Creation of the world: Why

WHY G-D CREATED THE WORLD

Once upon a time, there was only G-d, The Perfect Being.

Part of being G-d, part of being perfect, is being Perfectly Happy. Happiness beyond all happiness, pleasure beyond all pleasure. Something we can’t even imagine.

And G-d, being Good and Benevolent, wanted to bestow this feeling of perfect happiness on others. So He had a plan to create others that can enjoy this infinite, amazing G-d-Pleasure, just like He Himself does. But there was a problem.

You can’t enjoy this pleasure unless you are G-d Himself. It’s too great, too much, too G-dly, for anyone or anything but G-d Himself to relate to. So how can G-d give to others this pleasure that only G-d Himself can enjoy?

The answer: Create beings that have the ability to connect to G-d in such a way that they can actually be part of G-d, but with their own individual identity. Since they are part of G-d, connected to His essence, they will be able to enjoy the G-d pleasure, but only to the extent that they are connected.

So this is what He did:

He took pieces of His own essence, kaviyochol, and gave it sentience. This is called a neshomah. Since it has Hashem’s essence, it has the potential to connect back to Hashem, the same way it was separated. He gave this neshoma sentience, so it is no longer G-d, but a thinking, acting, personalized individual in and of itself. This being has the ability to connect to G-d. This being is man.

Then G-d created the means of that connection. He extracted from Himself His own essence, kaviyochol, the secrets of what makes G-d, G-d. This is the blueprint, so to speak, of Hashem Himself. If the man will develop himself, on his own, according to the blueprint, he will then be able to reconnect to G-d, and enjoy the awesome G-d pleasure that only Hashem, and, now, those who are connected to Hashem, can enjoy.

This blueprint is called the Torah.

The connection with Hashem is called Olam Habbah.

But there was more work to be done. In order to fulfill the Torah, man needed tools. There is a Mitzvah in the Torah of honoring parents. That means man will have to have parents. There is a Mitzvah to fast on Yom Kippur, so man will have to have a need for food. And the food itself would also have to be created.

In order for man to fulfill the Torah, an entire world will have to be created, and man will have to be given a physical body with which to do Mitzvos.

So Hashem created the whole, entire, physical Universe.

And then He created man. He gave him the Torah and said, “Here. This is what makes Me, Me. Nobody can be Me, but if you fulfill this, you can have what I have. All the infinite, perfect pleasure that I can create as the infinite, perfect being, can be yours. You can enjoy it through me, by becoming, once more, a part of me. You can have pleasure beyond imagining. Just do what it says here.

“This Torah, it is not just instructions. It is My holy essence. It used to be, before I gave this to you; that if someone had a she’ailah, if a woman washed a milchig dish with a fleishig sponge, she could ask Me, through a navi, what the Halachah is. I had the privilege of owning this perfection, alone.

"Now, I am giving that up. I am giving it to you. In order to enable you to connect to me, you have to own that ability. You have to be able to learn Torah, pasken sheailos, and become lamdonim. So from now on, I no longer have the privilege of ruling Halachah, of applying Torah, perfection, to the world. From now on, Torah lo bashamayim he, this ability that was Mine, that was a direct result of my being the Perfect Being, is now given to you. I gladly part with it in order to enable you to benefit from the infinite pleasure that is awaiting you.”

And so Hashem gave us the Torah.