[Avodah] Yetzer HoRa Issues

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, December 20, 2006 7:54 pm, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
:> So it would seem to me that people consistently define YH as a
:> yeitzer whose results tend to be evil: impulsivity, unbridled
:> imagination (both in contrast to seichel), hedonism (in contrast
:> to sanctity), etc... Not one whose actions are defined as a draw
:> to evil itself.

: Great! Now, we can attempt to fine-tune it a bit...

This is already a difference in focus. You're looking to construct a
definition of YhR (shifting the acronym to make room for YhT), whereas I'm
looking at definitions provided by ba'alei mesorah. Even though it's closest
to

: The way I put it was that the YH is a drive to do the things which
: one understands to be evil, regardless of whether or not they
: actually *are* evil.

: I must confess to having reservations about that definition.

I do as well. Which may explain why I didn't see it when looking at meqoros.
Even though "a drive to do evil" as I think it's defined would be the more
literal translation.

: Can it really be that a person is driven to do things which he
: himself considers to be evil?
...
: Rather, someone who is controlled by his yetzer hara is someone who
: does what he wants, for reasons which appeal to him. It's not that he
: is *trying* to be evil, but that he doesn't *care* whether he is
: doing right or wrong. Or, more precisely, he defines "good" in his
: own way -- will this benefit his family, his friends, himself --
: without caring whether or not G-d or society deem it to be good or
: evil.

: Es chato'ai ani mazkir hayom -- How often have I said, or thought, "I
: really ought to be doing ABC, and not XYZ, but I just don't care."

The question, LAD, is what kind of "good" he is pursuing. Tov lema'achal is
also "tov", and people do knowingly satisfy that ta'avah while fully aware
that they ought to be choosing otherwise. Yes, every choice is motivated by
incentive (to borrow a phrase from some economics textbook or another), which
means that every choice has some value by the way it was measured. The
measurement could be wrong, the value could be inferior to the value lost on
some other axis. But if he could see it were ra in every way, the person
wouldn't choose it.

My favorite example is getting up in the morning. I am fully capable of
knowing that I'm choosing to roll over rather than make it to minyan, and yet
still roll over. Because I'm choosing "tov lema'achal" (well, tov on a
physical axis) over

That is what I think motivates shitah #1.

1- Impulsivity vs seikhel: In this model, the YhR is impulsivity, acting on
the ta'avah without allowing the "I ought" to filter our actions.

And from there, it's a short step to #2:

2- Dimyon vs seikhel: Velo sasuru acharei levavkhem ve'acharei eineikhem.
Dimyon, whether of things imagined (levavkhem) or seen (eineikhem), is the
direct ancestor of ta'avah.

I think these two models really differ in that looking at impulsivity means
that one is focusing on a lack of filtering being the primary cause of
following ta'avos. Whereas in the second model, it's an issue of choosing the
ta'avah.

There are the times when that choice would create such cognitive dissonance
that the ta'avah clouds our judgement and we construct rationalizations.
Impulsivity doesn't quite cover it. (Perhaps it's about impulsively making the
decision, before the seikhel is fully involved, and then letting it lead the
seikhel.) The dimyon model better fits the notion of dimyon leading the
seikhel astray. But these models are weak in this regard.

But in any case, perhaps I should have numbered them 1a and 1b because I think
they are both really different etiologies for ta'avah vs seichel.


RYS opens the Igeres haMussar "Ha'adam chafshi bedimyono ve-assur bemuskalo", 
and then lamenting how dimyon could lead one away from din. As I recently
wrote in my blog <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2006/12/ruach-memalela.shtml>
sec. 3, I think this is best mapped to the YhR-YhT dialectic by identifying
the YhR with the freedom of dimyon, not with dimyon itself. As I wrote here in
a comment that spawned that blog entry, nevu'ah involves dimyon too. But once
you make dimyon its own master, it becomes a lo sosuru problem.

The problem I have with both of these models is that it presumes that the
seichel is on the right track. RYS is speaking to someone who knows there is a
yom hadin, but can be distracted from it by dimyon. They both fail to describe
the problems that lead to epicureanism (as it evolved, not Epicurus's version)
-- "eat drink and be merry", "wine women and song" or "sex, drugs and
rock-n-roll", where someone is convinced it's logical to pursue ta'avah. Would
you call this following the YhT? Are they arguing the position is inherently
irrational, and can only be reached by enslaving seichel to ta'avah?

3- Rav Hirsch doesn't identify this with YhR vs YhT, but his writings
repeatedly refer to the choice between man's higher calling vs his more
bestial nature. It's kind of like ruchnius vs gashmius, except that it doesn't
carry connotations of man correctly identifying what his calling is. Thus it's
also not quite tov vs. ra; for that matter, even ruchnius vs gashmius itself
wouldn't be.

This is also very central to Victor Frankel's pyschological model. As his
book's title presumes, man has a quest for Meaning no less innate than his
quest for physical pleasures. That meaning could be defined religiously, or it
could be like his description of his own drive to make it through the camp in
Terezin just to see his wife again. But it's a drive to live for more than
just myself.

This then feeds the Gra's version of Naran, and leads into one of my pet
topics (discussed here and on Aspaqlaria ad nauseum).

I think my preferance for this last model shined through in how I treated
each. But they're models -- oversimplified metaphors that explain meaningful
chunks of a bigger problem. Just because the models contradict doesn't mean
they are necessarily disputing about the nature of the thing being described.
It's a big elephant; each blind man describes his part. They describe
different aspects of the whole.


Looking at the linguistics:

First, "yeitzer" means "that which causes a tzurah", not "inclination".

Second, I raised question in the past: Do we say "yetzer hara" or "hayetzer
hara"? I find both quite often. However, a semichut wouldn't get a hei
hayedi'ah on the first word. "Beis haMiqdash" not "haBeis haMiddash". So,
"YhR" would be "the form-giver of evil". On the other hand, "hYhR" would be
noun and adjective, where both do get the prefix, and would be calling the YhR
the more evil of the two yetzarim.

IOW, it is within simple peshat of the words to talk about hYhR being an
inclination which gives a shape to one's actions that happens to be more often
destructive than that of hYhT. But only if both words take the hei hayedi'ah.

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