based on a very popular mistranslation. Let me describe how Rabbi S.R. Hirsch understood Yetzer harah and God’s free will (based on his commentary to Genesis 6:5).
The Hebrew word yetzer doesn’t mean “inclination” or “instinct” at all, but rather “that which is formed” (since “yotzer” is the one who forms, “yetzer” would be that which he formed). The “one who forms” in this context is our souls, our personalities, which are constantly and creatively envisioning plans and ideas. These plans, once imagined, can indeed tempt us to carry them out, but they are only of our own creation. Good plans which we weave in our minds will tempt us to do good (because of Adam’s unspoiled and uncorrupted state before the sin that was the more natural path to follow – perhaps in that sense it might not be incorrect to call it “natural”). Evil plans will tempt us to evil. But it’s all of our own making and it’s all something within out power to direct.
Does God have a Yetzer HaRa to assert his Free Will?
Remarkably, Rabbi Hirsch says something similar on the next verse: “and God reconsidered that He had made man…” Rabbi Hirsch feels that the necessary need to remove any material association from our understanding of God should not be taken so far as to remove all sense of His personality and free will. I’m not sure it’s quite true to actually ascribe yetzer hara to God, but He most certainly does have free will.
And if God does not need a Yetzer HaRa to assert his Free Will, why does humanity (formed in the image of God) need a Yetzer Hara to have Free Will?
As we’ve said above, it is, of course, our free-willed choices that create our yetzer hara, and such bad choices just aren’t made my God. In a sense, the yetzer hara is a product of free will, not a part of it! > Isn’t making God the creator of an Evil Impulse making God the source > of sin, pain and suffering?
Again (as I’m sure you will now anticipate), God just gave us the ability to choose, we add the evil on our own.
Wouldn’t that make Yezter HaRa closely related to the concept of original sin, even created by that sin?
As much as I understand it, the Christian concept of Original Sin proposes that man has fallen into a state in which he is compelled to do evil and can find redemption only through the undeserved agency of some divine being. It is this that so horrified Rabbi Hirsch in the mistranslation of “yetzer” as “inclination” – as though we have a pathological compulsion to do evil. Torah, on the other hand, teaches that we have every bit the same ability to chose and chose correctly now as ever before, but that the right choice might be a bit harder since we’re so attracted by the burden of all of our previous corrupt plans.
With my very best wishes,
Rabbi Boruch Clinton
Ottawa, Canada
Comment by ATR — July 19, 2007 @ 9:27 pm