Its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master. Genesis 4:7 (TJSB)
The Power of Passion – Keepers – Series 2 – Part 4
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“But if you do not do right sin couches at the door; Its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” (Gen 4:7 TJSB).
Back in part one, we discussed that the word used for sin here in Genesis 4, and back in Genesis 3 when God was talking to Adam, post forbidden fruit saga, is translated as “the evil inclination.” In its original Hebrew, it’s “Yetzer Hara.” It’s your animal soul; raw unadulterated passion; it’s the source of all your self-serving.
Which isn’t necessarily bad or evil.
Without a sense of “self-serving” we wouldn’t eat, sleep, work, have relationships… Our animal instinct serves a purpose in our lives… As long as we are not serving it. As long as it sleeps outside on the back porch at night.
This is what God was talking about when he said to Cain: “If you do not do right, sin crouches at the door…”
Passion is beautiful and incredibly empowering. Why? Because it's, well, powerful stuff. In the right environment, it flourishes. In the wrong environment? *fillintheblank*
This was Cain's issue: his passion for what he had created – his land, crops, reputation, possessions, etc. – had taken over the value of his connection with others and with God.
The Hebrew word for this “desire/urge” used in Genesis 4 is Teshukah. The ancient Jewish Sages and Rabbi’s saw it as a desire not based on need but from the very opposite: from a sense of fullness. They express not the desire of the half-empty glass to be full, but of a full glass to overflow.
Consider the following statement made by the Rabbis of the Talmud, “More than the calf wants to suckle, the mother wants to nurse” (Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 112a). Both the calf and the mother have desires. The calf is missing something: nutrition from its mother. The mother, on the other hand, “needs” nothing. Nevertheless, it is her desire that is the stronger one.
The ancient Jewish Sages and Rabbi’s suggested that there are four primal Teshukahs in the world:
“The Teshukah of Eve for Adam, the Teshukah of the Evil inclination for Cain, the Teshukah of rain for land, and the Teshukah of the Master of the Universe for humanity.” (Bereishis Rabbah 20:7)
All desires divorced of need.
Fun fact: The ancient Rabbis used to argue that the masculine chase the feminine because when God took a part of Adam to create Eve, man felt incomplete without being connected to their missing piece. Which is why when some find their romantic ‘other’ they say things like: you complete me. The feminine, however, was created whole; nothing was taken out of her. Eve is the picture of wholeness (Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin, 3b). And when the feminine desires the masculine in this poem from the Midrash, it’s not out of need, or the desire for completion; it’s from a place of overflow.
And the rain for land? One would think the analogy would work better the other way around. Land needs rain, so it makes sense that the land would “teshukah” the rain. Yet the Rabbi’s state that it is the rain that desires the land. Again, it’s from that place of fullness and overflow that the rain gives itself to the land.
God – the Master of the Universe loves not because He is needy but because He is full. He wants to share that fullness with others. And to that end, He created the world. The desire to love not from an inherent need, but a passion to overflow.
And the evil inclination for Cain? It’s the same kind of desire. “Its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” (Gen 4:7)
Passion constitutes a powerful life force, inherently benign, whose only “desire” is to establish a relationship with you. It wants to overflow, to give of itself to you. To enhance your life and give you drive and sensation, without which, we would do nothing. But the power of passion is awesome – and awesome power, when left raw and undirected, can indeed lead to great evil.
Cain's challenge? To “rule” his passions rather than be ruled by them. Not to crush them, but to direct their power and energy. To turn them into a source of connection, rather than self-preservation.
Go to Closer to Each Other – Keepers – Series 2 – Part 5
Written by Liz Milani
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