Needing Evil in the Perfect World

Hence the paradox of our existence: perfection begets imperfection (as in Rebecca’s pregnancy), for nothing can be said to be truly perfect unless it possesses the potential for struggle, which means that it must be vulnerable to imperfection. And imperfection gives birth to perfection (as in Tamar’s pregnancy), when that vulnerability is exploited to reap the rewards of struggle and to attain the perfect twinship of pristine goodness and vanquished evil.

From Tamar's Twins
by Rabbi Yanki Tauber
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe

My wife sent me the lesson from which I just quoted above via email and as I was reading it, I recalled something she has told me from time to time. Christianity emphasizes the fall of Adam and Eve from perfection and how the world descended into sin as a result. The fall of man is a central theme in Christian belief. We base a great deal on this understanding, including the need for a Savior to redeem mankind.

Yet, from what my wife tells me, in Judaism, there is no concept of original sin.

The article my wife sent me was based on the Lubavitcher Rebbe's teaching for this week's Torah Portion Vayeshev and the "encounter" between Judah and Tamar. The entire passage is contained in Genesis 38 so I won't recount all of the details here. However, one of the comments made by the Rebbe particularly drew my attention:

But a similar contradiction is also to be found in our sages’ remarks regarding G‑d’s creation of the world. On the one hand, we have the Midrashic statement that “the world was created fulfilled”—i.e., fully matured and lacking nothing. Yet the perfect world which G‑d created contains the potential for imperfection, even evil. Indeed, this potential is an integral part of its perfection. The Midrash, citing the verse, “And G-d looked upon all that He made and, behold, it was very good,” comments: “‘Behold it was very good’—this is the good inclination; ‘and behold it was very good’—this is the inclination for evil . . . ‘behold it was very good’—this is good fortune; ‘and behold it was very good’—this is suffering . . . ‘behold it was very good’—this is paradise; ‘and behold it was very good’—this is hell . . . ‘behold it was very good’—this is the angel of life; ‘and behold it was very good’—this is the angel of death..."

Based on this statement, in order to create a "perfect world", God had to make the world capable of containing anything, including evil. In fact, if the world couldn't allow evil by design, then it couldn't be called "perfect". A perfect world created by God required qualities such as the inclination for evil, suffering, hell, and the angel of death, despite the fact that death was not supposed to exist (at least from a Christian perspective), prior to the "fall".

I'm not saying all this to throw a serious theological monkeywrench into the machine so much as to try and understand how it is possible for Jewish talmudic thought and understanding to merge with Christian canon at this intersection. In Messianic Judaism, even in those organizations which adhere strictly to the Oral Law and that honor the wisdom of the sages, acceptance of some very Christian ideas is required. Messianic Jews, in order to be "Messianic", must believe that Jesus Christ (Yeshua HaMoshiach) is the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Savior of the entire world. They must also believe in some manner and fashion, that the world is in such as state that the Messiah must come to redeem the world and the people in it.

I understand about Tikkun Olam or "repairing the world" but while there is a certain amount of overlap between the Jewish concept of the Messiah's mission to fix our planet and the Christian concept of the Savior returning to redeem the world, they aren't the same thing. Neither is the idea that the world needed to be created with the capacity for evil in order to be perfect, and the free will of man that resulted in the fall.

Perhaps some of the Messianic Jews who roam the blogosphere could stop by sometime and help clear up this seeming contradiction (and even the Lubavitcher Rebbe refers to a contradiction in one of the previous quotes).

I've already posted the link to the original source for this blog post, but I certainly invite you (if you haven't already), to read Tamar's Twins so you can get the benefit of the entire article. I'll leave you with one final quote:

Yet unlike the mixed progeny of Isaac and Rebecca’s marriage, the twin sons born out of this morally dubious union were both righteous men. Indeed, all kings of Israel, from David to Moshiach, are the issue of Tamar’s pregnancy...The whole of history is the noble and painful progress toward the resolution of this paradox, when, in the age of Moshiach, “the saviors (descendants of Tamar) shall ascend the mountain of Zion to judge the mountain of (Rebecca’s) Esau,” uniting the vulnerabilities that are born out of the perfection of G‑d’s creation with the perfection that is born out of the vulnerabilities of the human condition.