Book Reviews

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THE GOOD INCLINATION


The following is derived from my recent book publication The Good Inclination. “The rabbinic duality of yetzer hara, the so-called ‘evil inclination,’ and yetzer hatov, ‘the good inclination,’ is more subtle that the names connote” (“The Birth of the Good Inclination,” My Jewish Learning.com). As for the former, it consists of “a drive toward pleasure or property or security, which if unlimited, can lead to evil.” However, when constrained by the good inclination, “it leads to many socially desirable results: including marriage, business, and community.”
Expressed differently, “Life is good. Wherefore a man should treasure it, not despise it; affirm and not deny it, have faith in it and never despair of the possibilities. For behind it is God” (Milton Seinberg, Basic Judaism, p. 59). So it is said that God will inquire of persons why they did not enjoy some aspect of life or another, rather than forgoing it.
Even so, there is a condition. “Life is good and man can find it such, provided—and this is the great condition to everything else—that it is properly lived.” In this regard, “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess” (Deut. 30:15-16).
There exists two ways, concerning the righteous and the wicked. “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psa. 1:1). “The righteous are those who choose God’s way as opposed to their own. They do not negotiate life alone, whether from good intent or not, hoping for the beast and inevitably falling short” (Morris Inch, Devotions With David, p. 5).
“Walk, stand, and sit imply progression. Rabbi Akiba observed that the evil inclination is at first “like a thread and at last it is like a rope of a ship.’ Of similar intent, Rabbi Isaac declared: ‘At first is it a wayfarer and lodges, at last it becomes the master of the house.’”
“Rather than yield to wickedness, the righteous ‘delight in the law of the Lord, and in his he mediates day and night’ (v. 2) Rabbi Hannal concurred: ‘As long as you occupy yourselves with the Laws the yetzer will rule over you.’ It is as we immerse ourselves in God’s word that we can resist the evil that temps us. Otherwise stated, it creates an immunity system that resists the incursion of evil.”
“The righteous are ‘like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither’ (v. 3). In its season implies natural growth. Whose leaf does not wither suggests resistance to drought. Taken together, life characteristically prospers.”
“The wicked conversely ‘are like chaff that the wind blows away’ (v. 4). Thus the grain is separated from the chaff. The latter consequently appears rootless, weightless, and useless. Whereupon, the psalmist summarily concludes that ‘the wicked will not stand in the judgment, or sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish’” (vv. 5-6). It remains to choose between the alternatives.
While the good inclination is a relatively subtle tradition, it is grounded in humans being created in God’s image (cf. Gen. 1:27). Consequently, to serve as stewards of creation. Thus as an invitation to explore how the rabbi tracked this critical feature concerning the path of the righteous Gentile, and then to explore it in other contexts. This eventually touches on a variety of topics, such as: The High God, concerning whom Paul declared: “Now what you worship as something unknown, I am going to proclaim to You” (Acts 17:23), and Citizen Christians, of whom it is said that they live in the world but not of the world. (This text is available at E-Book Time or at Amazon, in both print and E-book format.)

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