 Okay, so I said earlier, these two topics are very much related, the topics of Trinity and Satan. I'm not going to spell it out. You should be able to figure it out really on your own. So, what's very interesting is if you have read the entire Jewish Bible from cover to cover, the Tanach, the Jewish Bible, is more than three times longer than the Christian Scriptures. Almost four times as long as the Christian Bible. The Jewish Bible contains much, much more writing. In the entire Tanach, entire Jewish Bible, how many times is Satan referred to? So the answer is approximately three, maybe four. But basically we have less than six times where the Jewish Bible refers to Satan. The Christian Scriptures, which are again about one-third to one-fourth as large as the Jewish Bible, contain over a hundred and fifty references to Satan or the devil, over a hundred and fifty. So it's very clear that in the Christian Bible, the idea, the concept of Satan is considered much, much differently. It has much more of a central focus than the Jewish Bible. We're going to see it's not just a matter of quantity, we're going to see it's a matter of quality. There is a teaching, a famous Jewish teaching, I think it was first expressed possibly by Rav Sutherkhoen of Lublin, one of the great, great Hasidic masters who died in the year 1900. He died in the year 1900. And Rav Sutherkhoen writes that if you want to understand anything in Judaism, if you want to understand anything in the Bible, he says find the first place the idea appears. If you want to understand what is a kiss, find the first kiss in the Bible. If you want to understand the meaning of the letter Aleph, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet, find the first time the letter Aleph appears at the beginning of a word, that's the meaning of the letter Aleph. This is a very famous concept where if you want to understand anything in the Bible, go to the first place it occurs, that's the headquarters, that's the headquarters. So if we want to understand what is the concept of Satan, of Satan in the Jewish Bible, let's find the first time the word appears in the Jewish scriptures. And that is in the book of Numbers chapter 22 verse 22, easy to remember. It's the famous story of Billam, the non-Jewish prophet, who is basically hired, he's engaged to curse the Jewish people. The king of Moab is very terrified of the Jewish people and he figures that you can't beat the Jewish people physically. He saw the Jewish people were able to destroy the great empire of Egypt. He figures if you want to get to the Jewish people, you've got to be able to attack them spiritually. So Billam was a famous prophet at that time, a non-Jewish prophet, and he figures he's going to hire Billam to curse the Jewish people. God is not very interested in having him curse the Jewish people. Billam is very clearly interested in doing it. He's going to make a lot of money off of the deal. At the end of the day, God allows Billam to go. He allows Billam to go on the journey, but basically says, you can only say what I teach you. You can only say what words I put into your mouth. Anyway, they're going on this trip and we're told that his donkey sees an angel standing in their way and the angel is holding a sword. So Billam's donkey is holding, Billam's donkey is afraid to proceed because there's an angel blocking their way with a sword. And the Bible tells us that Billam hits the donkey and the donkey gets up to move, but then he sees the angel again blocking him and Billam goes on to beat the donkey three times. So in verse 22, chapter 22 of Numbers, we're told God's anger was kindled because he was going. God was very unhappy that Billam decided to go and curse the Jewish people. And so the angel of the Lord took his stand in the road as his adversary. The angel stood in front of Billam as his adversary. The Hebrew word is let satan to be a Satan to him. The angel stood in his way and acted as a Satan, acted satanically, if you will. Now he was riding on the donkey and his two servants were with him. So we see from this that the word satan in Hebrew means an obstacle, a roadblock, an adversary. But basically it's something that gets in the way. And you'll also notice that here the word satan is not a proper noun. It's not the name of a being, right? It's not the name of a being. It's saying that this angel stood as an obstacle, as a satan, not that the angel's name was satan. What we're going to see is that usually, usually when this word appears in the Scriptures, it is not a proper noun. It's used in this way as describing the action of someone. For example, in 1 Kings chapter 11, we're told that God stirred up a satan, an adversary against King Solomon. We know that the first adversary of Solomon, we're told earlier, was someone named Haddad. But later on in the chapter, it says God stirred up another adversary. Sometimes this is translated as antagonist, another adversary or antagonist. Whose name was Rison, the son of Iliadah, which fled from his lord Haddad, as their king of Zovach. So again here we have in 1 Kings chapter 11, two people who were referred to as satan, as adversaries or opponents or antagonists of King Solomon. And in verse 25, and he was a satan, he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, besides the mischief that Haddad did, and he abhorred Israel and reigned over Syria. In 2 Samuel chapter 19, we're told that David meets up with Shimi Ben Gaira. Shimi Ben Gaira, in earlier story, had cursed King David. Shimi Ben Gaira was a descendant