Q&A: What Is "Good"?
What Is "Good"?
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
People often talk about the Holy One, blessed be He, as good and beneficent: “The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is upon all His works”; the whole purpose of the creation of the world is said to be “to bestow good upon His creatures.” I want to understand what is defined as “good.”
Surely this is not “good” in the physical sense—that things are good for us, like health, pleasure, livelihood, and the like—because that doesn’t fit, since clearly there is much evil and suffering in the world.
So is good meant in the spiritual sense? What are the definitions of this good, and can we even know what good is at all, or does it depend only on heavenly calculations—meaning that only the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what is “good” for a person?
I want to sharpen the point: I’m not talking about what is “right” or “just,” because one could also say about suffering and tragedies that this is what is right and just according to heavenly calculations that we do not know.
Answer
Who said that this is the purpose of creation? In my view, that’s nonsense. After all, if He had not created us, there would have been no need to do good for us. So in my opinion, it is impossible to say that this is the purpose of creation. It has other purposes, and our task is to advance them (through serving God).
Regarding evil in the world, I have answered this in several places here on the site, and also in the second book of my trilogy. You can search here: evil in the world, natural evil and human evil, etc.
By the way, the Hazon Ish writes in Faith and Trust that trust does not mean that things will be good, but that what should be will be. That is exactly what you wrote at the end, and it also means that it is incorrect to say that the goal is beneficence in the sense of pleasantness. I do not know, and I do not think anyone knows, what that good is. Certainly not to give a definition of it.
Discussion on Answer
And by the way, what I wrote—that the purpose of the world is God's desire to bestow good—is a quote from Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. He says that “it is the way of the good to do good”; one who is good wants to bestow good, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, created us so that He could do good for us.
The fact that people quote Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto proves nothing. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto is well known. So what?
When people say that He is good, they mean good in the simplest sense of the word. The fact that there is no definition does not mean that we do not understand what it is.
Good means bringing into existence.
So, if I understood correctly, when people say for example, “The Lord is good to all,” they mean some mysterious and hidden “good” that only the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what it is?