I understand the idea. The problem was if the idea is
christian, or jewish, or both christian and jewish, or
neither christian nor jewish. In my opinion it is, on
one hand, both christian and jewish, as it is observable
both in christianity and in judaism, and, on the other
hand, neither christian nor jewish, as it is not an
official dogma of either of the religions.
The fall of Lucipher is a story, a picture, an illustration.
It would be a really weird idea to take it literally.
A fall is a move, so it presupposes the state 'before'
and the state 'after'. Lucipher, being good before,
stopped being good and became evil. How would it be possible
when time does not exist? The 'mysterium pravitatis' lies
in the mystery of love. God loves his creation and wants
the creation to love him. It is impossible without free
will on both sides. Free will means choice and the possibility
of choosing the evil. This is the price for love.
There is neither a mention of a 'jecer ha-tov', nor of
'jecer ha-ra', the idea being of talmudic origin. As
it is believed, jecer ha -ra is innate and jecer ha-tov
appears at the age of bar-micwa (13). Actually, both
'jecers' seem to be a necessary condition of free will.
We may suppose that in paradise man was free from jecer
ha-ra. Rabbi Elijahu Dessler presents a very interesting
approach to the problem, assuming that in paradise
onely jecer ha-tov was possible. Hence my question.
From pawel AT kul.stalwol.pl Thu Aug 11 11:40:50 2005Return-Path: <pawel AT kul.stalwol.pl>
Even if you accept the idea that Henoch contained said references
(see Rolf's comments), it is wrong to use it in this context to say
that the idea is Jewish. In case Henoch did originally contain an
said references, it might be said that various sects of Jews in
the Second Temple period accepted the idea. However, Judaism
as it has developed in Pharisaic and Rabbinic Judaism did not, so
all the book of Henoch tells you is that the idea is not "Jewish" but
may have been an idea that was accepted by certain sects during
the late Second Temple period that no longer exist. However, in
light of Rolf's comments even this is probably too much to say. In
any case, the idea is not Jewish if you are referring to Rabbinic or
Pharisaic Judaism. If you want to claim it isn't Christian, that is
up to you.
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