LearnNoah7Laws-8/
Evil, Satan, Who Created You? (1st of 3 classes)
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Rabbi Zvi Aviner
Noahidesevencommandmenrts.com
Three classes:
1: Evil – who created you?
2: Our Evil, Bloodthirsty Heart and Noah’s Covenant
3: Evil Demise at the End of Days
Who created Evil? Isaiah says
I am Hashem and there is no one else
I form light and creates darkness
I make peace and create EVIL (Ra)
I am Hashem who makes all of these (Isaiah 45: 7
Most scholars believe that Isaih refers here
to Zoroastrianism, which believed in Dualism –
a good God opposing an Evil God –
that was founded around Isaiah’s time in Persia.
It later infiltrated down to Roman Gnostics
then to Christianity, where the Bad God evolved
into an awesome independent evil force
which they call Satan.
But to Isaiah there is only one G-d and nothing else.
If you see evil in Nature or in humans,
it is still one God who created it.
So, what exactly is the Hebrew notion of
Evil and Satan?
How is it expressed in the Torah?
To understand it, let’s discuss some cases
– taken from real life and from the Torah.
Case number 1: The Evil Guard
A real case. Two 12 y girlfriends climb up
a deserted 8 floor building in Israel to commit suicide.
Don’t ask why, b/c we deal with teenagers
whose brain is broiled with hormones and who knows what.
As they are ready to jump, they are stopped by the guard
who has followed them behind. He pushes them out of danger
but not without them putting up a fiercest fight.
They bit his chest hard with their small fist and scream at him
– You are evil, we hate you!
Here Evil is an emotional, subjective term directed at the guard
for having stopped them from fulfilling their desire.
Yet objectively we regard him as a good man,
an angle who saved their lives.
So here is a clash between the girls’ subjective feeling
and our objective recognition that he is a good angel.
Evil then is a subjective feeling towards an ADVERSARY
Even though it motives are objectively good.
Case number 2: The Good Satan to Bilaam
The prophet Bilaam wakes up early in the morning,
Full of enthusiasm, while everyone else is still asleep.
In his thrill to curse Israel he prepares his she-donkey by himself,
and rides on her fast towards Moab borders, to meet King Balak.
He is full of enthusiasm, since the night before
ELHM has appeared to him in his dream
and allowed him to go ahead and curse Israel.
“I can’t stop you,” ELHM says, “you have a free will.”
Bilaam drives fast, but suddenly the she-donkey
crouches on the road, not once, not twice but three times.
He becomes so furious at her, that had he had his sword,
he would have killed her.
Then his eyes open and he sees the Angle of Hashem YHVH – standing with his sword drown against him, AS A SATAN TO HIM, says the text.
“And the Angel of YHVH stood up on the road
as a Satan to him” (Numbers 22: 22)
How do you explain this Satan?
For Bilaam’s enthusiastic mind, washed with hatred to Israel,
the angel of Hashem is his Satan, his adversary,
attempting to stop him.
Yet, as the text says, from the eyes of Hashem,
this angel is a good one.
Not unlike the teenager girls, who saw the guard
as an evil man, while in Hsahem’s eyes he is
an angel who saved their lives.
This source about Satan is important,
since it is the first and only site in Mose’s five books
where the term Satan appears in the text.
So who created this Satan? Here the verse is clear:
This Satan, the only one mentioned by Moses,
is created by Hashem, YHVH, the Attribute of mercy,
sent to stop people from sinning!!!
Case number 3: Job and his Catastrophic Satan
In the Book of Job, written by an unknown author
outside the Five Books of Moses, Job is a righteous man
very wealthy with many children and a good name.
He is very loyal to Hashem and the Torah,
A day comes and the ELHM’s Children – the angels of ELHM –
convene to the Heavenly Court to discuss Job.
Among them is the angel called Satan.
ELHM then asks:
“Have you seen anyone so righteous as my servant Job?”
All agree, but Satan steps forwards and says:
“No wonder he serves you faithfully.
After all, you have given him so much goodness!
Try him! I can make him cursing you!”
ELKM agrees to test Job, and He sends Satan down to Earth
to execute the test. A series of calamities then hit Job
him one by one. First his herd is stolen,
then his property burned,
then his workers are abducted by an army
then and a strong wind topples Job’s house
on his children and only his wife survives. T
Finaly Job himself is inflicted with leprosy,
so he sits down in agony and humiliation.
And yet, he refrain from cursing ELHM.
Here Satan does two things –
It acts as a prosecutor in ELHM’s Court,
Challenging Job’s loyalty and his true motives.
Then it gets the permission to go down to earth
and hits Job with a series of natural calamities,
to bring Job into cursing Hashem.