of Sha'ul. We know that David basically did in with Sha'ul. And Shimi Ben Gaira was very upset with David, so he curses him. In this later story, some of David's men, the sons of Zurea, want to basically kill Shimi Ben Gaira. And David says to them, what have I to do with you, the sons of Zurea, that you should this day be adversaries to me? You're being satans to me. Shall there be any man put to death this day in Israel? For I do not know, for do not I know that I am this day king over Israel? He says to his men, leave this fellow alone. You don't need to take care of my honor. But again, these are stories where these people are described as opponents and adversaries or antagonists to a king. However, there are a few times in the Bible, I think only three, where maybe four, where Satan is a proper noun. The most famous one is in the book of Eov, the book of Job. We're told the following. One day, Job chapter one, verse six, one day the heavenly beings, are the angels. So one day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them. So there is a being called Satan and he's one of the angels. So all these angels came to present themselves before God and one of these angels was Satan. And the Lord said to Satan, God said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered the Lord from going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on the earth. And God said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? Have you ever thought about my servant Eov? There's no one like him on the earth. A blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. I have a great servant in this Eov. But then Satan answered God. Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You've blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land. Job has a very cushy life. It's very easy for Job to be someone that fears you, God. But stretch out your hand now and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your face. Satan says, don't think that this Job is so righteous. He's got a very easy cushy life. But if you make things difficult for him, you'll see that he won't be so loyal to you. So God says to Satan very well, all that he has is in your power. Only do not stretch out your hand against him. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. So here we see that Satan is one of the angels and we see importantly that he is circumscribed. His powers are circumscribed by God. God gives him his marching orders. God says, you can do whatever you want to Job. Only you cannot kill him. You cannot really wipe him off. So Satan is important to see here is not independent of God. Satan does not have independent power. Satan does not operate independently of God. Satan is described here in the most central part of the Bible about Satan as an angel of God, just like all the other angels. Angel in Hebrew means messenger. He's a messenger and agent of God. And he is under the control of God. God gives him his parameters. He doesn't set his own parameters. We see similarly when Satan is mentioned in Zechariah, Zechariah chapter 3. Very, very difficult passage because it seems like a vision. We're told he showed me the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan was standing at his right hand to accuse him. It seems as if this is a vision that the prophet is having. And the Lord said to Satan, God said to Satan, the Lord rebukes you, O Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebukes you. Is not this man a brand plucked from the fire? Now, what most of the commentaries explain is going on here is that Satan came to accuse Joshua, the high priest, of not being very worthy because we know from the book of Ezra that Joshua's sons married women that priests were not supposed to marry. So the Satan basically comes to say, this man should be held guilty. He should have maybe had more control and influence over his sons. So again, the Satan here comes to accuse Joshua, the high priest. And God says to Satan, you're being rebuked. You want to accuse Joshua, the high priest? I rebuke you. Why? Because this man, Joshua, the high priest, is he not a man who was a brand plucked from the fire? What the rabbis explain is that God was telling Satan, he's a very holy man. As a matter of fact, an incredible miracle happened for him. When there were three people thrown into a fire, two of them died, but Joshua miraculously was saved. He was plucked from the fire. A great miracle happened for him. So he's a very holy man. Satan, you shut your mouth. And Joshua was dressed in filthy clothing, as he stood before the angel. These filthy clothing are symbolic of his children who were married to these non-Jewish wives. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, take off his filthy clothing, which means he was basically telling his sons here, you should send your wives away. When you read the book of Ezra, that's what was going on. They were telling the Jews who had married non-Jewish women in Babylon, send these non-Jewish women away. And when you take off these filthy clothing, you send these non-Jewish wives away, the angel said to those who were standing before him, take off his filthy clothing. And to him he said, see, I have taken your guilt away from you, and I will clothe you with festive apparel. And I said, let them put a clean turban on his head. So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with apparel, and the angel, the Lord, was standing by. Again, the story itself is not important for us. What we see here that's important is that Satan is being