The Genesis of Evil

Mazal Tov! – is it? – do you know if this baby will be loving, or God forbid evil!?

But then again, how does a baby, a nation, go from being loving to being evil?!

The genesis of evil explores how evil is created.

So let’s go to the first crime, and see what it was caused by.

The first recorded crime in human history was caused by jealousy; two brothers bring sacrifices to God, one a farmer the other a herdsman, Kayin and Hevel – Hevel brings the best lamb as he is a most grateful individual – Kayin, not such a great sacrifice – “I honor you as king, but don’t love you as father,” hence a fire consumes the sacrifice of Hevel, but not the sacrifice of Kayin – interestingly, few people realize that before he kills his brother, the Bible/Torah tells of an interesting exchange between God who notes Kayin’s anger – effectively he says to him, “if you want to do better you can, but if you don’t, the Yetzer Hara, satan, devil (whatever you call it) is lurking, waiting to take you down!”

Kayin is not a repenting kind of guy, but driven only by gain – so exactly what God predicts occurs; his anger like the first bubbles of a pot beginning to smolder, and rise in crescendo until he kills, murders his own brother!!!

Here we see the prototype for all evil, even yes, evil, God-forbid that infects, can, and if we are not careful, especially today, will infect us!

In other words, evil is based on anger, anger is based on resentment, resentment is based on the genesis of evil, namely, “I have been caused an unfair loss!”

Yes, it really is that simple.

All human behavior must come from an emotion – we do not go to the fridge unless we are hungry – we do not talk, unless we want something, either friendship, prevention of fear etc. etc.

All human thoughts, speech and actions come from either love or fear/anger!

Now as we take a ride through human history and look at all evil, always it is the same pattern.

Another very evil character in human history who gave offsprings of evil people, is Yishmoel; the father of the Arab tribe – how did he become evil?! – well a very similar story occurs – there are two brothers, Yitzchok born to the wife of Avraham, Sarah; and Yishmoel born to his concubine – not really a full fledged wife – in fact she was an Egyptian princess who was given by Pharaoh to serve as a maid saying, “better to be Abraham’s maid, than my princess,” for Abraham was revered by all, however, as Abraham and Sarah could not have children, Sarah suggested that Abraham marry her, to raise children through her – the end result was Yishmoel was jealous of Yitzchok, whom he realized would inherit Abraham’s position – he tried to kill him, and Sarah, and on God’s approbation, Yishmoel sent away.

In fact, he went to Arabia, but this resentment never left; hence we find another character rewrites the story of their history, amazingly showing their resentment, by placing Yishmoel as the chosen son and bound on the Alter, not Isaac; showing their resentment traveling through thousand of years! for the personality of their father, their self-image, gets transferred to the sons – this is why they desire to wipe out Israel – spent countless billion if not trillions on armies and training to God-forbid try to wipe out Israel, for their resentment has never been satisfied; though ironically it states, that (if my memory serves me correctly) Yishmoel repented before the end of his life.

What is repentance?

Repentance is an amazing thing, because we look at another tribe that has been maimed and beaten, pillaged and treated worse than any other nation on earth, yet in the past sixty years, facing countless threats has built a superpower, leading the world in technology; the Jewish people! That, notwithstanding the Jewish communities, also only about 60 years, all over the entire face of the world after the holocaust, and in all, one sees only growth!

So how does this nation not get resentful?!

The answer is how you look at reality.

When you see reality as being managed by God, then we have countless individuals, experiences of people, entitled to be resentful, but grew, instead of wallowed in self-pity, hatred, hence, evil.

Josef, David, Chassidic Leaders, for in all, their story was, “reality is run by God,” so perhaps none describes it better than Josef, who says to his brothers, cowering in fear that he may take revenge, “You thought to do me harm, but God planned this, so I could save the world!”

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