“Who Makes Peace and Creates Evil” At
the beginning of Parshat Noach, the Torah describes the generation that the
Holy One, Blessed is He, despite His infinite mercy, felt it necessary to
destroy, with the exception of Noach and his family. That family of human
beings, plus a selection of living creatures, would be used to
“re-create” the world, so to speak, after the “Great Flood.”
“The earth had become corrupted before G-d, and the world was full
of violence” (Bereshit 6:11). After
the “Mabul,” HaShem takes an
oath that never again will He destroy humanity as a whole, no matter to what
depths of moral depravity human beings will have sunk.
Large segments of individual nations were indeed swept away by water,
as the forces of Egypt were drowned in the Yam Suf at the time of the
Exodus. Another
nation would be the object of an eternal warfare by G-d, for they defied and
rebelled against HaShem in a manner worse than any other nation.
Who
or what was the source of this historical evil in the world?
The surprising answer is: “the Avos;”
specifically, Avraham and Yitzchak. For
Avraham was the progenitor of Yishmael, the ancestor of Islam, the religion
of Yasir Arafat and Osama bin Laden. And
Yitzchak was the father of Esav, ancestor of Amalek and Rome.
Only Yaakov, alone among the three toweringly great individuals who
made up the “Avos,” was described by the Sages as “his bed was
perfect;” meaning that all of his children were essentially good, and none
was evil. What
can we make of the fact that unmitigated evil proceeded from the great
ancestors of the Jewish People? But
first, let’s bring the problem closer to its origin.
In Yeshayahu 45:7, there is recorded a verse, from which a piece was
taken as the title of this essay, where the Prophet says in the Name of
HaShem, “The
One Who fashions light, and creates darkness; Who
makes peace, and creates evil; I
am HaShem, Who does all these things.” There
are obviously great depths in this verse, that bear on the problem of
Theodicy (“Why do bad things happen to good people?”), and others.
But one thing we see immediately, and it is in itself a great
question, is that words such as “to fashion” and “to make” are used
in the verse, as is the word “to create.”
“To fashion” and “to make” are used in connection with
“good” things, like light and peace; whereas the word “create,” the
same word used in the beginning of the Torah in connection with the bringing
into being of heaven and earth, that G-d, at the end of “six days,”
blessed and called “very good” (Bereshit 1:31), is used in connection
with “bad” things, such as “darkness” and certainly, “evil.”
But
if we look more carefully at the sequence of events recounted in the
beginning of the Torah, we see that HaShem blessed the world and called it
“very good” only after six eventful “days,” of building and
activity. In fact, what was
blessed was “everything that He had made,” from the rudimentary elements
of Creation, the “tohu va-vohu,” material that was formless and void,
without order or structure, when “darkness was upon the face of the
deep” (Bereshit 1:2). Similarly
in the case of Avraham, who yearned for descendants; he and Sarah were
rewarded with the saintly Yitzchak, who offered himself as a sacrifice and
who dug wells, as the true “seed of Avraham.”
But HaShem also brought forth from Avraham a Yishmael, who was
without form or structure, “a wild and uncivilized man, whose hand is
raised against everyone, and everyone’s hand is raised against him” (Bereshit
16:12). Yitzchak
shared a similar fate. Together
with Rivkah, he produced a Yaakov, a “dweller in tents,” who labored and
developed and grew in the interior worlds.
And also an Esav, who had no internal depth, and was entirely a
“man of the field” (Bereshit 25:27). Thus,
it seems that the word “ra,” as used in the verse cited from Yeshayahu,
means more “without structure and without form,” without coherence and
meaning, corresponding to “tohu va-vohu,” than “evil.”
And the word “choshech” means more “unenlightened,” a state
that can be improved by the application
of intelligence, Divine in the case of Bereshit, or by the diligent
application of human intelligence, the Divine gift to humanity. In
our time, we have seen horrific destruction wrought by “wild and
uncivilized men,” whose hands “are raised against everyone,” and who
choose to live outside the boundaries of decency and morality. In the "Yigdal" Prayer, we find, "He compensates a person according to his deed, and gives to the wicked 'ra,' chaos and confusion, corresponding to his wickedness;" that is, corresponding to his failure to contribute anything positive or constructive to the world. Indeed, for the wicked, there is no "deed." He does nothing, but destroy, which is easy. Rabbi Pinchas Frankel |
