🚀 go-pugleaf

according to the Jews.

On the saying in Genesis 8:21: "The imagination of man's heart is evil from
his youth."

R. Moses Haddarschan: This evil leaven is placed in man from the time that
he is formed.

Massechet Succa: This evil leaven has seven names in Scripture. It is called
evil, the foreskin, uncleanness, an enemy, a scandal, a heart of stone, the
north wind; all this signifies the malignity which is concealed and
impressed in the heart of man.

Midrasch Tillim says the same thing and that God will deliver the good
nature of man from the evil.

This malignity is renewed every day against man, as it is written, Psalm
37:32: "The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him"; but God
will not abandon him. This malignity tries the heart of man in this life and
will accuse him in the other. All this is found in the Talmud.

Midrasch Tillim on Psalm 4:4: "Stand in awe and sin not." Stand in awe and
be afraid of your lust, and it will not lead you into sin. And on Psalm
36:1: "The wicked has said within his own heart: Let not the fear of God be
before me." That is to say that the malignity natural to man has said that
to the wicked.

Midrasch el Kohelet: "Better is a poor and wise child than an old and
foolish king who cannot foresee the future." The child is virtue, and the
king is the malignity of man. It is called king because all the members obey
it, and old because it is in the human heart from infancy to old age, and
foolish because it leads man in the way of perdition, which he does not
foresee. The same thing is in Midrasch Tillim.

Ber