Yetzer Hara :: “Evil Inclination”

yetzer hara is really the imagination of an unhappy heart

In one of my last missives I said there’s no devil in the Hebrew Bible. By devil, I mean the Christian Morningstar Lucifer Anti-god of the Underworld. Judaism has Yetzer Hara versus Yetzer Hatov, inclination for bad versus inclination for good. The thinking being, like Fred Flintstone, we have these inclinations internally sparring with one another in our daily lives when we face moral dilemmas about our choices.

Today’s Duties of the Heart class revolved around wrestling with the Yetzer Hara. Essentially today’s passage provided a sophisticated spiritual rabbinical version of the episodes of the Flintstones where Fred struggles as his Yetzer Hara and Yetzer Hatov spar with each other to try to win him over, like two pushy salesmen duking it out for a sale. Duties of the Heart provides an instructive dialogue between the Self and the Yetzer Hatov.

This approach to doing good and avoiding bad makes a lot of sense. Much more so than the psychological abuse of imperial religions that told me some Baphomet-like creature with g-d-like powers for purely dark and destructive purposes wants to suck my soul into his eternal damnation. Anyway.

What is good and bad? We assume we will know the difference and I think that’s horsesh1t, it sometimes seems very jumbled. Doing humble things for achievement, scrupulosity, imposing physical punishment on the body to relieve negative feelings of unworth—where is the line between good and bad? How do we know?

I had an aunt with a severe case of scrupulosity, she starved herself, she weighed 90 pounds at 5 ft 4 and walked an hour in -30 C winter weather to feed the sick. Was she good? Was she bad? How do we know? Good can seem bad and bad can seem good. In contrast to her good sister, my mother was the bad daughter, because she sought to meet her own psychological and physical needs, whereas her sister sought to deny hers. Denial and severe pointless self deprivation seemed pious, expressing honest vulnerability and seeking physical relief seemed evil. How does one know what is bad and what is good in such a demented spiritual and social context? I think it’s not obvious in the big wide world.

So, Yetzer Hara.

Yetzer Ha-ra means imagination of the unhappy heart based on the etymology/meaning of the words themselves, however you will most commonly see evil inclination as the translation when you Google it. I think evil an empty overused word: it invites ambiguity and ego projection and it injects confusion into the discourse so I try to avoid it. Being raised a Catholic in a very orthodox enclave surrounded by people who lived the monastic life, I feel very uncomfortable with the word evil because of the emotional baggage it carries for me. I see The Exorcist and fears of fire coming to swallow me and the nine circles of hell eating me alive when I see that word evil. It has been a spiritual abuse for many, so the talk of bad versus good needs a bit of special handling, because, like sodium and potassium the metals, the word evil can ignite on exposure to air.

Imagination of the unhappy heart best captures the most meaningful translation of Yetzer Hara. I think many people can relate to this concept when I put it in these words, as opposed to evil inclination. I have often written about my wound talking, or the asshole inside my head talking and that being the wounded parts of me. Imagination of the unhappy heart seems to describe very well my experience.

What does Yetzer Hara sound, taste, look, feel like? I want to tell you because I struggle a lot with it and maybe my struggle might help you in yours or someone else’s.

To me Yetzer Hara often feels mundane, like an undercover spy. It can feel like seemingly reasonable overthinking. Seemingly because maybe it makes logical sense to my brain in the moment. It can feel like a veil over everything. From physical symptoms like a metal taste on my tongue that affects the taste of food and turns me off of everything, even foods I like. It actually alters my perception of food, often only curry spices can recalibrate it. Yetzer Hara as a physical sensation can cause me to feel vagalled out (ie like fainting) more.

This all tells me this is a neurobiological phenomenon. It’s a temporary thing, accompanying the unpleasant emotional state and horrible cognitive thoughts. Do thoughts generate this state of being? Good question, one for another time or maybe a podcast episode. What do you think, reader? Then it becomes a situation where I feel unreal, or removed from my Self. Disconnected. The voice says no one cares, you shouldn’t exist, etc etc. Limiting my speech, something that’s a good practise for the spirit, becomes stop talking it doesn’t matter you’re nothing keep silent it’s for the best.

There are many voices in society. Maybe mine isn’t important. Maybe it is though. Truth tellers aren’t prized by their contemporaries. Maybe I’m one of those deluded blah blah blah idiots who responds to everything and says nothing. Maybe I’m some outrageous mystic punk who says outlandish truths no one dares to express. Maybe either of these perceptions is egocentric. Maybe one of them is more accurate than the other.

I don’t know.

It paralyses me lately in human connection — often causes me to self select out of everything because I assume the inner voice is right and I don’t belong anywhere and should stop trying. My mother wanted me, no one else did until I won their favour. Favour is fickle, love is not. In recent years personal tribulations have been huge, I have been disposable to every living person that I love a lot whom I believed loved me. I now no longer want to believe in love, very often. I feel like the Book of Job is my book, it’s incredibly relatable to me. I often ask myself, now that mum is dead does no one want me? Does that matter in the scheme of things?

That is my Yetzer Hara.

It’s like the angel that Jacob wrestled only it never leaves me and never gives me even 5 minutes in the corner of the boxing ring to catch my breath and replenish. I am aware that I am living the life I prayed hard for, that my family has things I prayed for and blessings beyond what I imagined possible. I am deeply immensely grateful.

And yet I feel gripped by this heaviness of my heart.

I have no answer except to notice what makes it worst and better. I’m tired. Fighting is exhausting. Thinking is exhausting. The current sociopolitical environment is hell. Money is an eternal struggle and existential fear and the social isolation of living the cancellation of political and spiritual dissidence is hard. Wahhh, stop your whinging, cope and seethe I tell myself firmly, others feel this way too.

Anyway the default feeling today is this: it doesn’t matter stop talking and just stop trying to connect you aren’t a part of anything no one wants you just stop believing it’s possible. That’s my Yetzer Hara and it’s like wrestling a thousand Hulks and, really, why should I bother? Thoughts of my daughter and granddaughter will be the answer to this invitation to despair, however I should take care not to place such heavy burdens on other humans, we live for the Creator and not the created and I should not need anything beyond because G-d made you for this time, you can, She made you for this very battle.

Thanks for reading.

It’s a feeling not a fact, feelings are messengers not self immolation devices, and remember I pushed send so I obviously believe + hope more than I can articulate here. I will resume writing here with regular frequency, minimum 3 written posts weekly. Please subscribe, it helps us. Your paid subscriptions will help me help my daughter and her young family so we appreciate it.

Podcast with Lee resumes after Labour Day.