Small Yetzer Harah?

Question

Judaism teaches that the greater the person, the greater yetzer hara. However I think that my yetzer hara is small. Do I have to pray to HaShem to make my evil inclination big to be a great Tzaddik? Are there any Jewish sages who became great, even though they had a small yetzer hara?

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Answers

  1. The Just Ask! - AskTheRabbi.org Team

    I truly hope that you do not have a small Yetzer Harah! The statement of our Sages is entirely accurate: The greater a person is, the greater their Yetzer Harah is.

    And that is exactly the way that it needs to be, because without a Yetzer Harah commensurate to a person’s spiritual standing, they will not be able to grow any more. What is true is that as a person grows, their Yetzer Harah takes on new guises. For example, when a person is younger, the Yetzer Harah will usually use more physical enticements, and, as a person grows older and hopefully wiser, the Yetzer Harah will often use more intellectual wiles to try and trip up the person.

    Best wishes from the AskTheRabbi.org Team