The Images We Cannot Bear to Face
"Evil is a reflection of man giving reign to his worst impulses. And while it may seem like evil’s current tenure and intensity are more than we can bear — we are destined to prevail."
By Andrew Rashkow
Pondering the seemingly endless chain of dark episodes prominently staining the tapestry of human history, the notion of an omnipotent and beneficent Creator and Sustainer being in charge can strike a discordant chord. The mental machinations involved in trying to balance these incongruities have led many like the character “Ivan” in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov to disavow the spiritual unknown in light of life’s all too real and familiar cruelty. However, the resulting “sometimes-worlds-happen” worldview offer little solace and even less meaning in its place.
The most common theological approach outside of Judaism attempting to explain the existence of evil in the world is to propose the existence of a counter force opposing God’s goodness. By envisioning the world as a place of dueling domains, this conceived duality seeks to shield God’s purview from all that is ostensibly abhorrent and unjust. However, this idea withers under any serious examination since what could be the source of any rivaling force other than the Creator himself? And in that case any adversary would perforce be subordinate, so the original conundrum quickly returns.
The Jewish tradition teaches that God created man to be the recipient of His bestowal of goodness. Since God desires to impart the ultimate good, the perfect good, it comes in the form of reward. Gifts are definitionally unearned and therefore undeserved. As such, they are essentially handouts that may offer temporary benefits but ultimately lead to embarrassment and resentment. Only honest rewards can be received without there being any diminution on the part of the recipient.
We were created facing God, or, in other words, positioned perfectly to have a relationship with our Creator. We have been given the opportunity to build and strengthen this connection by using our free will. And yet with this gift of choice, we were also given the option to turn away. It is this very act of turning away from God which creates “opposition.” Stated another way, the outlooks and outbreaks that fail to reflect the purpose of creation are man-made.
The search for the source of evil finds an uncanny parallel in the language of an early 20thcentury astronomer, physicist and mathematician, who wrote about the newly discovered limits inherent in scientific inquiry. In 1920, Arthur Eddington wrote in Space, Time and Gravitation:
“On the shore of the unknown we discovered strange footprints. We invented profound theories to uncover their source. We finally succeeded in finding the strange creature that made those footprints and, behold, they are our own.”
Evil is a reflection of man giving reign to his worst impulses. The Jewish sources explain that while evil is a necessary by-product for man to have free-will, God prescribed for it the exact limit necessary in order to achieve its intended purpose. While evil’s current tenure and intensity seem more than we can bear, we are destined to prevail. Should we choose to turn around and rediscover our original orientation, we would see all of the ominous, impending storm clouds gathered on the horizon dissipate and disappear in a burst of light. This eventuality is hinted at with the kindling of every light of Chanukah.
May we merit to see the return of the ultimate light speedily in our days.
Andrew Rashkow is the CEO of Imbibe, Co-founder of Heaven’s Door Spirits, and a Jerusalem-based Teacher and Adviser.
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Thoughtful and erudite treatment of one of the most fundamental questions mankind faces about the nature of reality.
Wonderful! This really pairs well with an essay I wrote a few months back around pesach time:
https://open.substack.com/pub/yaacovlyons/p/our-minds-mitzrayim?r=1msi7x&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
"What is evil? What is darkness? We aren't interested in their definitions but in their essence. Foreshadowing this dialectic between dark and light, exile and redemption, our ancestor Joseph is mercilessly left to rot in an Egyptian dungeon. Events then catapult him from the depths of incarceration to the halls of political authority. The verse reveals the time has come for him to finally leave jail, but the midrashic response is cryptic. For reasons unexplained, our sages make a connection between Joseph's release and the phrase, keitz sam lechosech, 'God gives an ending to darkness'. Their use of the term Keitz here is critical. We generally translate Keitz as 'ending', but other such words are available in the Biblical lexicon, for example, Kaloh. Is there anything unique about the word keitz?
We can more accurately render Keitz as meaning 'to cut', i.e. it denotes an externally imposed end. And this distinction illuminates an essential dimension of understanding. Visavi our worldly experience of evil, there seems no apparent reason for darkness to have a natural end. Rabbi Sacks once pointed this out to Richard Dawkins, insisting hope has no rational basis. However, as the Ramchal explains in his classic work Derech Hashem, there always comes a point where God will pull the plug on evil.
The collapse of the USSR is an excellent example of such a phenomenon. At the time, there were no identifiable causes for the Soviet state to disintegrate almost overnight as it did. Even today, historians are still unclear about what exactly led to the unforeseen eclipse of a seeming world power and military juggernaut.
Crucially, we see that the end of darkness is rarely imaginable for the individual immersed in it. God, on the other hand, observes evil from an elevated perspective. Unlike humanity, which is limited to the reality they inhabit, God can conceive infinite options beyond our present scope."