Sexuality in Jewish Law and Tradition 25

POSITIVE ROLE OF THE YETZER HARA

This impulse created in man is not intrinsically evil. It continually tempts him to sin throughout his life, but he has a choice whether to follow this temptation. The Torah tells us that when God looked upon the finished creation and saw that it was all“very good” (tov meod)(Gen. 1:31), the whole nature of man is included in this judgment. R. Samuel ben Nahman'® observed:“Behold it was very good, this is the yetzer hara.” An objection was raised:“ Is then the evil impulse good?! Yet were it not for the evil impulse, no one would build a house, nor marry a wife, nor beget children, nor engage in a trade.” Solomon said:“All labor and all excelling in work is one’s rivalry with his neighbor.”

George Foot Moore , a Christian scholar of rabbinic literature, commented:“The appetites and passions are an essential element in the constitution of human nature, and necessary to the perpetuation of the race and to the existence of civilization. In this aspect, they are therefore not to be eradicated or suppressed, but directed and controlled. Considered from the other side, as the tempter within that draws men away from the commandments and leads them into sin, the impulses are to be combated and subdued.”*

LIBIDO

There is a similarity or parallel between the yefzer and the libido, a concept originated by Sigmund Freud to signify the instinctual physiological or psychic energy associated with sexual urges. In his later writings he identified the libido with all constructive human activity. This observation is very close to the Midrash of R. Samuel b. Nahman above.?? Furthermore, we noted that two thousand years before Freud revealed his concept of infant eroticism and sexuality the rabbis taught that the yetzer begins in early infancy,. It