Origin Tannaitic and Amoraic rabbinic literature, roughly the second to sixth centuries CE.
The yetzer hatov, the good inclination, is the rabbinic name for the impulse toward righteous conduct that the Mishnah holds to mature in a person around the age of religious majority. Mishnah Berakhot instructs that a person is to love God with both inclinations, the good and the evil, reading the evil inclination's energy as something to be directed rather than only suppressed. Later ethical literature treats the two inclinations as locked in constant contest, with study of Torah named as the good inclination's chief weapon.
Facts
Status
Status Within the TraditionStandard teaching, not formally defined 2 Doctrinal Status DetailThe Mishnah (Berakhot 9:5) holds a person is to love God with both inclinations, reading the evil inclination's energy as something to be directed rather than only suppressed by the good one; later ethical literature names the study of Torah as the good inclination's chief resource in a lifelong contest between the two. 2 Origins
Origin PeriodTannaitic and Amoraic rabbinic literature, roughly the second to sixth centuries CE. 1 Place of OriginPalestine and Babylonia, the two centers of rabbinic literary production in this period. 1 Origin of the NameHebrew yetzer, an inclination or forming impulse, from the root yatsar, to form or fashion; hatov, the good one. 2 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceThe impulse toward righteous, disciplined conduct, held opposite the yetzer hara as the two inclinations that together make up the human constitution. 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Opposes
Rabbinic literature reads the two inclinations as locked in a lifelong contest for a person's conduct, the good inclination gaining full standing only at religious majority while the evil inclination is present from birth.
Originates in Language
Held Differently
Both name the disciplined, well-ordered side of the self, but the yetzer hatov is one of two inclinations contesting a single lifetime, present alongside the yetzer hara from early life, while nafs al-mutma'inna is the last of several stations a soul may reach only after disciplining the lower self across the earlier ones.
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