Sexualising the Evil Inclination: Rabbinic ‘Yetzer’ and Modern Scholarship

Abstract

The increasing interest in Jewish carnality and sexuality in recent years has influenced many areas of research, one of which is the rabbinic ‘evil yetzer ’ (inclination). More and more studies discuss the rabbinic yetzer in sexual terms, and yetzer has become almost synonymous with ‘sexuality’. In this paper I wish to show that this perception lacks textual justification. Most rabbinic sources present the yetzer as the enemy of men, constantly dragging them to sin, and accounting for their difficulty to become and remain servants of God. The yetzer drags one to sexual sins just as it drags to any other sinful acts, as it is an antinomian entity, the enemy of Torah and its commandments. The sexualisation of the yetzer appear only in Babylonian sources, and for the main part is a post Amoraic development. The paper ends with an attempt to locate this phenomenon in a broader Babylonian context: a process of hyper-sexualisation which takes place in the Bavli alone.

Der geteilte Mensch. Einige Gedanken zu Schöpfung, Transformation und Geschlecht in der rabbinischen Tradition

“…35 "Babylonians ources not only show amore complex, or even positive, attitude toward sexuality, but multiply and increase sexualityi tself.P eering at the world through sexual lenses,they see sex all around them. Numerousstatements,homilies,and narratives,a ll over the Bavli, tend to present their protagonists -B iblical heroes as well as rabbinic sages -inastark sexual manner,unparalleled in Palestinian literature.Biblical events are loaded with sexual content in the Bavli, even when there is scarcebasis for that in the Bible itself.Some specific topics,suchassages going to prostitutes or measuresof penises,are almost exclusively Babylonian" - Rosen-Zvi 2009b,S .278. 36 Satlow 1996 zum Thema Nidda die Arbeiten von Evyatar Marienberg.…”