Ask the Rabbi

  • Torah and Jewish Thought
  • The Jewish Attitude to Evil

Why does evil exist?

undefined

Rabbi Ari Shvat

Question
What is good and evil? why does good exist? why does evil exist? how to understand it correctly? what is it?
Answer
We recently answered: We believe that the objective "good" is the eternal ideals and actions as done and suggested by the Perfect God and His Torah. He created a perfect world, which obviously includes challenges enabling us to be independent and have free-will to choose to be good, godly and productive, or the opposite (=bad, evil, wrong, not beneficial in the long-range). In other words part of man's "good" (=his free-will), is the possibility to choose bad, and receive the ramifications. Nevertheless, even if man chooses "bad", in the end, the Perfect God, similar to a wise chess-master, can turn every bad or "wrong" decision into a positive one. In addition, we can always turn around and improve, and this is the natural process of "trial and error" and spiritual evolution.
את המידע הדפסתי באמצעות אתר yeshiva.org.il