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Did G-d create evil? Scripture says that G-d created everything, right? So then if G-d indeed created everything, does that mean He created evil?

Is there Old Testament evidence for why He did or didn't?

HodofHod
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android.nick
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    Shouldn't you answer your last question first before posing the rest of the questions that are predicated on it? If you're uncertain what meaning of the term you're asking about, how can anyone else give you an effective answer? – Isaac Moses Jul 13 '11 at 14:09
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    Please re-think the structure of your questions. You are more than welcome to ask philosophical questions, but they should be answerable, and to accomplish that they should not be overly broad or overlapping, and they should be very focused with a direct purpose. The discussion of evil is a very old one with many Jewish sources. But try working your questions into a format that can be answered. As this one stands now it's basically useless. – Seth J Jul 13 '11 at 18:26
  • Why is this a bad question? – Adam Mosheh Jul 30 '12 at 14:55
  • @AdamMosheh, I think it was badly worded originally. – Seth J Mar 18 '13 at 17:59
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    יוצר אור ובורא חשך עושה שלום ובורא רע (ישעיה מה ז) – Danny Schoemann Mar 10 '15 at 08:07
  • "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." Isaiah 45:7 (KJV) – Decrypted Feb 21 '16 at 04:37
  • No, G-d did not create evil and He does not emit evil, nor does He prevent it from happening because G-d is not involved in human affairs. Rambam felt that evil is the reason three things: when people harm themselves, when people harm others, and natural law, although good for the earth as when a hurricane cleans the atmosphere, it can harm or even kill people residing near the proximity. This is because the world was not only created for people. We are not the center of the universe. – Turk Hill Dec 11 '19 at 17:01
  • People often feel perplexed to why bad things happen to good people. They feel that G-d should be like a loving father, but once these misconceptions are deleted, all problems with evil are removed. Also, a spider catching a fly is purely by chance. – Turk Hill Dec 11 '19 at 17:02
  • Related: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/a/130262/7303 – Yaacov Deane Aug 01 '22 at 01:34

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Yishayhu 45:7 says "I form the light, and create Darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am the LORD, That Doeth all These Things."

In this context, "evil" would be the things which causes a person to feel troubled.

Double AA
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avi
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There is evil in the world so that we can appreciate the good.

There is death in the world so that we can appreciate life.

There is an evil inclination inside of us so that the good we do means something.

As the Talmud tells us:

Resh Lakish said: "Satan, the Evil Inclination, and the Angel of Death are all one." (Baba Bathra 16a)

See this article from Aish.com that addresses a lot of your questions.

Menachem
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To begin with, I think we must first understand the term "good" because God only creates "good". Evil is only a possibility that arises when Good is created. (If God created "up" then "down" is a necessary possibility, but not a certainty.

The creation story says God created light and it was "good". So, how do we interpret that? Rambam understands "good" to mean something that conforms to 'God's will'. When God created the heavens and the Earth there was an element of uncertainty (chaos) to his creation. There was a chance, due to the randomness built into nature, that our world wouldn't have been the way it is now. So when it says the light is "good" it means that it was created just as God wanted it to be, it conformed to his will. If however, the photon for instance had been slightly smaller or heavier, the entire universe wouldn't have been formed as we know it, and it wouldn't have been "good".

Judaism is all about following the mitzvot in the Torah, because man has a free will, and the "knowledge of Good and Evil" and Man can use this intelligence to choose to conform to God's will and do things that are "good" or man can act in a way that doesn't conform to God's will, and that is considered "bad" and creates evil. For example things like murder and stealing are evils brought about by man acting against God's will, and to refrain from them is a "good" action which conforms to God's will.

So there are two ways that evil happens and neither of them are brought about by God. First is through randomness built into nature, as necessary accident that comes along when God is creating "good" things that conform to his will, and the second is by man bringing evil into the world by not acting as God wants us to.

the guide of the perplexed I
the guide of the perplexed 2

zaq
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  • That goes directly against Isiah... – avi Jul 13 '11 at 17:49
  • how so? can you elaborae? – zaq Jul 13 '11 at 18:01
  • See my answer above. The pasuk directly says that Gd creates evil. In hebrew it's "Boreh Ra" – avi Jul 13 '11 at 18:05
  • Rambam deals with this in chapter II.10.

    Isiah says "formed" not "created", so Darkness and Evil were formed as a necessary characteristic of the Light and Good that God created. For instance, God created sight, not blindness - blindness is just the absence of sight.

     – zaq Jul 13 '11 at 18:15
  • @avi: but on the other hand, there is the expression (in R' Meir ibn Gabbai's Avodas Hakodesh, and other sources) that אין דבר רע יורד מן השמים, no evil thing comes from G-d (from His perspective it is all good, it is only from the human perspective that it comes out as evil). He cites in this connection Prov. 19:3: "The foolishness of a person corrupts his ways, but his heart is angered against G-d" (i.e., the person blames G-d for the evil that was actually caused by his own actions). – Alex Jul 13 '11 at 18:20
  • zaq, you have it backwards. It's Yotzer Or, Uboreh Choshech, Oseh Shalom, Uboreh at HaRah, Ani Hashem, Oseh et hakol. You might recognize it from the brachot before shema, where we say "uboreh at hakol" as a euphamism/truncation. He forms light, creates darkness, makes peace, and creates evil. He is Gd he makes all these things. I understand that many have tried to say otherwise, but they need to contend with the pasuk. Either the rambam is being quoted backwards, or he has a different Nach. – avi Jul 13 '11 at 18:40
  • I did have that backwards, but not in the way you thought- "forms" (yotzer) is an actual creation (ie. light & good) and "creates" (boreh) is an accidental creation (ie. darkness and evil). If the passuk had said "who makes darkness and who makes evil" then we'd have a conflict, but since it says "creates" it fits with Rambam's explanation. ... – zaq Jul 13 '11 at 21:38
  • ...So, Darkness was created as necessary characteristics of the Light which God formed in actuality. And Evil was created as a necessary characteristic of the creations that formed according to God's will (Good). Evil is only evil in relation to something else - the things that conform to God's will. – zaq Jul 13 '11 at 21:39