GEN487 Why do human beings, uniquely equipped to do good, also do so much and such awful evil? We are badly conflicted: our angelic good impulse, our yetzer ha-tov, constantly tempted by a lusty urge to do evil, yetzer ha-ra.  Our spiritual sages reject a make-believe, everything-is-beautiful faith, insisting on a realistic understanding of human nature when they discuss the real traumas that people face. Yet as our hopeful … text [this verse] teaches, Jewish realism convinces us that God’s help makes our good inclination supreme.  Historically, few themes in Jewish belief have seen such extreme shifts of emphasis as this notion of the two inner urges. In some eras Jewish teachers verged on total pessimism; in other they enthusiastically embraced an optimistic view of human potential. In our time, with its terrible examples of social and individual perversity, we struggle to comprehend why some of our “best and brightest” also show a clear talent formalevolence. Some of us despair of the future, while others remain hopeful. Let us survey historical Jewish highlights that explore how our two yetzarim have influenced Jewish character.  The early chapters of Genesis deal with humanity’s formative experiences, laying the background for later biblical texts presenting the same theological viewpoint.  Cain discovers that merely offering a sacrifice will not assure him of God’s favor: “… if you do not do right, sin couches at the door; its urge is toward you…” Genesis 4:7.  We might think that this somewhat stern admonition from God would resolve the good-versus-evil struggle so blatant in Cain.  But what does Adam and Eve’s oldest child do next? He suggests to his brother Abel that they go into the fields together, where “Cain rose up against his brother and killed Abel” Genesis 4:8.  At first Cain’s conscience must bother him, since he tries to evade God’s inquiry about Abel’s whereabouts.  Yet his evil urge immediately reasserts itself, so that he actually “sasses” the Eternal through his infamous taunt: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Genesis 4:9  Thus, sin triumphantly drives in human history after Eden.  God does not punish Cain with death, but holds open the possibility that he may yet freely learn to control “that beast crouching at the door.”  What surprises us in this and other Genesis texts is that God, as well as humanity, needs to learn about freedom. The Torah dramatizes what God “discovers”: how we, God’s last created beings, will use our extraordinary potentials of self-consciousness and free will. Here are the “divine musings” imagined by biblical authors to explain the story of the flood: “Adonai saw how great was man’s wickedness on the earth and how every plan he devised… was nothing but evil all the time. So Adonai regretted creating humankind on the earth, and was sad at heart” Genesis 6:5-6 When the flood is over, God promises there will be no more catastrophes that destroy almost everyone and everything on earth.  For what would be the point, since “from a man’s youth all he does is think up evil” Genesis 8:21? BOROJMV 173-4