Qyestion re: Satan

[Crazy Liz]

I just posted something about my understanding of the Jewish view of Satan in another thread. I would be interested in learning more about your teaching on Satan, either here or there.

Thanks!

 

[Hix]

The Jewish view on Satan is that he is the yetzer ra the Evil Inclination within us. Satan literally means hinderer, it is the Jewish belief that Satan like all angels born without free will is given the task of giving US free will as balances the yetzer tov ie the Good inclination within us. At the same time Satans job is indeed to be a hinderer to try and stop us from comming to HaShem and make us stumble, becuase G-d wants to see us over come our evil inclination within to worship him. That is the basis for the Jewish belief of why HaShem created us. At any point HaShem could very easily have millions of angels worship him, but he wanted people with free will, people who had the choice to do bad to choose him instead to worship him. So Satan is seen as the one who gives us free will and attempts daily to hinder us in our daily lives, that was his role given by G-d.

The messianic view of Satan on the other hand is closer to christianitys in that Satan is a fallen angel, with free will, and he daily attempts to make us sin or deny HaShem becuase he is jealous of G-d and wishes praise for himself. BTW I use he and himself only for the sake of convenience, he probobly is not either male or female by the human definition and HaShem certainly is neither but they are often refered to in the masculine terminology becuase Hebrew does not have a neutral gender and it is convenient.

I hope this helps, Ive only really scraped the surface....
Shalom and G-d bless
~Hix~