The Evil Inclination versus the Good Inclination הרע‎ צרי-Yetzer Hara versus טוב צרי-Yetzer Tov

Before I begin this posting, I must say I am greatly indebted to Mr. Tom Bradford of the Torah Class (www.torahclass.com) for his enlightened teachings on a subject that has been a basic staple of Judaism since its inception. In following Mr. Bradford’s line of thought, I am going to get a little scientific here, so please bear with me.

Okay, first let me start off by stating that our universe has been created in such a way that everything in it must have its own opposite. For example, if there is an up, there must be a down, if there is black, there must be white. In the field of electro-magnetics, if there is a positive charge by default there must be a negative charge. Or if there is day, there must be light etcetera. This phenomenon is called “The Principle of Opposites.”

Hence, given this immutable principle of opposites woven into the very fabric of the universe, if there is good, there has also got to be evil. No two ways about it.

So are you saying that G-d created evil?

Let me first answer that question with the following portions of Scripture:

“I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am the LORD, that doeth all these things.” Isaiah 45:7

“Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good?”-Lamentations 3:38

“Shall the horn be blown in a city, and the people not tremble? Shall evil befall a city, and the LORD hath not done it?”-Amos 3:6

So in a nutshell, yes. G-d did create evil but not in the way you maybe think he did. If you recall from previous teachings concerning light and darkness, darkness is simply what results when G-d’s light is absent. It is not manufactured in the way that light is. The creation of good and evil works the same way. Evil was the default result of good being created. It wasn’t manufactured.

Okay. Now that that has been established, let’s move on to the next point. When G-d created man, He gave him “freewill”. In other words, He gave man the capacity to make moral choices. If he hadn’t, if he had just programmed man to follow G-d’s rules minus any choices, we would all simply be robots. Think about it, the only reason something becomes a moral choice is because the opportunity to make an immoral choice also exists. Therefore, this brings us to the following conclusion:

When G-d gave man the ability to make positive moral choices, by default the ability to make negative moral choices also had to exist. That was the risk G-d in His wisdom had decided to take or we would all have been made mindless robots.

Hence, residing within all of us is a good inclination, the “yetser tov” and an evil inclination, the “yetser harah”. And those two natures are constantly at war with each other and will be until the end of this age.

So how can we ensure that our evil inclination doesn’t get the better of us? By walking in the Spirit provided to us via Y’shua’s sacrifice.

“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of your yetser harah.” Galatians 5:16

Amen