Q&A: Perfection and Self-Perfecting — Between Good and Very Good
Perfection and Self-Perfecting — Between Good and Very Good
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Regarding the question of “why there is evil in the world” and the answer that the purpose is for there to be free choice, and following that Rabbi Kook’s answer about perfection and self-perfecting. In creation we actualize the ability to choose good and to perfect ourselves in a way that He כביכול could not reveal, because He is perfect.
My question about this is: why didn’t He create a world in which there would be free choice and self-perfecting between good and very good? For example, that we would have the choice whether to work hard to build a beautiful house, to study more, to do acts of kindness for one another — but there would be no choice to murder, to rape, no hunger in the world, no diseases, and so on — things that are truly evil.
Seemingly, we can imagine a world in which there is also the advantage of free choice and self-perfecting without evil. And that is also what I would expect to see in a world created by One who is good and wants to do good.
Answer
I don’t think I can give a satisfactory answer to that. Clearly there has to be free choice, and it seems that if it were only between good and better, it would not achieve its purpose. We are supposed to create good in the face of evil, not play around with trivialities. One who is good and wants to do good wants other things from this world besides simply doing good. And those goals require that there also be evil.
As for where exactly the boundary should be drawn, below which we should not be given choice — I do not know how to answer. But that is a question, not a difficulty.
I’m also not sure there is a clear definition of the boundary between good and evil, so a choice between good and better can always be considered a choice between good and evil.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t see why the argument has fallen. Because you decided those choices are not important? The Holy One, blessed be He, decided otherwise.
How often such choices come up is really not a relevant measure.
We can say a forced answer is acceptable. But we do not say that a forced objection is acceptable.
I don’t agree that self-perfecting from good to very good is “playing around with trivialities.” After all, the gap between us human beings and Him, may He be blessed, is infinite, and that is also the potential for our self-perfecting. It is not reasonable to say that our self-perfecting beyond merely refraining from evil acts such as murder and rape is negligible. In my opinion, most commandments are in that range of good and very good (putting on tefillin, waving the lulav, etc. — the commandments between a person and God).
To my mind, the argument about the need for free choice and self-perfecting is the central one for the existence of evil in the world, so if that argument falls, we return to this question — and from there also to wondering about our basic assumption that the Creator of the world is good.