... But what about Evil?

"...I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil, in that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances; ... I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed;" Devarim 30.15-19 [1917 JPS Tanakh]

Evil.

Evil is so much more than sin.

Sin is missing the mark.

Evil is the road to destruction.

In English, Evil is what you get when you spell the word "live" in reverse. But what IS Evil? It is a concept that seems to dominate our lives these days: Evil Empire, Axis of Evil, Evil Doers...

Where did Evil come from? Who created it? Evil pains us, it jars us, it makes us fear. It makes us question G-d and the existence of G-d: If G-d is so good, knowing, and all-powerful, why does G-d not prevent Evil? Since G-d allows Evil to occur does this mean G-d is Evil? Is G-d not so good?If G-d is not so all-knowing, or all powerful then can we call G-d, God? Is G-d limited?

These are among the logical mind fields that you regularly fall into when delving Religious Philosophy 101.

First let me submit to you that what we really "know" about G-d would not fill a single drop in a thimble. Maimonides came up with the idea of "Negative Attributes"-- If you can describe it then it isn't really G-d. In the Jewish framework, G-d is ultimately unknowable. We humans are not equipped to "know" G-d... yet sometimes we can experience G-d's Presence.


The Jewish Mystical view of G-d is summarized in the final clause of the Shema: "Adonai Echad!" G-d is One. Where there is One, there can be no other. All is contained with in the One. The early Jewish mystics theorized how G-d "emanated" a small portion of Its Self to create our universe.

The closest point we can come to "know" the Unknowable One is call Ayin -- "Nothing". Why Nothing? Simply because there is Nothing we can know about the Holy One beyond that point. Were a modern atheist able to say to one of these mystics, "You know nothing about G-d! G-d is Nothing!" The sage mystics would nod their head and agree. God is Ayin.

A later mystic, Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenaz, added to this idea of the "emanation" of G-d into creation further. He said, in so many words, G-d allowed the universe to come into being by withdrawing from the place our universe occupies... Yet still: Adonai Echad! There is only ONE.

"But what about EVIL?" You ask. "Doesn't that mean that EVIL comes from G-d? To give a Jewish answer [that I hope Rabbi will be proud of]: Yes and No.

William of Occam long ago put forward the idea when given two equally valid explanations for a phenomenon, one should embrace the less complicated formulation. This became know as Occam's razor. Let's try to shave the barber.

First let me say: Evil is not a product of either the "natural" world or an "ungodly" supernatural [or demonic] force. Evil requires a "moral or ethical framework". Morals and ethics are products of humankind's thinking as established in the code of its civil and religious institutions-- they are not the product of the "natural world".

Let's go back to the beginning: "And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them; and God said unto them: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.'"

Man has dominion. Dominion is "power or the use of power over something." We might think we have dominion over the world but sometimes it lets us know otherwise. The natural world as the unknowable Holy One "created" it, was not established with a "moral framework". It was established with a precise [but not quite known] set of "laws" which man has spent many centuries learning about. At its crudest "natural law" is "dog eat dog and the buzzards get the leftovers". Though we may think of ourselves as the smartest of all living creatures event our intelligence cannot prevent tragedies.

When an earthquake occurs, a car blows a tire and hits a guard rail, or a hurricane wreaks havoc, it is a tragedy but it is not Evil. A demonic force is not required for these things to occur. These events and their kind are "built in" to the natural scheme of things.

"But what about evil? Where does it come from if not from God or a Satan?" Patience, friend, we'll get there.

First, let's take another side trip: let's clear up who Ha-Satan really is and what Ha-Satan does: The Ha-Satan of the Torah was a servant of the Holy One and never, ever a separate evil power tempting man away from G-d. Man has always been able to do *that* without any help. So what was Ha-Satan?

Ha-Satan was nothing more than a "moral" quality control inspector.

A what?

Let me explain:

For many years I worked in the manufacturing and aerospace industries as a quality control inspector and Quality Analyst. I was given a set of standards and specifications and it was my job to see if the parts being manufactured "measured up" to those standards and specifications. That was all I did for almost fifteen years: Seeing new and more creative ways of making mistakes and finding new and more clever ways of measuring things to the standards and specifications I was given.

Quality folks are not very well liked. Our job was to point out mistakes but I did the job I was hired to do. I often quipped that I must have been a masochist to have wanted a job that made me so well hated. I am proud to have helped make the space shuttle as safe as I could make it during those years... [unfortunately I did not have a say over poor management decisions.]

