The Good, the Bad and the Confusion

Hi,

My name is Ben Silver. My Jewish name is Binyamin Shmuel ben Zusia Meir (בּנימין שׁמואל בּן זוסיא מאיר).

I have a confession to make. It's sort of like having a split personality, but in Judaism and in Jewish writing it's referred to differently. In Jewish writing it's called having a Yetzer Tov and a Yetzer Rah. In plain English they translate as a good desire and a bad desire. What it means in actual, practical terms is that I desire to do what is right and I simultaneously desire to do what is not good. One time while in Jerusalem, Yerushalayim (ירושׁלים), I heard a Rabbi from Aish HaTorah explain it as follows: He explained the two drives as being one of connecting and one of disconnecting. My understanding of this explanation is that I have in me the constant desire to connect with people, to build relationships, and at the same time, to push those people away and to unbuild those relationships, or possibly worse, to create not good relationships. I believe it to be equally applicable to my perspective on G-d (HaShem - הקבּ״ה). On the one hand I deeply want and, from my gut, need to connect to a higher power, a source of all creation, and do His will, whether I understand it or not; And on the other hand, there is a feeling, whether intellectual, guttural, emotional or what-have-you, to unconnect from the source, from The Holy Blessed Be He, Creator of everything that ever was, is and will be. My confession is that I am part animal and part soul, part human and part G-dly - that I succeed and that I fail.

I tell this to you, dear reader, because if by chance (and I do mean chance colloquially and not literally) you feel perturbed on the inside, confused about your life and your desires, your attempts to become better than you are now, and G-d forbid the opposite, I want you to know that a) you are not alone and b) there is a reason, a G-d-given reason for it. By no means do I mean to excuse my bad behaviour or choices; I must deal with them and correct them and better them - and I also need to keep in mind that I am a part of G-d from on high, and that everything that happens is by Divine will and providence and that while there is still life in our veins - as the blood is the life (כִּי הַדָּם, הוּא הַנָּפֶשׁ) we can still improve and grow and make this world a better place, for ourselves, for our community, and for the world at large (רבי אומר, איזו היא דרך ישרה שיבור לו האדם--כל שהיא תפארת לעושיה, ותפארת לו מן האדם).

Keep hope and keep trucking,

Ben