Shabbat Gathering: What's evil?

Dear Chevrei, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:

Zoom
Meeting ID: 883 8469 4181
Password: 822665
Phone: +1 312 626 6799

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Here we go.

I’ve been thinking more and more about good and evil the deeper and deeper I get into meditation. All those meditation books I’ve been reading make clear this point: All there is is Hashem. Or, as Dr. Bronner writes on his bottle of soap, “All is one.”

And that begs the question, “Where does evil come from and what’s the point.” If Hashem made everything, if humans are created in Hashem’s image, then what about evil? Why evil? I want to believe there is only one god and that Hashem is immanent (inside of us) and transcendent (beyond us). That notion marries up nicely with ideas I was taught and believed in when I was a boy exploring Eastern religions. It resonates with me across the years. But I’m still troubled by why G!d permits evil.

I’ve been reading one of the books I recommended last week: Jewish Meditation by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan and he explains the notion of good and evil.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

Here how he puts it:

The purpose of evil is to tempt us and allow us to have free choice. Without the existence of evil, we would have no other choice but to do good and there would be no virtue in the good we do. But since God gave us free will and wants us to do good as a matter of our own free choice, evil plays a highly important role in His plan.

Ok. I get that part, but there be outliers: the crusades, the pogroms, the Shoah. Why would G!d permit this to happen to us?

We have a choice. We are all artists creating our own lives. Maybe we’ll choose yellow for this part of the painting. Or maybe we’ll come up with a good idea for a cadenza we’re playing. Or even maybe, this time we’ll choose to do good because our conscience is tired of making the same bad decisions over and over again. Why not give it a try?

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

See you tonight!
Gut Shabbes!

All my love,
brian.

PS

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