What is the source of evil series#

Learn more about life in truth-20th-century poets on evil. The resistance of the rabbis to more theologically radical pictures of evil-like the Christian Satan, for example-and their similar resistance to depictions of the history of human evil in terms of calamities, like the Christian notion of the Fall, makes evil an intrinsic part of human nature in a certain sense.

ThereвЂ™s a deep insight being communicated, especially when it comes to the Rabbinic traditionвЂ™s focus on the minutiae of life, such as simple decency rather than moral heroism. Some critics of Judaism will argue that Judaism in some ways is too focused on the mundane commandments to do one thing or another. ItвЂ™s not simply a momentary thing about evil in the Jewish tradition. This focus on everyday temptations is really important. The implications of this psychology make humans less caught in a kind of vast, metaphysical melodrama and more a matter of the handling of the everyday temptations that humans encounter all around them. Rabbinic Understanding of HumansД¬lassical Rabbinic understanding of these categories still profoundly influences Jewish thought about evil today. Learn more about Montaigne and Pascal-evil and the self. What the rabbis read that as for the yetzer ha-ra is specifically the struggle not to remove the yetzer ha-ra, not to send it off like Cain (a restless wanderer), but rather to make it a beneficial part of ordinary life. In the same way, the story of Cain and Abel reveals this when God says: вЂњSin is crouching at your door it seeks to master you, but you must master it.вЂќ ThatвЂ™s the danger of the yetzer ha-ra-not its bare existence, but when it comes to overmastering the person. (Image: Lucian Milasan/Shutterstock)ДЄlthough the evil impulse can be a part of life that supports and enables, it can be excessively partial and caught up in self-interest and greed. The story of Cain and Abel shows the impulse of evil.

What is the source of evil series#

This is a transcript from the video series Why Evil Exists. The evil impulse, in some ways, seems to be at times the source of self-interest, even self-interest properly construed.

The yetzer ha-ra is the impulse in humans enabling people to build a house, marry, have children, and engage in business. HereвЂ™s one way, because it turns out that this evil impulse, the yetzer ha-ra, is actually not so bad after all in some dimensions. So, even as it resists a kind of metaphysical dualism of the combat myth, this Jewish tradition is going to begin to try to figure out ways to resist an over-dramatization of evil as well. But now, Jewish thought is silently influenced/inflected by a desire to distinguish itself from Christian thinking.

The rabbis in particular, and Jewish tradition in general, are always shadowed by the resistance to the Ancient Near Eastern combat myths. (Image: tomertu/Shutterstock) One Way to Resist an Over-Dramatization of Evil According to Jewish tradition, evil is not a devilish force. That would make it more like the Satan of the pre-Genesis Ancient Near East and appeal to a kind of combat myth or metaphysical dualism. Nonetheless, no rabbi has ever suggested this was actually any sort of rival to God. By Charles Mathewes, Ph.D., University of Virginia Some rabbis believe the evil impulse is a personified agency.