GEN232 The core issue, of course, is human nature. Things are not the problem—it’s our inclination to become overinvolved with material possessions and pleasures that we have to be aware of and attend to. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter acknowledges compassionately that this is just a feature of our earthly natures: “Insofar as man is a physical being – [this verse] – inclines to the material.  Therefore, he desires to “eat, drink, and be merry.”  He loves wealth and fortune, and longs for honor and domination. He is full of self-importance and seeks to delight in bodily comforts.’ The problem is that the allure of the material is endless, and ultimately the craving is insatiable.  ‘Man is immersed in this pursuit with all his heart and soul,” wrote Rabbi Salanter,’ – to gather and collect, to further his acquisitions and increase his property. There is no end to his longing.” Ohr Yisrael, 115.  As the sages of the midrash have written,” no one leaves this world with even half his desires refilled.”  Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:13.  What the Mussar masters decry is not the material world per se but our enslavement to it. … This is our predicament, and to guide us in dealing with it, the Mussar masters taught the virtue of living a more simple life, and being content with what you have.  MORINIS 117-8

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GEN234 It is basic to Jewish belief that man has within himself two conflicting desires.  At the beginning of Creation, the Torah alludes to this by describing the act of man’s creation, vayitzer, with two letters Yud, instead of one.  The Talmud Berachot 61a explains these double letters as the two conflicting drives within each man (the Hebrew word for drive, yetzer, begins with a Yud, and hence two drives).  AMEMEI 247 [Continued at [[DEUT209]] Deuteronomy 6:5 love AMEMEI 247].

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GEN233 Deep in rabbinic psychology, there is the idea that humanity was created with a yetser tov (good impulse) and a yetser ha-ra (evil impulse). “And God formed (Heb., va-yiitser) the human being from the dust of the earth” [this verse] – with two impulses, a good impulse and the evil impulse. Bereshit Rabba 14:4; shortened form in Talmud, Berakhot 61a]  COMMENT: The original biblical Hebrew text spells the word for “formed” with two letters yod, implying some sort of double creation.  The midrash develops this very elaborately; only the interpretation relevant to yetser tov and yetser ha-ra is cited here. BANAL 188-9

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GEN235 The Garden of Eden Story in the Book of Genesis provides us with a working philosophy of sex and love.  [This verse] states, “…the Lord formed [Hebrew, yatzar] man [Hebrew, adam] from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath [nishmat] of life, and man became a living being [nefesh hayah].” The Hebrew roots each have a dual meaning.  Yatzar literally means “create,” but its root has been interpreted in the rabbinic tradition to mean the human desire to create, including sexual desire.  N’shamah means “soul,” but with the addition of one letter, it also means “breath.”  From this, we understand that the combination of desire and soul makes us human.  In the rabbinic tradition, desire is divided into two distinct components: the good or transcendent desire and the bad, or survival- and ego-oriented desire.  Both are required to create the wholeness of desire. With the integrated brain, we have the integration of differentiated states depicted as lower and higher.  If we conceive of the bad and good desire as an image, it perfectly matches the tri-level sexual brain.  Our self-centered desire (consisting of greed, lust, desire for instant gratification, and attraction) represents the reptilian and mammalian parts of our brain, while the transcendent desire, which allows us to connect to others in a deeper way, represents our human brain.  When we add n’shamah (soul) into the equation, we bring the Divine element into our sexual interactions.  DORSEX 129

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GEN236 Why is “Vayitzer” written with two yods?  As R. Shimon b. Pazzi says: “Woe is me by virtue of my Creator [“Yotzri” – if I violate His will]; woe is me by virtue of my evil inclination [yitzri” – which it is painful to suppress.]”  Or, as R. Yirmiah b. Elazar says: “The Holy One Blessed be He created Adam with two visages, as it is written Psalms 139:4: ‘You formed me behind and before’” Berachot 61a. TEMIMAH-GEN 15

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GEN241 Although animals can often communicate nonverbally and some animals can even be taught sign language, no animal can speak in the manner of man or express complex ideas.  When man was created and became a unique “living being” after “God blew into his nostrils the soul of life” this unique living being, according to Onkelos’ commentary, was differentiated from animals by his ability to speak.  The Talmud and Midrash make note of this unique aspect of man.  Chagiga 16a; Midrash Tanchuma, Emor 15; Otzar Hamidrashim, “Ma’asim” 9 Man’s ability to speak also includes, by extension, his ability to write, to record his own history, and to analyze himself.  No other creature is capable of any of these attributes.  AMJV 94

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GEN244 See [[DEUT88]] Deuteronomy 4:9 watch BLOCH 242-3

