[Avodah] Yetzer HoRa Issues - warning - - Long Post

[David Riceman]

From: "David Riceman" <driceman at worldnet.att.net>

> You might try the (fairly ancient) identification of the yetzer hatov with 
> the koah hasechel and the yetzer hara with the koah hadimyon.

I guess I was too cryptic.  I'll try to expand this.  Aristotle (N.E. 1095a) 
gives two reasons that only older people should study ethics.  First, 
because young people lack the necessay experience, and second, because young 
people are overly swayed by their passions.

To understand the first reason read Terence Irwin's book about Aristotle's 
ethics.  He argues that Aristotle's methodology (similar to Socrates as 
portrayed in Plato's early dialogues) is to start with commonly accepted 
preimises, and by subtle analysis get these to yield univeral truths.  It 
follows that before you study ethics you need to know the commonly accepted 
rules of popular ethics.

There are close parallels in Torah: "ligros inish breisha v'hadar l'misbar". 
Rashi's understanding of the difference between Mishna (applied halacha) and 
Talmud (general principles of halacha) and the saying in Avoth "ben 10 
l'mishna ben 15 l'Talmud" are relevant as well.  The difference between us 
and Aristotle is that we don't reject the original premises, we only try to 
understand them.  See my citation of Rabbi Dessler below.

Aristotle's second reason is the subject of the ma'amar Hazal we're talking 
about, and the subject of my comment above.  Of course we all know that 
"yetzer hara" means different things in different contexts.  It's not always 
something bad, e.g. "bchol l'vavcha: b'shnei yitrecha".  Sometimes people 
react with their mind, and sometimes with their "gut".  My claim is that in 
the ma'amar Hazal in question the yetzer hara is the gut, and the yetzer 
hatov is the mind.

The Rambam (Shmona Perakim 2; cf. MN III:8) says that almost all sin is due 
to the passions and not to the intellect (he doesn't use those terms).  The 
problem with children, as Aristotle says, is not that they're evil, its that 
they're impetuous.  They act before they think.  They haven't yet learned to 
control their passions with their intellect.

The Rambam (SP 4 and H. Deoth 1:7) says that the way to control the passions 
is by practice.  There is, however, another approach.  Modern exponents 
include Rabbi Ziv(in Kithei HaSaba v'Talmidav MiKelm vol. 1 pp. 108-170 esp. 
p.158) and Rabbi Shapira (in Hachsharath HaAvreichim).  That is by imagining 
scences which impel one to the correct behavior, so that one is trained 
before one encounters the actual experience.

A classic case is the gemara in Berachos as understood by R. Zalman of 
Volozhin (in Toldoth Adam).  When Rabbi Akiva was being tortured to death he 
recited Krias Shma.  His students asked him how he could do it.  His reply 
was "miyamay nitzta'arti al mitzva zo".  R. Zalman understood that to mean 
that he imagined himself being tortured so often that when it happened he 
knew instinctively what to do.  His intellect had trained his passions by 
using the koah hatziyur.

Rabbi Dessler in one of his essays explains that a tzaddik cannot be someone 
who acts instinctively or by rote.  He has to have thought through his 
behavior before he does it (very Kelmian and also very Aristotelian).  The 
reason tzaddik ben tzaddik is greater than a tzaddik ben rasha is because 
its harder for him to become a tzaddik.  Someone growing up in the house of 
a rasha suffers cognitive dissonance, and feels impelled to find a better 
way of living.   Someone who grows up in the house of a tzaddik, however, 
has no real reason not just to imitate his parents thoughtlessly.  But 
thoughtless action is not tzidkus.

What Hazal were saying is that children, whether they act well or poorly, do 
so out of imitation and passion.  It's only around adolescence that they 
start analyzing why they do things and start to act in ways initiated by 
their intellect.

David Riceman