Hilary<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u00a0was taught\u00a0that we are created innocent, with the potential for both great good and great evil.\u00a0The Hebrew is Yetzer Ha-Rah, impulse to evil, and Yetzer Ha-Tov, impulse for good.\u00a0 The word impulse isn\u2019t very accurate though, because \u2018yetzer\u2019 means more than that.\u00a0 It also means \u2018formation\u2019 as in the very formative powers of creation.\u00a0 It\u2019s the word of creation itself, in Genesis 2:7, \u201cAnd God fashioned the man \u2013 the dust from the soil -\u201d in Hebrew it\u2019s \u201cV\u2019yi-yetzer YHVH Elohim et ha-adam\u201d\u00a0 V\u2019 \u2013 and, yi\u2019yetzer \u2013 created, YHVH Elohim \u2013 God,\u00a0 et ha-adam \u2013 the primordial ha-adam that all humans are descended from.\u00a0Usually the word \u2018yetzer\u2019 is spelled with only one yod\/y, but here it is spelled with two yods, yi\u2019yetzer.\u00a0 The Talmudic rabbis translated this to mean\u00a0that in our very formation we are created with both yetzers, good and evil. I also know they taught that we\u2019re born with a yetzer ha-ra, but the yetzer hatov doesn\u2019t develop until a child is 13 years old, which is why children can be so selfish, self-centered, and sneaky.\u00a0 Then again,\u00a0the more kids get raised with\u00a0gentle parenting and empathy the\u00a0earlier the yetzer hatov develops as they learn to mirror back the trust, love and kindness they get from their parents.<\/p>\n To say that we are created with \u2018evil\u2019 again isn\u2019t very accurate.\u00a0 The yetzer ha-rah is often used as a synonym for the sex drive and sexuality, but it isn\u2019t quite that or just that.\u00a0 It\u2019s the drive for life itself, the animal urge to eat, sleep, grow, be safe, have territory, have sex.\u00a0 Those desires aren\u2019t considered \u2018evil\u2019 in and of themselves, but they are without a conscience, a-moral\u00a0instead of\u00a0im-moral.\u00a0 This yetzer, this formative\u00a0impulse to survive can so easily be turned to evil without a tempering yetzer hatov.\u00a0 A sex drive isn\u2019t evil, but it can so easily be corrupted, and uncontrolled\u00a0or\u00a0repressed\u00a0it can\u00a0bring great evil and pain into people\u2019s lives.\u00a0 But as painful as it can be, it\u2019s necessary and part of being fully human. Likewise the desire to be safe isn\u2019t wrong, yet our fear for our safety can easily be manipulated against us and against people who aren\u2019t really hurting us \u2013 or who\u00a0are also hurt and afraid\u00a0for themselves, and reacting\u00a0from their own\u00a0yetzer for safety.<\/p>\n There is a story\u00a0I know\u00a0about some rabbis who were very upset at all the evil they saw around them.\u00a0 They believed God had made a mistake in creating humans with a yetzer ha-rah, so they went up into a mountain and prayed, prayed, and prayed some more, \u201d\u00a0Adonai Eloheinu, please\u00a0remove the yetzer ha-rah from us so that there will be an end to pain and suffering.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Adonai was so impressed at their piety that\u00a0he actually did that, and withdrew the yetzer ha-rah from people.\u00a0 But when the rabbis came down off the mountain and went back into the villages and cities, instead of finding peace and paradise, they found stagnation.\u00a0 Nobody got married, fell in love, plowed a field, ran a business, or built a new home.\u00a0 Reluctantly they asked God to bring the yetzer ha-rah back into the world when they realized that without it nobody would get anything done.<\/p>\n (Shout out to Firefly fans: this is like what happened in the movie \u2018Serenity\u2019 where Mal and his crew find out what happened on the planet Miranda, that the Alliance tried to make a world without sin by using the chemical Pax. Instead of peace most of the population laid down and died.\u00a0 Except for those who became Reavers.)<\/p>\n Sin in Judaism isn\u2019t something we are born tainted\u00a0with, it\u2019s missing the mark, not doing what we should or doing what we shouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 It\u2019s action or inaction, not the innate state of our souls for no longer being in Eden. Or like Ki Sarita said earlier\u00a0it\u2019s not following mitzvot, not keeping all the laws of purity, ritual and ethical behavior that God told us to do in the Torah, expounded upon with great length in the Talmud and everything else. After all there are only 613 of them. (3)<\/p>\n Built into the system of laws and commandments, Torah and Mitzvot, are ways of reparing the damage caused by sin.\u00a0 From the records in the Torah\u00a0it used to be\u00a0the system of sacrifices.\u00a0 For Rabbinic Judaism of the last 2,000 years\u00a0it is the threefold system of prayer, return to correct behavior, and reparative justice for our wrong actions or giving to charity\u00a0that we\u2019ve talked about. You know someone has truly repented of their sin when they are confronted with the opportunity to do it again and refrain from doing so.<\/p>\n How well does\u00a0this system work?\u00a0Your Mileage Will Vary to the\u00a0Nth\u00a0degree. (emphasis mine).\u00a0 What Ki Sarita said earlier about obsessive levels of minutia is true,\u00a0from what I\u2019ve read and learned about keeping an\u00a0Orthodox life (1) style it seems like every detail of everything you do has a prescribed right way to\u00a0do it with a couple hundred years\u00a0or more of commentary involved.