By Rabbi Eliyahu Heller of Valley Village, CA
The Ramchal and many others have written that, as far as the human mind can comprehend, Hashem created the world because He is the ultimate goodness and the nature of good is to do good. Therefore, Hashem created a world upon which he could bestow His goodness. The question that follows is why then does Hashem love strict judgement? Why did Hashem originally wish to create the world with the most exacting standards of din without any mercy? Why is there so much pain, suffering, and evil in the world?
The answer must be that the midda of din and all of its subdivisions exist only for the ultimate purpose of Hashem bestowing the greatest kindness unto mankind. An integral part of our faith is that everything that happens is ultimately for the good. Even if we cannot understand this in our current state of exile, when Moshiach comes we will see how everything was really all kindness and we will make the same bracha of hatov vihameitiv on the “bad” as on the good. The above reality is used to explain the seemingly superfluous words in the beginning of the Parsha, “Avraham holeid es Yitzchak.” Why does the Torah speak out the obvious fact that Avraham gave birth to Yitzchak? Avraham was the one who championed the middah of Hashem’s kindness and goodness whereas Yitzcahak lived with the constant fear of Hashem’s judgement and retribution. These two middos seem to be polar opposite ways of living and understanding Hashem that do not flow organically one from the other. To dispel this notion the Torah teaches us that Avraham, the midda of chessed, holeid, gives birth to Yitzchak, the midda of din. Din is born out of chessed. All pain, suffering, evil and punishment ultimately are a byproduct of Hashem’s chessed and their singular purpose is to serve as a necessary medium to enable us to ultimately experience the greatest chessed of Hashem.