http://www.beingjewish.com/basics/satan.html The site above offers an excellent description of the role of Satan from a Jewish perspective.

G-d is the Creator of Everything: Everything in the universe was created by G-d and only by G-d. Judaism completely rejects the dualistic notion that evil was created by Satan or some other deity. All comes from G-d. As Isaiah said, "I am the L-rd, and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I am the L-rd, that does all these things." (Is. 45:6-7). - http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/g-d.html Who is the Devil and what is his purpose? http://www.beingjewish.com/basics/satan.html How this relates to Human nature: The yetzer ra is more difficult to define, because there are many different ideas about it. It is not a desire to do evil in the way we normally think of it in Western society: a desire to cause senseless harm. Rather, it is usually conceived as the selfish nature, the desire to satisfy personal needs (food, shelter, sex, etc.) without regard for the moral consequences of fulfilling those desires. The yetzer ra is not a bad thing. It was created by G-d, and all things created by G-d are good. The Talmud notes that without the yetzer ra (the desire to satisfy personal needs), man would not build a house, marry a wife, beget children or conduct business affairs. But the yetzer ra can lead to wrongdoing when it is not controlled by the yetzer tov. There is nothing inherently wrong with hunger, but it can lead you to steal food. There is nothing inherently wrong with sexual desire, but it can lead you to commit rape, adultery, incest or other sexual perversion. The yetzer ra is generally seen as something internal to a person, not as an external force acting on a person. The idea that "the devil made me do it" is not in line with the majority of thought in Judaism. Although it has been said that Satan and the yetzer ra are one and the same, this is more often understood as meaning that Satan is merely a personification of our own selfish desires, rather than that our selfish desires are caused by some external force. People have the ability to choose which impulse to follow: the yetzer tov or the yetzer ra. That is the heart of the Jewish understanding of free will. The Talmud notes that all people are descended from Adam, so no one can blame his own wickedness on his ancestry. On the contrary, we all have the ability to make our own choices, and we will all be held responsible for the choices we make. - http://www.jewfaq.org/human.htm [Edit: Format]

I have points to give so receive...

