For Judaism, anything that even remotely conflicts with the concept that there is only one God is rejected on principle, because it contradicts the idea of ​​pure monotheism. That there is a God in heaven who fights against a god of the underworld or hell is not monotheism. It is the same dualism that we find in pagan beliefs.

The Bible speaks of a character known as Satan, who acts as an accusing prosecutor in God’s court. Satan has no powers or authority of his own, but must obtain God’s permission to act.

Every time he is mentioned in the Bible we see him written as «HaSatan», or «The Satan». By using the definite article «the», it indicates that it is a title, like the rabbi, the teacher, etc. Thus, in the Bible the term HaSatan is used more as an indication that the subject performs a certain job and not as a description of a being.

Therefore, Satan’s job description is very different from that of the devil. For Christians, devil and Satan are synonyms, and for them the devil does have power and authority on his own. In contrast, in the Jewish Bible, Satan only has the power that God gives him and has no authority. The fact that the devil is defined as having power and authority implies that there is more than one god.

Satan is mentioned in only a few places in the Hebrew scriptures. In each case, he is an angel who works for God and not against God, and as we said before, he must have God’s permission to act. Chronicles, Job, Psalms, and Zechariah are the only places where he is mentioned. In each case, Satan’s job description is to act as what we know in our time as the prosecutor and his duty is to present the accusation and the evidence that shows the guilt of the accused. Furthermore, the prosecutor must obtain permission from God, The Judge, to initiate an operation to unmask a lawbreaker.

Some scholars explain the term satan as a metaphor referring to the evil inclination, the “yetzer hara”, that every person has. The term satan literally means adversary. And in Jewish philosophy it is said that one of the things we battle with every day is our own evil inclination, the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara is not a being or a force, but is man’s innate capacity to do evil in the world. Its counterpart is the “yetzer hatov”, the inclination toward good.

It is clear that the concept of “The Devil” in Western culture contradicts the foundation of Jewish monotheism. That is why, in Judaism, we have sent the “devil” to hell.

Prepared by Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Articles by Rabbi Stuart Federow, Ariela Pelaia and the Encyclopaedia Judaica.