Question
Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel .
Is Satan a real person , in Jewish thought ??
Was Satan inside the serpent when the serpent spoke to Eve , in the Garden of Eden??
Thankyou very much for your answer.
Answer
According to Judaism, only God and man have independence and free will to choose to do good or bad. Accordingly, angels, like animals, don’t have free will and are simply robot-like messengers (malach, in Hebrew, the word for angel and messenger), sent to do their particular mission (e.g. germs). Satan, literally means stumbling block, and like all other angels, has no free will and is clearly not a person. It is a term used in Hebrew for many types of tests or challenges which God sends us in life, often used interchangeably with the “evil inclination” (which we all have in us), and man’s role is to destine his fate. We definitely don’t believe in that red guy with the pitchfork or anything similar!
With Love of Isral,
(Rabbi) Ari Shvat
