In this week’s Parsha, Re’eh, we start off with the immortal choice:, “Behold I place before you today the blessing and the curse,” i.e., good vs. evil, life vs. death. Why create evil? Wouldn’t we be happier and better off without it?
Elisha Greenbaum (Torah.org) suggests that removing evil, temptations and the possibility of failure is like removing goal posts from soccer fields and putting everyone on the same team. With no winners or losers, the exercise becomes pointless. G-d could have easily created angels who perform commandments perfectly every time, but instead He made us: We strive, we try. We win, we lose. When we get it right, we move up, closer to G-d, and when we fail, we climb back up. Rewards and growth wouldn’t happen without pitfalls and failures. Ultimately, we hope to grow through what we go through.
