This dvar Torah is dedicated in memory of Dr. Marshal Benner, who passed away right before Yom Kippur. He was among the first people signed up to receive Food for Thought. Yehi Zichro Baruch!
Sixteen hundred and fifty years after the creation of mankind Hashem brought upon them the destruction of the world, with The Flood, in the times of Noah.
The Torah gives us a glimpse as to the extent of the evil perpetrated by the generation at the end of the Torah portion of Breishis and the beginning of the portion of Noach. In perek 6 pasuk 5 the Torah states: “Hashem saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every product of the thoughts of his heart was but evil always.” In pasuk 12, the Torah states, “And G-D saw the earth and behold it was corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted it’s way upon the earth.”
The Agadat Breishis depicts the general sense to what extent the generation was wicked. The Agadat Breishis (1:4) states: “‘Hashem saw the wickedness of man,’ This is what the pasuk means when it says, ‘There is an evil I have observed beneath the sun, and it is prevalent among mankind’ (Koheles 6:1). The Holy One Blessed Be He said, ‘See what these wicked ones have done! When I created them I gave them two assistants, one good and one bad, and they abandoned the good assistant and clung and attached themselves with the bad one.’ How do we know this? For Shlomo said, ‘There was a small town with only a few inhabitants; and a mighty king came upon it and surrounded it, and built great siege works over it” (Koheles 9:14). ‘A small town’ refers to one’s body. ‘A few inhabitants.’ refers to the limbs of the body. ‘And a mighty king came upon it,’ is the evil inclination. ‘And built upon it great siege works over it,’ is because the evil inclination plans to trap man with great traps. ‘Present in the city is a poor wise man who by his wisdom saved the town, yet no one remembered the poor man’ (verse 15 in Koheles chapter 9). This wise man is the good inclination. ‘By his wisdom he saves the town’ for the good inclination directs man towards life. ‘Yet no one remembered the poor man,’ Hashem said that not only does these wicked people not turn the evil inclination into the good inclination, but they make the good inclination into the evil inclination, as it says, ‘And that every product of the thoughts of his heart was but evil always’ (Breishis 6:5).” (Click here for Hebrew text.)
Rav Chaim Palagi in his commentary on this medrish, called Avi HaNachal, explains the last part of this medrish; that in fact Avraham had transformed his evil inclination into good as mentioned in a Talmud Yerushalmi. King Dovid just killed his evil inclination in his heart, but these wicked people in the era of the flood made their good inclination bad. As hinted to in Mishlei (2:14), “who are glad to do evil” with the evil inclination, those “who rejoices in the duplication of evil” when they also convert the good inclination to bad which results in two inclinations for bad. This is also hinted to in Melachi 2:1:, ” whoever makes bad good,” referring also to the good changing into bad… (Click here for
Hebrew text.)
It appears to be true that man has the power to change his evil inclination into good, or good inclination into bad. Yet these concepts are so esoteric; spiritual forces that Hashem created to help drive a person to live and make free choices in his lifetime; how then does this possibly work? How can we make sense of it? How can any person transform a spiritual being that Hashem created into something else? It makes sense that man can be manipulated by the evil inclination and completely ignore his good inclination, or vice versa, but how can he transform what’s good to bad or what’s bad to good? We see from this concept the awesome greatness and power of mankind endowed in every individual; but how does it work? How is it really possible?
Rav Yisrael Salanter zt”l in his Iggeres HaMussar defines what exactly are the evil and good inclinations. “…We can apply these 2 categories of sin in order to find compromise between 2 schools of thought, concerning the definition of the evil inclination and good inclination. The first more common view asserts that the evil inclination is the force of impurity in man that induces him to sin. Whereas the good inclination is the force of holiness in man that aspires him to perform good deeds. The second school of thought asserts that the evil inclination is the force of desire that looks to get pleasure from every sweet thing in its time… whereas the good inclination is the straight intellect that looks and gazes towards the inevitable consequences of our deeds, namely, the trepidation of fear of Hashem and His exceedingly horrifying judgments. And he chooses the advantageous way to conquer his desire, so that he will be sated with delight and with wondrous pleasure in the World To Come. The glory of the pleasure is beyond description.” (Click here for Hebrew text.)
Rav Yisrael Salanter goes on to assert and to prove that the good and evil inclinations are made up of both schools of thought. The good inclination is both a holy force and one’s straight intellect, whereas the evil inclination is both the forces of impurity and physical desires.
The Etz Yosef on this medrish explains why the big king is considered the evil inclination and the poor wise man is the good inclination. It is because a person before he is born learns the entire Torah in his mother’s womb and is caused to forget it when he comes out, and for 13 years (12 years for a girl) his evil inclination has control over him and when he turns bar mitzvah he has the chance to use his good inclination, but his evil inclination is older by 13 years and it’s a big struggle for his good inclination to be heard.
Based on all this I humbly believe that the medrish discussing the good inclination being transformed to evil, and the Avi HaNachal mentioning that Avraham transformed his evil inclination to good, they are referring to the second school of thought. According to this opinion, Avraham took control of all his senses and physical desires with his great intellect, to the point that all his desires were good, based in fear of Heaven. However, the generation of the flood used their intellect for their physical desires, transforming the good into bad.
We find children with implicitly good natures and other children who are a handful. This could be because the force of impurity or the force of holiness are focused more in some children than others for many different reasons. But a child’s physical desires nurture and grow from the time they are born, along with the capacity to think clearly and maturely, in ways which are deep and profound, which only start to truly take root once they are bar or bas mitzvah. This is the period during which one’s intellect starts to expand and mature, when one can start to handle and develop deep concepts like Fear of Hashem. And if a person takes advantage of his or her newfound gifts to fight off all the physical habits and enjoyments one is used to, then he or she can be victorious in the fight between good and evil. Indeed, if they really master their intellect, then they can destroy evil from inside them or even transform it into good as Avraham did. However, if one never uses or improves on his wisdom or intellect, then the big king, the evil inclination, will not let them see good too easily.
What is worse though is when one actually uses one’s intellect, which was originally made for the potential to do good, for evil. People have the ability and tendency to rationalize and make up great hypotheses and theses, which sound very logical, as to why what is really wrong should be good. But this is all rationalization, lacking fear of Hashem; “Without wisdom there is no fear but without fear there is no wisdom” (Avos 3:17).
A person has the ability to be controlled by all types of physical desires and use his intellect to rationalize that what he is doing is correct; that it is justice, fair, and of moral grounding. Not only that, but he can also philosophize and prove that his way is the right and only way. When this happens, his evil inclination transforms his good inclination into bad. That is what the Agadat Breishis says happened to the generation of the flood.