Jewish tradition describes different stages in the development of the soul-body relationship. The soul first descends into the world when the child is still a fetus in its mother’s womb. At this stage, the fetus has a completely pure soul without any desire for evil at all. According to tradition, an angel teaches it the entire Torah during this time. One understanding of this angelic tutorial is as a metaphor for the untainted, pure perception of the truth that the soul has before entering this world. Therefore the Torah is actually inherent in the Jewish soul and is its natural states quo. The child must, however, be born into this world of concealment and illusion in order to achieve moral success through its own free will and its own struggle. At birth, the “evil inclination” enters a person, i.e., he or she loses that incredible clarity that they possessed before entering this world. The soul’s desires are overshadowed by the physicality of the body and its yearning for spiritual fulfillment is muted by ego, selfishness and materialism. Childhood is a time when the physical world and all its overwhelming desires rule over the human being, and the soul and its aspirations are largely dormant. It is for this reason that a child is not held legally responsible for his/her actions.
Toward the end of childhood – during a girl’s twelfth or a boy’s thirteenth year – the soul begins to awaken and manifests itself more overtly. When the child reaches adulthood, the soul has reached its full level of activity and therefore this person how has complete free will. He or she is able to choose between good and evil, the spiritual and the material, between egotism and humility, to engage in a full range of moral decisions. Since they now have both a “good inclination” and an “evil inclination” and the ability to choose between the two, they are fully accountable for their actions.
