Parshas Vayeishev - Chanukah By Dr. Meir Tamari The Avnei Nezer
taught in numerous places that the two types of Yetzer Harah
referred to by chazal reflect the errors of physical appetites
in one case and those of the mind and the intellect in the
other. There is a yetzer harah that assumes the personality of a
gross peasant who comes to dissuade or prevent us from keeping
Torah and Mitzvot. There is, however, the Yetzer that appears as
a scholar and his mission is to explain and teach that our
desecration and sin are actually the way of keeping Torah.
Greece is the symbol of the Yetzer Harah in the form of the
scholar who wishes to use the mind and the intellect to pervert
and destroy Torah. The Greeks did not destroy the Temple nor did
they do away with the Temple service. What they did do was to
make the pure oil become tamei-impure and in this way they
wished to make Israel forget the Torah and to wean them away
from the Chukim of His Will. They maintained that they could
only accept those ideas and concep