rebuked. Satan is essentially under the jurisdiction of God. Two more passages. On the top of the next page, we see two passages that seem to contradict each other. In 2 Samuel chapter 24, it says, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David, he stirred up David, against them saying, go count the people of Israel and Judah. Now the rabbis teach us that the reason that God was angry with David here is because in David's last confrontation with Saul, David said that Saul had been incited by God to start up against David. So God says to David here, you are accusing me of being an insider. I'm going to now incite you in a way that even a third grader knows not to do the sin that you're going to be tempted to do. So here in 2 Samuel 24 verse 1, God is angry with David and he incites David to count the Jewish people. Why is that a problem? Because we know from the Bible that you're not supposed to count the Jewish people. You're not supposed to number them, count heads. And when the Jewish people did have their heads counted, they had to bring special offerings to atone for that. So we're not going to go into the reasons why it's problematic to count people, but the Bible in the 5 books of Moses already tells us we don't count Jews. As the line says, we make Jews count, but we don't count Jews. And if you're going to count them, it's done indirectly. So in the Bible, we're told that each Jew gives a half of a shekel and you can count the Jews by counting the money they contribute, but you don't go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 to the Jews. So God incited, basically what it's saying here is that God planted a thought into the head of David. He didn't force David's hand. David wasn't forced to do the wrong thing, but God basically puts a thought into his head and tempts David. So the king said to Joab and the commanders of the army who were with him, go through all the tribes of Israel from the Dan to Beersheva and take a census of the people, so I may know how many there are. David goes ahead and does the wrong thing. He counts the Jewish people. However, when the same story is told in the book of Chronicles, Debra HaYamim 1, 1 Chronicles 21, it doesn't say that God incited David. It says Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to count the people of Israel. Well, how do you reconcile this? In one book it says that God tempted David and in another book it says that Satan tempted David. How do you reconcile this? It seems like a blatant contradiction. So the simple resolution is that God tempted David through the agency of Satan. Satan, the angel Satan, his job, the word means opponent, obstacle, adversary. So the job of the Satan is to tempt people to get in their way, to be a bar to their spiritual progress. And so God operates through his angel. And as I said before, when God's angel operates, it's described as God himself operating. The angel represents God. The angel works on behalf of God. So God is really controlling everything, but the agent that takes care of the job is the Satan here. So again, we see that Satan is not independent of God. The Satan here is working as an agent of God. A very important passage in Isaiah chapter 45. The prophet says, I, God is speaking. I form the light and create darkness. I make light and darkness. I make peace and create evil. God is saying here that I make the good stuff and the bad stuff. I make peace and I create evil. There isn't another force that does evil things. You know, there's a religion. We have it in Toronto, Zoroastrians. Zoroastrians are bothered. It's a very famous philosophical problem. Why is there evil in the world? If there's a good God and God is good, how could there be evil in the world? So the dualists, the Zoroastrians said it's very easy. There are two forces. There's a God of light and a God of darkness. When good things happen, that's the God of light that's basically in charge. And when evil things happen, that's the God of darkness that's winning the battle. But there are many religions that see the world as divided between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And the Jewish Bible's main teaching is Adonai Echad. There's only one force that controls the world. God is responsible for everything. Everything that happens in this world is under the control of God. So God here takes credit for all the good and all the bad. There isn't a separate force and power that does anything. In the Encyclopedia de Echad, he makes the point. He, Satan, is clearly subordinate to God. A member of his suite, one of the Bene Elohim, one of the angels, who is unable to act without his God's permission. Nowhere is he in any sense a rival of God. We're going to see that in Christianity, Satan is not seen as part of God's team. In Christianity, Satan is not seen as part of God's team. Satan is seen as the leader of an opposing team. The Christian model is basically a dualistic model. The Christian worldview sees a world where there's basically a struggle between God and the forces of evil which are under the authority of Satan. This is a very, very critical distinction and it's the reason I told you before that the lecture on the Trinity is very similar to the lecture on Satan because both are dealing with the question of is there only one force that controls the world or are there multiple forces? So, again, the Jewish concept that I showed you in the scriptures is that Satan is one of God's angels. Satan works for God. Satan is a member of God's team. Satan serves a very important