But you might then ask: how do you measure moral standards? Long ago, the Rabbis came up with the idea of "Ha-Satan". Ha-Satan worked for the Holy One as nothing more than a "moral force" that measured the quality of our compliance with the accepted moral and ethical values we adopt when we accept the yoke of the Torah. Ha-Satan looks for the flaws in our compliance with the Mitzvot.

Certainly a Humanist might say that God and Ha-Satan are not required in these modern times. After all we have created D.A.s and courts of Law. Belief in "supernatural entities" are not required for creation of the world or for moral judgement. One might also say very logically the universe is not required. After all why bother with all of this evil? Why bother having any of this... this... whatever it is? I've yet to hear a Humanist say that the universe is not required and there for should cease and desist forthwith.

Ok, so Ha-Satan works for the Holy One but we still have not answered the important questions: What is Evil and where does it come from?

I said before: Man has dominion. Whether you are a literalist or a fabulist or a factualists on the origin of the Torah is unimportant. The very first chapter of the Torah tells us that this world is man's world and man has the right to create whatever he pleases. No where in the first chapter of B'reshith [Genesis] does the Holy One say anything about Evil or creating Evil. "and this was good, and that was good,.." but never a word about ".. and this was evil."

So where does Evil come from?

To put it bluntly: Man.

Man creates evil. "...I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil..." Life and goodness go hand in hand. So too do Death and evil.

Evil is a destructive force rooted in self-centered *human* behavior. Like a selfish child on steroids it is the voice that says: "I will do what I want to do, and if I have to I will kill you and take your stuff to get what I want." Evil requires malice-- that callous disregard for common ethical or moral values.

We all have experienced Evil. Some of us have even created or participated in it.

I speak from experience.

My own evil deeds destroyed me and harmed those who were then around me. I died but was brought back for a second chance. To quote a poster I have seen: "Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others."

I won't talk about what happened. Any thing I might say about my part it those events could be seen as trying to varnish away my guilt. I won't do that.

I can tell you from experience that for every innocent man that is convicted of a crime, there are thousands of convicts who claim that their blackest deeds were not a crime at all, at least, in their own eyes.

On the other hand: Evil may not be a conscious decision. It can be, but I cannot tell you that it is. We might like to think it is but I am not so sure. I cannot ascribe my own choices or deeds as having been inspired by a "supernatural or demonic cause" but looking back I cannot say that my choices were rational. Why did I do those things? I do not know.

Alright so we answered the question of who created evil and part of why... but what about God's part in this?

Can't God stop Evil?

Jews have been on the worst end of human Evil. The civilian toll in World War II was 37 million. Six million of them were Jews. That is 16 percent of the total civilian deaths when we were maybe 0.5 percent of the world population. To make it worse those that died were about half our total population at the time.

Some thinkers say that the Ha-Shoah proves that G-d is limited and that is why G-d did nothing. I think that what is limited is their understanding of the Holy One and of Human kind.

Other say that Ha-Shoah proves that the Holy One has unilaterally broken the covenant with Israel. Hmmm... I might ask: How many times have we broken the covenant with the Holy One, and the Holy One has taken us back? What kind of parent denies their child?

You can read more of this kind of thing at Wikipedia's entry on Holocaust Theology

and yet... after much reading and thought: It is not that G-d does not want to stop the Evil we create. Nor is that G-d can not stop the Evil we create. It is that the Holy one *chooses not* to stop the Evil we create for Its own unknowable reasons.

Yet there is an answer: The Holy One gave us the Law. It is we who must choose to follow that Law. It is we who must enforce that Law among ourselves and it is we who must suffer the consequences when we break it or do not enforce it.

There was a time long ago when we were children and Mommy or Daddy would come and punish Evil behavior. But as we grew up, our parents stepped back and let us choose. Good or bad. We paid or were rewarded. Should it be less so for G-d?

Ha-Shoah gave us gifts were we but to look at them. Sacred gifts. Holy gifts. Priceless gifts.

Out of the darkness of Ha-Shoah came the brightness of Israel reborn. Ha-Shoah has given us the words "never again"-- It has given us a renewed purpose for social justice.

"...I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil..."

We choose.

Each and every day.

Whether we want to or not.

What do you choose?

More soon.

HaGedi