DEUTERONOMY | 6:5 love — DEUT209 (Continued from [[GEN234]] Genesis 2:7 AM...
DEUT209 (Continued from [[GEN234]] Genesis 2:7 AMEMEI 247 formed). When the Torah states that you shall "love God with your heart,” [this verse] the unusual Hebrew form of the term for “your heart,” levavcha, implies that a man has two hearts, one for good desires and one for evil desires, according to the Talmud (Berachot 54a). Based on this assumption, Maimonides (Hilchot Teshuva 5:1) says that every human being can go in either direction, following his or her good impulse or bad impulse. Thus, it is clear that Judaism acknowledges man’s daily conflict between two opposing drives. Judaism believes that man is born with the desire to do evil, the evil impulse, as implied in the Torah, Genesis 8:21 and receives the yetzer hatov, the impulse of good, only at the age of thirteen for a man or twelve for a woman (Avot DeRabbi Natan 16:2). Therefore, left alone, it would be very difficult for a person to overcome the evil desire. One of the purposes of the Torah, the sole purpose, according to the Talmud, (Kiddushin 21b) was to teach man how to overcome and defeat his desire for evil. God sets up all of human endeavors in life as a moral test for the human being. He presents the moral situations, and it is up to each us to react properly and defeat the desire to do bad, as God did in providing the manna for the Jews in the desert, which He said was a daily test, as Jews were asked to believe in God’s promise for daily manna. (Exodus 16:4) If we overcome desire and exercise self-control, then we will get reward, whether it be a slimmer figure when dieting or entrance to the world to come. We can indeed view each act in our lives as a test. Every morning, we must decide whether to go to work or not. At the breakfast table, we choose to be nice or not to our spouse. On the road, we must decide to exceed or not to exceed the speed limit. Children must decide each day whether or not to do homework. Because there are so many small and large moral tests day, we should not look for “extra” situations in which to test ourselves. The evil desire is difficult enough to overcome as it is (Taanit 20b).
Source Key | AMEMEI |
Verse | 6:5 |
Keyword(s) | love |
Source Page(s) | 247 |