[Avodah] Was Esav a Rasha in the womb?

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 06:27:20PM +0200, Marty Bluke wrote:
: The Maharal says the following about Esav (Gur Aryeh on the pasuk
...
: Where is the free will here? Esav did not yet have a Yetzer Hara yet
: he wants to go to Avoda Zara?

I already asked the same question of people born with bad tempers or
with a taavah for MZ. Eisav was similarly afflicted, but in the realm of
AZ.

And I raised the question with a friend in shul. His answer, although
unsourced, appears to be compelling:

The yh"r arrives when the child is born. As Rashi (Qoheles 4:13) says,
it's tied to "lapesach chattas roveitz" (Ber 5:7). (I think his source
is Bereishis Rabba 34.) This is before there is a yh"r. So it would
seem that the yh"r is not taavah, not if they are caused by chemicals
and neurology.

Rather, it's that which tells the person to give in to those taavos. 
As RYS identifies it with the koach hadimyon. Which perhaps means the
yh"r isn't the desire, it's the fantasies we build around them. (Which
then reinforce them, make them insurmountable, etc...)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to
micha at aishdas.org        suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
http://www.aishdas.org                 -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)
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