창세기 2:18의 유대 사상

G-D SAID, "IT IS NOT GOOD FOR MAN TO BE ALONE."

Our sages tell us in Sotah 3, that man does not sin unless he has temporarily taken leave of his senses. They quote Numbers 12, 11, in support of this. Aaron says to Moses "because of our foolishness we have sinned." If this is indeed so, our sages seem to agree with Socrates who believed that man's intellect is apt to arrive at true, valid conclusions. We must ask that if sin is the result of a functional disability of the mind, how can a person be held responsible for such sin? The dilemma can be resolved in the following manner. We need to understand that there are three categories of people. The first category is composed of people in whom the intellect is predominant, and governs practically all their activities so that sin is almost inconceivable. The second group comprises people who are so enslaved to their physical urges, that their intellect is for all practical purposes paralysed. The third group comprises the vast majority of people, who face an ongoing confrontation between their physical urges, yetzer hara, and their intellect, i.e. yetzer tov. All the people belonging to this latter group suffer from the fact that gratification of one's urges is immediate or almost immediate. On the other hand, the price to be paid for having gratified one's urges is usually some time in the future, and therefore not of immediate concern. The reward for acting in accordance with the dictates of the yetzer tov, i.e. the dictates of one's intellect, may be quite some time away. For that reason, such an eventual reward may not play a decisive role when a decision is made between conflicting choices available. The reason that G'd has arranged matters in such a way is due to the fact that otherwise bechirah, free choice would not be a really viable option. In order to demonstrate that it does not pay to give in to physical passion when it leads to the performance of immoral acts, we have the example of sotah.

The Talmud Sotah 2 also says that marriage partners are provided for man only in accordance with his deeds, his moral accomplishments. This statement does not contradict the statement about the angel predetermining who should marry whom. The idea portrayed is that the partner that comes with a person at birth is the genetic and environmental equipment which we commonly term mazzal. When man chooses a wife, however, he does so on the basis of the merit he has acquired since his birth. The original mazzal can be augmented or neutralized in one of two ways. 1) Man remains free to overcome natural handicaps by willpower, determination, perseverance etc. 2) G-d extends active help, hashgachah peratit, based on that individual's merit. It is customary for mazzal and merit to complement each other. This was so in the case of Abraham who was born with many positive endowments, i.e. mazzal tov. By meriting G-d’s help, he was able to neutralize the one area in which he had been disadvantaged at birth, his sterility. This accomplishment on the part of Abraham and Sarah resulted in their son Isaac being born with excellent environmental and hereditary factors, mazzal tov. By the time Jacob was born, the mazzal had improved even further due to environmental and hereditary input of two generations. Life in an environment of an Abraham and an Isaac does create certain tendencies which then become part of one's mazzal. In this connection we observe Abraham telling his servant Eliezer, who was concerned about his chances of finding the right wife for Isaac, that the G-d who had seen fit to promise the land of Canaan to his descendants and who had protected them thus far, would intervene to facilitate the finding of the proper wife for Isaac (Genesis 24,40). All this underscores the importance of choosing a suitable life partner, one that can help one achieve one's maximum potential. The original "woman," i.e. the equipment man receives at birth, is meant to help man work towards his olam haba, eternity, by employing his intellect etc. The second "woman," his wife, is meant to smooth his path in this world, help him cope with the problems of a mundane existence, and in that process to free him for pursuits of a spiritual nature. It is for this reason that throughout the Bible both “man” and "woman" appear side by side. "Male and female He created them-- the side He had taken from man into a woman" (Genesis 2).