purpose in tempting people and getting in the way of people's spiritual progress of being an obstacle, a roadblock, an adversary. The Christian model says no. Satan is a fallen angel who rebelled against God and took one-third of the angels to work for him as demons. But the Christian model is very diametrically opposed to the Jewish model. Is Satan a member of God's team or does Satan run an opposing team? In the Jewish Bible, Satan is totally under the jurisdiction of God. In the Christian scriptures, Satan, we're going to see, has independent power. Now, let me just for a few minutes share with you what the rabbis teach about Satan. In the beginning of Genesis, after each day of creation, the Bible says that God saw that it was good. After each day, God saw that it was good. After all of creation, the Bible says God saw that it was very good. Very good. What does very good refer to? And the rabbis say very good. So the Yetzar Harah, the evil inclination, and the rabbis teach the evil inclination is Satan. So the rabbis are basically teaching us that Satan is very good. That from a biblical and a rabbinic point of view, Satan is actually one of the greatest blessings that God ever gave us as human beings. When a Christian hears that, they cringe. Satan is a great blessing. They can't imagine that. But the rabbis are teaching that, no, Satan plays a critical purpose in God's world for two reasons, basically. Number one, the rabbis teach that Satan is essentially the vital force that animates human beings. The rabbis teach if it wasn't for our Yetzar Harah, if it wasn't for our evil inclination, people would not get a job, they would not get married, they would not have children, they would not build a house, they would be couch potatoes. Basically, you can look at the Satan, the Yetzar Harah, almost like Freud's id or sup and or ego. The Satan, the Yetzar Harah, is basically this vital force that animates and drives the human being. They're id, they're ego. And without this force, we'd be very lethargic human beings. We'd have no ambition, no drive. But more importantly, what the rabbis are saying is that when we have this obstacle, when we have this opponent, when we have this adversary, it allows for virtue. If we lived in a world where there were no temptations, if we lived in a world where there were no obstacles, no roadblocks, no obstructions to spiritual progress, there'd be no opportunity for virtue. If we lived in a world where it was so natural and easy to always be good, there'd be no virtue in being good. The reason it's virtuous to be good is because there are many temptations not to be good. For example, if there was no sexual impulse, there'd be very little virtue in people being faithful to their spouses. If the opposite sex looked like a sack of potatoes, then it wouldn't be too difficult to resist adultery. However, we live in a world where the sexual temptation is very, very strong, so to resist that requires a certain amount of strength and it shows the person is virtuous. And if people didn't have supernatural attractions to money, if you found a pile of money on the street, $100,000 in a bag and you weren't supernaturally driven to keep it, you'd say, money, it could be a pile of dirt. But no, we are very attracted to that pile of money. So for a person to say, I'm going to do the right thing and return it to its owner, that is virtuous. And the reason this is so important, and again, I'm covering a lot of ground philosophically in two sentences, but both Christianity and Judaism say, both of our religions say that the goal of human beings is heaven. We call it in the Jewish faith, Olamhaba, the world to come, because basically we're only on this world for 120 years max. We're on this world for a very short period of time. But after we finish our journey in this world and our body decomposes in the ground, our soul exists eternally. Our soul is not physical, it's spiritual. So the end point of human existence for both Jews and Christians is the world to come, and this is heaven. Big question, if the whole purpose for human beings is to be in heaven, why didn't God just stick us there? If God's hope and intention is that all human beings be able to experience heavenly bliss and experience godliness in the next world, why stick people in this crazy world down here, which is so ungodly? Why not just put people automatically in heaven? And the capitalists teach the concept Naham adhihisufah, the bread of shame, that if you give people a free gift that they didn't work for, that they didn't earn, they don't value it. As a matter of fact, they're embarrassed by it, because they had to be receiving a handout. It's almost as if you're so pathetic and you're such a loser, you couldn't get it unless I gave it to you as charity. So the Torah says that God wanted us to live in a world where we have to work to earn our virtue. We have to work to earn our place in the world to come. We don't get it as a free gift. Christianity says it comes as a free gift. Judaism says, no, it's not a free gift. You put in this world the book of Job says Adam la Amol ulad, people were born to toil. And the toil that it's talking about is not just going to work for eight hours a day. It's the toil of overcoming temptations, overcoming our natural resistance to spirituality, and by overcoming these temptations, by passing these tests, by overcoming these roadblocks and these obstacles, things that get in the way. When you climb over and navigate these obstacles, you grow your spiritual muscles. You