Shalom. Many people are familiar with the Freudian idea of the id, the ego, and the superego. I am going to explain that from a rabbinic perspective. In ancient times, our sages believed in two aspects of the human personality, the yetzer hatov and the yetzer hara. The yetzer hatov means the good inclination and the yetzer hara means the bad inclination. Roughly speaking, the yetzer hatov would be everything that is kind of spiritual, angelic, and the yetzer hara would be everything that is mammalian, an animal about us. But it is not necessarily that the yetzer hara which roughly is equivalent to the id and Freud’s pattern is a bad thing.
In fact, there is a wonderful Midrash that states, that when God saw the world, and so it was very good, Rabbi Meyer says, what God saw that was very good was the evil inclination, why? Because without it clearly, there would be no progressed. That is the source and aspect propels us towards procreation and acquisition, and progress, and development, and building. The problem is, it can get to be too overwhelmed that leads to hedonism, and, if you would see my video on Asceticism and Hedonism.
And that the yetzer hara gets too overwhelming it can lead to asceticism, to denial of the things that we are permitted. So basically Judaism said, that is why we need the Torah, that is why we need the Mitzvah, that is why we need Halacha, the Jewish law to bail us properly, so that we do not get excessive in either direction of the yetzer hara and yetzer hatov, both are necessary and both can be beautiful, and they are part of what it means to be human.
In fact, when the creation story says that, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. One contemporary Midrash says that, who would whom is God speaking in the garden? God is speaking to the animals, and so human beings are a composite of animal and godliness. Now, one of the keys in life those where we get in to most trouble is by a failure to hid our yetzer hatov. And I think the key is that we all know we have a yetzer hatov and when we are going do something, which is excessive and violates the fundamental ideas of God in the Torah which we all do from time to time, sadly, but that is human nature.
The key is to pay close attention to our yetzer hatov, the stillest small voice in our head saying, do not do it, this is not proper, we tend to ignore it, but this is what should be done. I went a couple of this with an editorial that was in the Chicago Tribune today, about annual doctor visits, and the point of the essay in the editorial was, that when you have a doctor visit or annual check up, the doctor does not just check your blood pressure, he asks you questions like, do you smoke? Do you wear seatbelt? Do you use a bike helmet when you ride your bike? Many questions just to design to tests to see how we are doing in various aspects of our life and that point of the Tribune editorial which I like very much was that, we should really pay attention to the questions we have got and the answers we give. And it is like a Yam Kippur for a Jew on annual basis, we were supposed to do a spiritual inventory of our lives. How we are measuring up against the system? So, we list all of this sins that we commit, or that are committed by people, and saying how we are doing a comparison to that.
And so, on a regular daily basis of prayer, and a weekly basis of Shabbat prayer, or the yearly basis of the High Holidays, we need to constantly assess ourselves by the stillest small voice, how are we doing, and what are we saying? But we should, everyday, and every moment of our lives, aspire to listen to that yetzer hatov to avoid the dangers of yetzer hara. But again, it is not that, those things are evil, they are a part of what is to be human, and the Torah gives us opportunities to enjoy, it is just that we need a proper balance.
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