Demonic Desires: "Yetzer Hara" and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity

Chapter 1. “The Torah Spoke Regarding the Yetzer”: Tannaitic Literature

C h a p t e r 1 “The Torah Spoke Regarding the Yetzer”: Tannaitic Literature Tannaitic midrashic literature is divided by scholars into two major schools, named after two teachers associated with them: Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael .1 In the case of the yetzer this division yields a systematic, significant difference . I thus begin the study of the tannaitic yetzer by analyzing each school independently. The following three chapters are one continued inquiry into the birth and origins of the rabbinic yetzer, divided only for the sake of convenience. In this chapter I map and characterize the various trends in early rabbinic (i.e., tannaitic) sources, move on to compare them to parallel monastic literature in Chapter 2, and then move back to Second Temple literature to trace the sources of these trends in Chapter 3. While I find this reversed structure inevitable, it does demand some endurance on the part of the reader. Many phenomena revealed in the first chapter will be clarified, or at least contextualized , only in the second and third. R. Akiva’s (Natural) Yetzer The idiom “Torah spoke regarding2 the yetzer” appears only three times in tannaitic literature. The following occurrence is from Sifra, Kedoshim 3:9 (ed. Weiss, 90b): And on the fifth year you may eat its fruit, that its yield to you may be increased (Lev 19:25)—R. Yose ha-Glili says: It is as if you are adding the produce of the fifth year to the produce of the fourth. . . . R. Akiva says: The Torah spoke regarding the yetzer (‫היצר‬ ‫כנגד‬ ‫התורה‬ ‫)דיברה‬, so that a Tannaitic Literature 15 person would not say: for four years I have troubled myself for nothing. Therefore, it is said: that its yield to you may be increased. Leviticus 19:23–25 regulates the status of fruits during the first four years of the growth of fruit trees. Fruits are forbidden for any consumption for three years after planting, while in the fourth year they are considered holy and permitted to the owners under several restrictions (detailed by the rabbis in tractate Maaser Sheni). The passage ends with a verse concerning the fifth year that promises plentiful crops from then on. Simply read, this last verse adds no new law and is seemingly redundant. R. Yose ha-Glili deduces an additional law from the last verse, which pertains to the halakhic standing of the fruits (the exact nature of which is beyond the present scope), in order to overcome this alleged redundancy.3 R. Akiva, on the other hand, reads the verse literally, as a promise, which he explains is necessary for addressing the yetzer. Since the Torah is aware of the difficulties of working the land for so many years without benefiting from the fruits, the passage adds a promise of reward in the fifth year. A similar homily in the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai on Exodus 34:24, discussing the obligation to make pilgrimage to the Temple three times a year, was reconstructed by the editors of this midrash:4 I will drive out nations from your path [and] . . . no one will covet your land (Ex 34:24)—the Torah spoke regarding the yetzer (‫כנגד‬ ‫התורה‬ ‫דיברה‬ ‫)היצר‬, so that Israel will not say, “How can we leave our land, our homes, our fields, and our vineyard and make pilgrimage, lest others come and dwell in our places?” Consequently, the Holy One, blessed be He, guaranteed (‫)ערב‬ them: no one will covet your land when you go up to appear [i.e., to make pilgrimage to the Temple]. While the attribution of this reconstructed exegesis to the Tannaim is not certain, the similarity to the previous exposition in both content and form is striking. Both homilies expound on verses of assurance that follow commandments, justifying the need for such promises (lest they be seen as redundant in the legal context of the verse). Each explains the promise as the Torah’s response to fears identified with the yetzer. In both homilies, after the formula “the Torah spoke regarding the yetzer,” certain fears are explicated and, in both, these fears are not ascribed to the yetzer but to the individual , or collective, themselves: “so that a person would not say . . .” or “so that Israel would not say. . . .” The expounded verse is presented as a positive 16 Chapter 1 response to these apprehensions: “It is therefore said . . . ” or “Consequently, the Holy One, blessed be He, guaranteed them...