Here is a hint that when we hit by bad calamities,
it is done to us by an angel called Satan
as a test of our loyalty to Hahsem.
So, who created this Satan?
Since it is an angelic member
of the Heavenly Court of ELHM
it is created by ELHM for the purpose
Of conducting Mankind’s Trial.
So here we have so far two types of angels,
each called Satan.
The first Satan stands against Bilaam,
trying to stop him from doing something bad
in Hashem’s eyes – such as cursing Israel.
It is an objectively good angel,
with white wings and a baby face.
On the other hand, we have a second Satan
An adversary of Job in the Heavenly Court,
trying hard to make Job him a sinner.
It is not a demon,
yet it might have black wings and harsh face.
Why then are they both called Satan,
though they do the opposite of each other?
The answer is that the first, good Satan,
is an angel of YHVH, the Attribute of Mercy (Rashi)
sent by Hashem to stop him from sinning.
Whereas the second Satan in the story of Job
is a prosecutor angel standing in the Court of ELKM,
whose task is to bring Job into sinning
thereby revealing Job’s true nature.
Both types of Satan are created by Hashem, as Isaiah says,
And none of them is an independent evil force
Who is rivalry of God, as the Gnostics preached.
Case number 4: Evil inclination inside us
Mark from New Orleans wins a lottery. In his thrill,
he pledges a large check to a local hospital
as a token of thanksgiving to Hashem.
He sets up an appointment with the hospital people
to come over and collect the check.
In the last minute, however, as the people arrive,
he regrets his decision and gives them a small check,
with some excuses.
Days later he is struck with guilt and shame.
When he confers with his Rabbi, the Rabbi assures him
that he is OK.
“You have just succumbed momentarily to your
Yetzer Hara, your Evil inclination,” the Rabbi says,
“but now, feeling ashamed, your good inclination
Yetzer Tov is speaking to you.
My advice is to go ahead with your original pledge
and Hashem will answer all your wishes.”
Here, Judaism took the Dual moral forces – of good and bad
– and moved them from the outside world into our psyche,
as two opposing powerful inner drives.
The good drive prompts us to comply with the Torah laws
and expectations from us
The evil drive pushes us to violate the Torah
and reject Her expectations from us.
Let’s note that in Mark case, the Evil Drive pushed him
not to commit a sin, like in Job’s case,
but rather to hold him back from pleasing Hashem,
like donating a large sum for charity,
much above what is required by ELHM’s Law.
Hence our Yetzer Hara drives us not only
to violate ELHM’s Laws
but also prevents us from doing good in YHVH eyes.
Case 5: The Serpent and Seeking Earthly Pleasures
In Eden, after they have sinned, it says that
They opened their eyes and saw –
“How good was the fruit to be eat,
and how desirable it was to their eyes
and how delight it was to enlighten their mind…” (Genesis 3:6)
Thus the cunning Serpent enticed them to sin
By enjoying the pleasure associated with the sin.
It hoped that they would be driven to sin
by seeking pleasures.
Thus, unlike Satan in Job’s story, who enticed him to sin
by hitting him by a set of calamities,
here in Eden, the Serpent enticed them to sin
by seeking the pleasures of the flesh.
Moreover, tt says that after the sin,
Adam and his wife were inflicted by shame.
Hence, the Serpent tried to make them seen
shameful in YHVH’s eyes.
Thus pursuing pleasures by the Serpent’s drive
would render us shameful in YHVH eyes.
As if She is disappointed by us.
It is a new aspect of what our Satan thrives could do to us.
Not only it renders us sinners in ELHM’s eyes
but also makes us look shameful in YHVH’s eyes.
After they were expelled from Eden,
The Serpent joined our Yetzer Hara
Thereby driving us forever to sin by seeking
the pleasures of the flesh.
it became “The Camle on which Satan drives.”
We’ve seen so far how
1 Satan may be a good angel of YHVH,
sent as an adversary to sinners,
trying to stop them from sinning, like in Bilaam’s case
2 Satan may be our prosecutor angel in ELHM Court,
sent down as a part of our trial,
to test our loyalty to Hashem
by exposing us to calamities and diseases,
like in the story of Job
3 Satan may be our inner bad drive, our serpent
that entices us to sin by pursuing the pleasures of the flesh
4 Satan may be our inner bad drive
that is holding us from pursuing
good deeds in YHVH eyes.
(Not ELHM’s eyes but YHVH eyes.)
The q is –
Would our inner bad drive, our Satan,
entice us not only to disappoint YHVH and render us shameful,
but also enrage YHVH, to make us seen as
EVIL IN YHVH EYES by being evil hearted and cruel?
We’ll discuss that q next class as we move
to Noah Flood and the Rainbow Covenant