I found this online ( I am not Jewish but I was interested to find out the answer to this) The Hebrew word "Satan" means "Hinderer." To hinder someone means to hold him back, to try to prevent him from doing something. G-d created the Hinderer to give us work to do in this world (see my article Why did G-d Create the World?). Satan is here to make things difficult for us, so we can overcome our evil temptations, and PASS the test. That is the purpose of Satan. Satan is an angel whose purpose has been determined by G-d. Temptation is there to try and deter us. It gives us the ability to do the wrong thing. More importantly, it gives us the ability to look at evil and refuse to do it. By presenting us with the opportunity to do evil, it gives us the ability to choose between good and evil. The ability to choose between good and evil is what gives us free will. (See my article On the Nature of Free Will. So, in order for us to work for the good that Hashem wants to give us, the good of the World to Come, we need something to deter us. That is the ability to do evil. Satan is our Evil Inclination (Yetzer Hara). The Evil Inclination tries to prevent us from doing good, because Hashem has commanded the Evil Inclination to do that. Why? To give us free will. Each of us every day fights with Satan. We all have temptations, throughout the day. But we, as the Children of Israel, have the power to overcome even angels, if we work at it. Therefore, the Talmud says that men are greater than angels, for we can fight with an angel (Satan) and win. Satan is not, as the Christians think, a rebellious angel. How impossible! The angels are spiritual and holy, without any physical or unholy presence, and the presence of Hashem's holiness permeates them entirely. Angels, unlike humans, are therefore constantly and fully aware of Hashem's Presence everywhere. Could you stay dry in the ocean? An angel could not stop being holy, and can do no wrong. There is holiness everywhere in Creation, everywhere in the universe, and angels are made of the same thing. An angel could not stop serving G-d even if he tried. Furthermore, humans have Satan to tempt us. Angels have no Satan to tempt them. Who would be Satan's Satan? An ultra-Satan? The truth is that Satan has a job to do, just like every other angel. And angels have no free will. They do as Hashem commands them. A man once came to a great Rabbi, very troubled. He said to the Rabbi, "Please pray to Hashem to take away my Evil Inclination. I do so many sins, and I want to stop sinning!" The Rabbi answered, "Then what would be your purpose in this world, if you had no Evil Inclination? Your purpose in life is to overcome your personal Evil Inclination. That is what you were created for! Hashem has enough angels in heaven. He doesn't need one more. He created you human, so that you could improve yourself." Humans can improve themselves, and that is their purpose in this world. Angels, however, cannot improve themselves. That's not their purpose. Angels are therefore said to be "standing." They cannot become better, and they cannot rise any higher than they are. They are, so to speak, standing. Isaiah, when describing a Heavenly scene, says "Seraphim were standing around Him...." (Isaiah 6:2). (Seraphim are a type of angel.) Spiritually, angels are stuck at whatever level Hashem created them. Humans are different. Humans can rise by improving themselves. For that reason, we are described as "walkers." Therefore the Prophet Zachariah told the High Priest, "This is what Hashem, L-rd of Hosts says: if you walk in My ways, and if you observe My safeguards, you and your sons after you will be the High Priests, and you and your sons will thus guard my Holy Temple, and I will make you walkers among these who are standing" (Zachariah 3:7). In other words, Hashem was promising the High Priest that he and his children will be High Priests, and also will merit reward in the Afterlife, in the World of Souls, where righteous people go after death. The Prophet Zachariah was saying that in the Next World they will be walkers among the standers, which means humans among angels. So the angels are referred to as perpetually standing, but we are movers. Our purpose is to keep on moving, to keep on improving ourselves, and to keep on rising. And how do we do it? By constant battle with the Evil Inclination. So now we have to revise our understanding of Satan. Satan is not a fallen angel. Satan is merely an angel with a dirty job. Satan does not have a rival kingdom. Satan is not in competition with G-d, and Satan does not want followers or worshipers. He's not even happy when people obey him and sin. Satan is the angel who tempts us, and the angel who prosecutes us in Heaven. He is also the Angel of Death. The angel who tries to make us sin is the same angel who accuses us in the Heavenly Court, and the same angel who carries out the death sentence. So, no, Satan does not wear a red suit, or carry a trident. Nor does he wear a business suit. Satan is a force of evil in the world that we must resist. Satan most often appears as a desire within you. Of course, there is no shortage of things in the world to tempt us to sin. And Satan has many "helpers," many of whom don't even know they are helping him. A shady-looking character in the street walks over to you and offers to sell you some stolen property, for example. He's not Satan. He's someone who has not resisted Satan, and has decided to do evil. He's now trying to tempt you to sin, but not because he wants you to sin per se. He personally has something to gain from your sinning. Whenever a human being tries to tempt another person to sin, it's because he himself feels he can gain something from it. It may be simply that he doesn't want to sin alone. Or maybe he needs your help. Or maybe he just gets emotional satisfaction out of seeing you go against what you believe (in which case he is a very sick person, but unfortunately not unusual). There could be any number of motivations. Likewise, the snake in the Garden of Eden was not Satan either, though confused Christians think it was. The snake had his own motivations, which I will not go into now. He was what the Torah calls a "Seducer," someone who, for whatever reason, tries to get other people to sin. How does one recognize Satan? For that we need to live a Torah life. This means a host of things that work together. To mention a few: Torah study, spending quality and quantity time among Observant Jewish people, learning from Rabbis and other religiously developed Jewish people, periodic introspection, and actual self-development by means of performing the Mitzvos. It is difficult (if at all possible) to cite any of these as being more important than any of the others. None of us are capable of destroying Satan. What we are expected and commanded to do is to gain the upper hand over our personal Satans. And Hashem helps us do this, constantly. The Talmud says that the Evil Inclination constantly attempts to destroy us spiritually, and Hashem constantly helps us and gives us the means with which to overcome our Evil Inclinations. When this world comes to an end, and the Next World begins, the Day of Judgment will take place. After that, Satan's work will be done. There will no longer be sin, and there will no longer be death. All judgment will have been passed and performed. There will no longer be any need for a Tempting Angel, an Angel of Death, or a Prosecuting Angel. Satan will cease to exist. It will not be a sad day at all. Nor will it be unfair treatment of Satan. It will be like turning off a machine. Angels are not like humans, with human emotions and desires. They exist merely to follow Hashem's instructions, for the greater glory of Hashem. That's the reason we exist too -- to follow Hashem's instructions for the greater glory of Hashem. So Satan was created to struggle against us, and we were put into this world to struggle against Satan. But that was not the purpose of our being created. When the struggle is over we will begin to receive the reward for having struggled. We will be brought in to the Next World, and the struggle will end. That's when the good times will begin. http://www.beingjewish.com/basics/satan.html I am interested to hear from nevets whether he agrees with this, and whether this is standard Jewish belief.

The one and only time that Satan is mentioned in the "Five books of Moses" is as a VERB. It's part of the story of Balaam, who was hired to curse the Jews. En route, he gets blocked by an angel, whom G-d sent [this doesn't work as well in English as in Hebrew:] "to Satan him". In other words, Satan means to hinder or mislead. In Hebrew an "S" and an "SH" are often represented by the same letter. So, the term Satan is also related to the Hebrew term Shtut, which means foolishness. The Talmud teaches that a person only "sins" when a "spirit of foolishness" enters them. If a person was always rational, he/she would always do the right things. So "Satan" is the internal foolishness that gets us to do wrong- and then to defend our misbehavior. (In classical Jewish terms, we call this the "Evil inclination".) We do encounter references later in the Bible to a "Satan" (like at the beginning of the book of Job). This is the angel that G-d created to act as the Accusing Voice in Heaven. So, when a person (whether alive or dead) is judged in Heaven, Satan has the job of digging up the dirt on them. One thing is very clear in Judaism- Satan, the angel, is a CREATED entity. Like any other angel, he can only act in accordance with G-d's will. Basically, Satan's got a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.

Please also see the answer on this question: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/113991 :-) In comparison, the Satan in the New Testament is an angel who rebelled against God and is trying to take over the world.

Satan is the God of those who the Jews are trying to enslave, the Gentiles. Satan is their greatest enemy, hence the Hebraic meaning of Lucifer's nickname, Satan. Satan, the Original Gods, and the Gentiles who have empowered their minds and souls are who stand in the way of the Jewish plan to rule the world. To the Jews, Satan represents the failure of their plans. The top Jews know that Satan's purpose is to teach the Gentiles to stand up for themselves, reject the false spiritual programs like christianity, and to gain and apply knowledge to better our species.