Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar said: “And behold it was very good” – and behold sleep is good. Is sleep, then, very good? This is a rhetorical question. Did we not learn: Wine and sleep are beneficial for them [the wicked] and beneficial for the whole world?14Mishna Sanhedrin 5:5. However, as a result of a person sleeping a bit, he can get up and toil extensively in the Torah.
Rabbi Naḥman bar Shmuel bar Naḥman said in the name of Rav Shmuel bar Naḥman: “Behold it was very good” – this is the good inclination; “and behold it was very good” – this is the evil inclination.15The addition of the word “and” is to introduce a second object. Is the evil inclination, then, very good? This is a rhetorical question. Rather, were it not for the evil inclination, a man would never build a house, would never marry a wife, would never beget children, and would never engage in commerce. Likewise, Solomon says: “[And I have considered all toil and all excelling in work,] that it is each man’s envy of his counterpart” (Ecclesiastes 4:4).