\u00a0 In Reform the autonomy to decide what level of observance you want to do\u00a0can lead to\u00a0some well thought out and meaningful choices or to almost nothing at all just from ignorance or inertia and anywhere in between. Mitzvah, singular, and mitzvot, plural, mean commandment\/s (2).\u00a0 This is what we are commanded to do, or not do, although at my end it often gets used as a compliment or\u00a0generally meant as a good deed (4).\u00a0 Like visiting your grandmother in the hospital is a real\u00a0mitzvah, or donating to the mitzvah food shelf, or dropping off hats, scarves and mittens is a mitts-vah (sorry, bad pun).<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0http:\/\/www.torah.org\/features\/ 2.\u00a0http:\/\/www.myjewishlearning. 3.\u00a0http:\/\/www.jewfaq.org\/613.htm<\/a><\/p>\n 4.\u00a0http:\/\/urj.org\/socialaction\/ As with any other human endeavor it\u2019s success\u00a0depends on the level of integrity, compassion, and flexibility to deal with real life. The problem is that the further\u00a0you go into\u00a0orthodoxy, ultra-orthodoxy and into fundamentalism the less\u00a0room there is for flexibility and empathy, but that\u2019s true of most human systems not just Judaism, or even religion in general.<\/p>\n I do believe in the yetzer ha-ra and yetzer hatov.\u00a0 Not because of how the word \u2018yetzer\u2019 is written in the\u00a0Torah, but because I see it in humanity.\u00a0That humans have a profound capacity for evil is obvious, but we also have a profound capacity for goodness as well, and to deny either one is to be less than fully human and dangerous.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n Anat<\/strong><\/p>\n Isn\u2019t yetser hara\u2019 very close to Freud\u2019s id?<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n Rachel<\/strong><\/p>\n Anat, it\u2019s been suggested several times that the id and the yetzer hara are linked, but it\u2019s not clear if Freud intended it to be read as such \u2014 the id is part of a three-part psyche within a person (id, ego, and superego) where id is unchecked desire and impulse, the superego is morality and criticism, and the ego is trying to satisfy the id\u2019s needs in a way that won\u2019t get it yelled at by the superego, so all three are linked internally. The yetzer hara and yetzer hatov, however, are considered to be more or less outside of the self, allowing one to make free choice between whether to use your natural desires to do good or to do evil. In Freudian psychology, correct me if I\u2019m wrong but I believe the superego can be the part of the psyche causing issues if it\u2019s not allowing desires to be expressed: following the yetzer hara\/yezer hatov model, you can only go wrong by following the yetzer hara. (You may be *boring* by following the yetzer hatov, but not wrong.)<\/p>\n Basically, you know those cartoon angels and devils, one on each shoulder, one urging you to do good and one urging you to do bad? That\u2019s the yetzer hara and yetzer tov. And you have free will \u2014 you can do good or do evil, it\u2019s all up to you.<\/p>\n (To follow Hilary\u2019s example of Serenity and the Pax: we do not hold to the idea that you can make someone \u201cbetter\u201d by surgically removing the yetzer hara; we prefer free will for all, even if it leads to negative consequences here on Earth, and do not think that this world is supposed to be \u201ca world without sin.\u201d Huh, wonder if Joss Whedon knew about the yetzer hara?)<\/p>\n Disagree with where Hilary sourced the concept of \u201cyetzer hara\u201d, though \u2014 the \u201cinclinations of man toward evil\u201d are referenced early in Genesis, in the story of Noah and the Flood. I would say that while the existence of the yetzer hara is considered necessary, it\u2019s not considered benign.<\/p>\n To get back to the earlier discussion (and poor Libby, who has to edit this into something linearly consistent) \u2014 I love the version of Ani Ma\u2019amin that Ki Sarita posted. (When I was in a choir, we sang a different arrangement \u2014\u00a0http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/ \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n Anat<\/strong><\/p>\n Rachel, you can live a boring life following only \u2018yetzer hatov\u2019, but it will also be a very short life. And if everyone did so humanity will come to an end very soon. See Hilary\u2019s post. Those aren\u2019t her idiosyncratic views. It is very common to refer to all sexual urges as \u2018yetzer hara\u2019, and by extension all strong urges for pleasure and self-actualization.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n Rachel<\/strong><\/p>\n Anat, I always thought that the yetzer hara was considered to be the \u201cperversion\u201d of the sexual urge \u2014 \u00a0i.e., that which leads to sexual abuse, adultery, perhaps even sex for non-procreative purposes. It doesn\u2019t make sense for all sex to be considered evil, but the indulgence in sex over other priorities could easily be seen as \u201cthe evil inclination\u201d. Thinking of all sex as evil is ridiculous: you\u2019re supposed to have sex. \u00a0(And for those who cry, \u201ccitation needed!\u201d, here you go:\u00a0http:\/\/www.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2013\/06\/Jewish-baby.jpg\" "\\"Jewish")
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