If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is like your own soul, will entice you secretly to say, “Let us go and worship the gods of others” that you did not know… you shall not accede to him and not listen to him… Rather, you shall surely kill him. (Devarim 13:7-10)

So… if a family member comes up to you and asks if you’ve “been saved,” or wanna go to a Buddhist lecture, or a wiccan art show, apparently you’re supposed to rise up with righteous fury and “unalive” them. Well, isn’t this a sunny statement of love and understanding from Parsha Re’eh. Any rational person should be disturbed by this mitzvah. And Judaism isn’t the religion that’s known to publicly and violently punish those who seek different religious paths. So what’s really going on here? The Or HaChaim offers an interpretation that is not only practical in today’s world, but also presents a striking understanding of the human psyche. And centuries before Freud found his mom appealing.

The first thing the Or HaChaim points out is that the enticing individuals named in the verse are in a strange order. It goes: brother, son/daughter, wife, then friend. The order doesn’t seem to have a logical progression. It’s not an order of closeness, or proximity, or influence. Why this way? To that he says that, “Hashem alludes to a major lesson regarding the types of enticement that come to a person from within himself. To make him stray from the straight and good path.”

This remez (hint or allusion) reveals that the text isn’t just about a family member trying to get you to worship idols, but actually talking about a person’s internal proclivities that lure them to sin in any way. And each of the relationships alludes to a specific level of influence within a person.

Oh Brother 

The verse specifically qualifies brother as, “the son of your mother.” It’s not that a half brother from your dad is less of an influence. The brother is referring to the yetzer hara, the evil inclination that every person is born with. The metaphor is that since it was born with you, it’s like they are your brother from your mother. The yetzer hara has been with you from the beginning, knows everything about you, and has that influence that only someone who grew up with you in your household from your perspective can have. Even though the family from your childhood are tremendously influential, they’re the ones that, hopefully, we learn to deal with the earliest. So too, the yetzer hara will always be with us, but just as they know our tricks, we can learn theirs. 

The Sons and Daughters are Beyond your Command

“Mitzvah goreres mitzvah, aveirah goreres aveirah” (Pirkei Avos 4:2) is usually translated as a mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, a sin leads to another sin. Or perhaps the reward for a mitzvah is another mitzvah, the punishment for a sin is another sin. The Or HaChaim invokes the mystical understanding that doing a mitzvah creates an angel (so to speak) or rather a positive spiritual force while a sin creates a negative one. This is supported by Pirkei Avos 4:11, “Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob said: he who performs one commandment acquires for himself one advocate (defending angel), and he who commits one transgression acquires for himself one accuser (prosecuting witness).” 

However you interpret these ideas, the point is that doing sins creates an energy, whether that is a growing appetite for the sin or a callous insensitivity leading to a reluctance to do mitzvahs. These “sons and daughters” are born from the sins you’ve done and entice you to stray further down the wrong path. But unlike your yetzer hara, these multiply and lead you down roads you’d never have expected to journey. They seem to take on a life of their own. 

Soul Cell Mate

At a certain point, sins can stop being an occasional indulgence and transition into a habit. It becomes as natural as regular behavior. According to the Or HaChaim, at this stage, the person acquires an evil soul (a neffesh ra’ah). Just as when a man and woman enter into kiddushin (marriage) and their souls become one, so too this person’s soul can bond with an evil soul. Like a wife, the sin’s persuasion is a constant presence, and may even be the individual’s top priority. 

Friends Forever 

In the final stage, the person’s whole orientation is sin. It’s not just their predilection, or their escape, it’s their very identity. It’s what their life now is all about. “His soul becomes attached to, and partners with, the element of evil and comes to resemble the evil itself.” The friend who is “like your own soul” refers to the person’s soul who has rejected his Creator and cleaved to a new master (hence avodah zara/idolatry). 

This progression of sin gives us a Kabbalistic understanding of the downward spirals and cautionary tales we’ve heard for years. But is there any scientific or psychological support for Or HaChaim’s philosophy? I believe so. 

Stage 1 – The Beginning

The brother stage, aka yetzer hara, can easily be compared to Freud’s id. The animal instincts of survival, comfort, instant gratification that are within everyone. Modern psychology would be more likely to describe these impulses in terms of evolutionary psychology, reward systems, and innate motivational drives. But the yetzer hara encompasses more than just these biological drives. It seeks honor, indulges in arrogance, and experiences jealousy. The point is it, these are rooted and universal vices that share the Or HaChaim’s brother premise.

Stage 2 – Expanded Cravings

As the sins increase, so do new ways to chase after them. According to the incentive-sensitization theory of Robinson & Berridge, once someone engages in an addictive behavior (drugs, alcohol, gambling) the brain starts to associate reward with certain cues. A laptop becomes an attractive tool for gambling or enticing images. The liquor aisle in the grocery store can produce powerful cravings, and that can evolve to the urge coming from seeing any grocery store that has an alcohol section. So many of us have become dopamine addicted. For me, not knowing where my phone is or even not having it on me causes anxiety. But once the addiction becomes strong enough, the cravings increase, but the actual pleasure derived drops off. Quite the parallel to the Mishnah’s “reward for sin is another sin.” 

Stage 3 – Habits and Addiction

Wendy Wood’s research talks about how habits are formed. As a practice becomes a common staple in a person’s life the brain gradually rewires repeated behaviors into automatic routines. Where a cue once led to a choice followed by an action and finally a reward, now the cue immediately is followed by the action, short circuiting the choice and eventually the reward. When a behavior becomes automatic, it bypasses the deliberate decision-making process altogether. In Judaism, the soul is where our thought comes from. If the body is acting on its own without deliberate action, it’s as if the body has gained a separate soul.

Stage 4 – Identity 

Identity is a powerful thing. Psychologist Daryl Bem proposed Self-Perception Theory, the idea that people often perceive themselves through their own repeated actions. Over time, behaviors cease to be merely things we do and become evidence of the kind of person we believe ourselves to be.  Some modern therapies similarly encourage clients to change the language they use about themselves: “I feel angry” instead of “I am angry,” or “I made a bad choice” instead of “I am a bad person.” The distinction matters because identities tend to perpetuate themselves. When a person deeply identifies with a noble cause, it can transform their life for the better. But when they identify with a vice or a distorted worldview, the consequences can be catastrophic. Hedonistic experimentation becomes a lifestyle. Addiction ceases to be something a person struggles with and becomes the organizing principle of their life. The vice is no longer merely something the person does; it becomes something they serve. Not unlike avodah zara.

Whether the Or HaChaim’s take on the verse directly aligns with modern psychology or not is up for you to decide. But whether you want to go the scientific route or the spiritual one, the lesson is clear. We are in constant conflict between what we truly want and a very familiar voice tempting us to do otherwise. Though we may think the consequences are insignificant, far more is affected by that decision, both on a personal level and on a spiritual one.