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GEN237 (Continued from [[NUM44]] Numbers 6:11 guilt COHON 161-2). R. Jose teaches that “An individual is not allowed to afflict himself by fasting, for he might become dependent upon the public [by reason of incapacity for work] and find no mercy on their part.” The biblical grounds for his opinion is found in [this verse] "'And man became a living soul’; the Torah means to say, keep alive the soul which God gave you.” Taanit 22b, Tosafot Taanit 2:12  Fasting on the Sabbath was condemned as sinful. A fast day other than Yom Kippur which occurs on the Sabbath is postponed to Sunday.  The leaders of Hasidism fought excessive asceticism as a species of melancholy. The discipline which Judaism recommends must enhance and enrich life. Anything that blights life and its joys possesses no religious value.  COHON 162

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GEN239 The human being is an integrated whole, combining all aspects of our being. Western philosophical thought and Christianity have been heavily influenced by the Greek and Gnostic bifurcation of body and mind (or soul). In these systems of thought, the body is seen as the inferior part of human beings, either because it is what we share with animals, in contrast to the mind, which is distinctively human (Aristotle), or because the body is the seat of our passions and hence our sins Paul in Romans 6-8, esp. 6:12, 7:14-24, 8:3, 10, 12-13 and Galatians 5:16-24; see also 1 Corinthians 7:2,9,36-38. Even though the Greeks glorified the body in their art and sculpture, it was only because developing the body was seen as a means to an end, a necessary prerequisite to cultivating the mind (as, for example, in Plato’s pedagogic program in The Republic). Similarly, Paul regarded the body as “the temple of the Holy Spirit,” 1 Corinthians 6:19 but only because it serves to sustain the soul so that it can accept faith in Jesus; the body per se “makes me a prisoner of that law of sin which lives inside my body.” Romans 7:23  Such classical views have shaped Western and Christian traditions from ancient times to our own. In Christianity, Augustine, Luther, and Calvin followed the lead of Paul and maintained that the body’s needs are to be suppressed as much as possible; indeed, asceticism and monasticism have been important themes in Christian ideology and history. In secular philosophic thought, the “mind-body problem” continues to be a stock issue in philosophic literature, which asks how the two, presumed to be so different and separate, are related in some ways to each other. While some Jews (in particular, Philo Lewy et al. (1960), part 1, esp 42-51, 54-55, 71-75. He calls the body a “prison house” (72); and Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed, part 3, chap. 33) were heavily influenced by the doctrines of the people living around them, biblical and talmudic literature does not share in this understanding of the human being as divided into parts. In the Talmud and Midrash, our soul is, in some senses, separable from our body. For example, when the Torah describes God as breathing life into Adam’s body, rabbinic sources understand that to mean not only physical life but consciousness. God repeats that process each day by taking our souls away during sleep and returning them to us again when we awake. Moreover, at death, the soul leaves the body only to be reunited with it again at the time of resurrection [this verse, B. Ta’anit 22b, and Genesis Rabbah 14:9.]. Rabbinic sources conflict, however, as to whether the soul can exist apart from the body, and even those who say it can exist separately depict the soul in physical terms, capable of performing many of the functions of the body [footnotes omitted].  In any case, in sharp contrast to the Greek and Christian traditions, classical rabbinic sources maintain that the soul is definitely not superior to the body. Indeed, one rabbinic source speaks of the soul as a guest in the body here on earth: One’s host must accordingly be respected and well treated. Leviticus Rabbah 34:3  Moreover, since the Rabbis regarded the human being as an integrated whole, the body and the soul are to be judged as one.  B. Sanhedrin 91a-91b  Furthermore, the Rabbis’ recipe for life and their method for moral education reflect this integration of body and soul. Thus, although the Rabbis emphasized the importance of studying and following the Torah, even placing it on a par with all of the rest of the Commandments, M. Pe’ah 1:1, B. Kiddushin 40b they nonetheless believed that the life of the soul or mind by itself is not good, that it can, indeed, be the source of sin: “An excellent thing is the study of Torah combined with some worldly occupation, for the labor demanded by both of them causes sinful inclinations to be forgotten.  All study of Torah without work must, in the end, be futile and become the cause of sin.” M. Avot 2:1 Thus, while the Rabbis considered it a privilege to be able to study Torah, they themselves – or at least most of them -- earned their livelihood through bodily work, and they also valued the hard labor of the field worker who spent little time in the study of Torah. B. Berakhot 17a. DORFFLOV 23-4

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GEN238 [Targum Onkeles [this verse] translates “living being” as “a speaking being.”]  What Jack London said about writing is equally applicable to speaking: Pretend each word you use costs a thousand dollars.  It was the abuse rather than the use of speech that often advised silence.  As Orhot Zaddikim observes, “Humans were created with two eyes, two ears, and two nostrils, but only with one mouth because one should speak less.”  HTBAJ 195

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