Mankind | Part One

Mankind | Part One

The way of God

To reiterate, we alone among all beings are able to draw close to G-d and to attach onto His presence ; and we’re indeed able to achieve the sort of moral and spiritual perfection that would allow for that (as well as the imperfection that would disallow that). But if we’re to achieve that sort of perfection we’d need to strive for it by our own volition and free choice . Because if we were to somehow come upon perfection by happenstance, by dint of inborn characteristics, or by legacy, then we wouldn’t have chosen to achieve it freely, as we must do.

That’s why humankind was originally placed in a situation in which each person could freely choose between perfection or imperfection and could achieve either , and why each was born with both a yetzer harah and a yetzer hatov either of which he could choose to favor .