Vayeshev: Chapter 22

" ...She spoke to Joseph day by day"

Synopsis

This section discusses the struggle of the individual to resist the seduction of the Evil Inclination. God has provided certain devices that preserve us from accusations of the Evil Side. The most important of these is, of course, the Torah. Those who study the Torah for its own sake, we are told, shall inherit both the upper and lower worlds, and will rejoice when God finally banishes the Evil Inclination from this world. Those who succumb to the Defiled Side, however, shall be punished in Gehenom, or Hell. There they shall weep with anguish that they did not overcome the Evil Inclination.

Relevance

Physical creation came about when the collective souls of man rejected the endless Light of Fulfillment that was originally bestowed upon them by The Creator. We did this in order to gain the opportunity to earn and create this fulfillment through our own effort. Moreover, just as an athlete requires competition to give meaning to the concept of victory, the Evil Inclination was created to challenge us during this process. The Torah represents the path to victory over our Evil Inclination, not from a strictly religious standpoint, but from a spiritual perspective. The Torah, through the lens of Kabbalah, is a tool that imbues us with strength and courage to conquer our negative impulses - even those that may have been barely noticeable. A reading of these passages provides us with spiritual strength to reject the temptation of the ego-based desires that are our true adversaries in life.