Rusty's Armory

Yetzir Hara ~ יֵצֶר הַרַע

Posted on November 4, 2018 Updated on November 4, 2018

“While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

And so it is the first day of the week again. Waffle day, as we say in this household. And maybe beef sausages. I think I have some canned pears in the larder, and maybe they should be used up. But I can’t start until the last sip of coffee. I just realized I have another half hour of grace to prepare breakfast, being that daylight savings time is rescinded today.

Thoughts of man’s evil inclination, yetzir hara in the Hebrew, follow me today, along with a myriad of other passages of exhortation. It is a difficult struggle, and I don’t believe man has the individual capacity to rise very far above it. It is like discouraging a rattlesnake from biting.

Yet there seems to be a kernel in mankind that separates good from evil that is unlike the soul of an animal. An animal neither chooses good nor evil but is rather the penultimate existentialist. From time to time mankind hears an inner voice that commands them to choose. The key phrase seems to be from time to time. Certainly, there are directions from the holy writs in proper living and choosing good over evil, but for each of us, there is a point when where we stand before God, and it is there where we choose.

*sip!

OK … that reverie is now busted.

I have many ambitions for this day … it will be a good day if I accomplish just one of them.

Good morning!