[Avodah] Yetzer HoRa Issues

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, December 4, 2006 9:25 pm, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote:
: Apropos my essay on the topic of Pinocchio as a paradigm of Jewish
: Education ..., I have been asked to address the ... Chazal (Koheles Rabbah
: 4:15)... viz., that while  one is  born with his or her yetzer ho'ra, the
: yetzer ha'tov only begins its development at the age of bar or bas
: mitzvah....

"Begins development" isn't the lashon in QR.

But in any case, IMHO, what does the Pinocchio essay imply about having a
yeitzer hatov? That as long as one is easily swayed by an outside authority he
isn't really responding to a yeitzer hatov as much as a Jiminy Cricket -- even
if it goes by the titles "mom, dad and rebbe". One obeys one's parents and
authority figures out of either a reward-punishment system or a Freudian
superego recording "proper behavior", but one's ability to act on a desire of
wanting to do good is obscured by wanting to conform to expectation.

: 6.     What happens at thirteen that makes the yetzer ha'tov come to
: life?  Is it biological? Is it related to sexual development?  Is it social?

With adolecence, the child realizes that the world doesn't stop if they don't
conform. Jiminy Cricket lost his voice. For many teens, this leads to teenage
rebellion, testing the limits. But it also for the first time opens up the
possibility of doing good because of an internal calling. There is finally
room in the psyche for the yeitzer hatov to move in.

I have used the above thought, with references to the Pinocchio essay, in
Shabbos morning derashos (2 shuls, 2 derashos).

This would explain how the child has a yeitzer hatov in the sense learning
Torah in the womb, but isn't not called *having* a yeitzer hatov until years
later. And it would also explain Rashi on Rivqa's difficult pregnancy, which
implies that Yaaqov and Eisav already had inclinations. Even the yeitzer hara
doesn't develop until birth -- Antoninus and Rebbe on Sanhedrin 91b.

Even with the above mehalakh totally changing the implication of the ma'amar
Chazal, we would still need to separately address Rav Assi's (Vay' Rabba 1:1)
concept of starting learning miqra with Vayiqra because the tehorim should
learn taharos. It would seem that someone who has a yeitzer hara and no
yeitzer hatov can still be more tahor than the rest of us! What then does
taharah mean when used as a middah or attribute of a neshamah (rather than a
halachic state)?

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter