Why do we sometimes do what we know is wrong? This is a question that stretches from the Garden of Eden to Epstein Island. The prophet Jeremiah asked the question this way: “Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the LORD”. (8:7).
The Jewish answer to this question is that we have within us the yetzer hara, “the evil inclination.” The evil inclination is at the root of our desires for things we shouldn’t have; but at the same time, the same “evil” inclination is the source of the libidinal energy that leads us to important, constructive, and perfectly moral actions: “were it not for the evil inclination, a person would not build houses, would not marry, and would not bear children” (Bereshit Rabbah 9:7).
So simply put, you can’t live with it but you can’t live without it. And that puts us in an interesting position when we are praying for forgiveness. Because a davener with chutzpah could look at Hashem and say something like this. “Yes, I did x, y, and z, and I shouldn’t have. But I didn’t really want to do these things. It was my yetzer hara that led me to do them.” And Hashem would say, “Fair enough, but it’s your yetzer hara. Which makes it your responsibility. Not my circus, not my monkeys.” To which the chutzpadik davener would respond: “Fair enough, but You created me, and You created me with a yetzer hara. I didn’t ask for it. So it is Your circus, and it is Your monkey. So what are You giving me grief for? Blame Yourself.”
Or as Jessica Rabbit (from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) famously said, “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”
While not wanting to reward chutzpah, the davener is at least partially right. And this in fact is reflected in our liturgy. Near the end of tachanun, we read, “When angry, remember mercy. Because He [meaning You, G-d] knows our yetzer, and remembers that we are but dust.”
So we can look at the process of teshuvah as a cooperative venture. Yes, we are responsible for ourselves. But Hashem knows very well that we are created with this fallibility. And this is the very tension that is at the heart of the famous, haunting, and deliciously paradoxical song Hashiveinu, taken from Lamentations (Eichah) 5:1: “Turn us back to You, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.”