become a more spiritual person. You grow as an human being. You become a bigger person by exercising your spiritual muscles. So it could be a bad thing for you if you crash into the obstacle, you crash and burn, you fail the test that wasn't good for you. But human beings were told to have the ability to pass these tests. God says to Cain, sin is always going to tempt you, but you can rule over it. We have the ability to veto evil and to veto sin. We can climb over these obstacles and by climbing over them we can become bigger people and earn our share in the world to come. From a Christian point of view, there's no good reason for putting people in this world. No good reason whatsoever. We understand from a Jewish point of view why God says that the Eitzahara Satan is very good because without it we could not be human beings. Let's just conclude by looking at the Christian concept of Satan. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, but if our gospel be hidden, it is hidden from them that are lost in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them. We've learned before that in the Christian Bible we're told that the Jewish people did not believe in Jesus because Satan blinded their eyes to the truth. But here I wanted you to point out that the Christian Bible refers to Satan as the God of this world. That's how powerful Satan is. Satan is the God of this world basically rules this world. So in the Christian concept again, Satan is a fallen angel that rebelled against God. He's no longer on God's team. He leads an opposing team. If you look at the interpreter's Bible commentary, they write that Paul sees this world as a battleground in which Satan and his hosts contend with God and his forces for the lives of men. Again, explaining very clearly that in the Christian vision, Satan and God are two opposing teams. It's not one team. It's two opposing teams. And you'll see in chapter in John the Gospel of John chapter 12, chapter 14 and chapter 16, the Gospel writer speaks about Satan as the prince of this world. Again, Satan described as basically the ruler of the world we're living in. Why? Because you'll see in 1 John 3 he that commits sin is of the devil. For the devil sins from the beginning. Now again, the idea that the devil sins, Satan sins from a Jewish point of view is a word. In a Jewish concept, Satan is an angel. Angels don't have free will. Angels can't sin against God. But the Christian model has the devil, Satan, sinning against God, rebelling against God. So 1 John chapter 3 says that anyone that sins, sins because of the devil, who is the ruler of this world, because the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God, this is the Christian Bible saying was manifested for what purpose that he might destroy the works of the devil. From a Christian point of view, without Jesus, the devil is going to rule the world. Now what's said, it's sort of weird, is that even with Jesus we know that the Satan, the devil was not destroyed. Even though it says Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil we see that the devil is still very robust even 2,000 years after Jesus. As a matter of fact even in the Christian Bible there are stories where Paul says for example I tried to go somewhere but I couldn't get there because the devil, Satan stopped me. So even in the times of Jesus, he didn't defeat the devil whatsoever. That's again another thing in the Christian world puts off until the second coming. Because again Jesus didn't accomplish much in this world. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against the powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Again it's saying that God is not the ruler of the world. There are dark forces that rule the world. Second Timothy chapter 2 verse 26 and they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. It's the will of the devil. The devil operates according to his own will not according to the will of God. So again a very critical distinction from a Christian point of view, Satan has his own will. He's not subservient to God. He runs his own team. And again, what's interesting and important is that there's not one passage in the Christian Bible, not one passage which shows that the devil, Satan is subservient to God. Not one passage in the New Testament showing that the devil is subservient to God. John chapter 8 verse 44, one of the most problematic verses in the Christian Bible where the Jews are accused of being of their father, the devil and the lusts of your father you do. He was a murderer from the beginning. Devil was no goodnik from the beginning and a boat not in the truth because there's no truth in him. When he speaks the lie he speaks of his own. Again, the Christian Bible saying that the devil, Satan operates according to his own agenda. He's independent from God. He's not working on God's team. And Acts 26 finally, but rise and stand upon your feet. For I have appeared to you for this purpose to make you a minister and a witness both of these things which you have seen and of those things which I will appear to you. Delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send you. This is speaking to Paul by the way. To do what? To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God. These are two opposing forces. There's the power of Satan and the power of God. And they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in God. Again, Satan is contrasted here with God as being the leader, the manager of an opposing team, not working and being part of God's team.