Does Absolute Evil Exist, And If So, What Does It Look Like Today?

Talking about moral absolutes is a challenge. It’s especially tricky in the modern era, when everything is up for discussion. But are some things beyond argument?

RECONSTRUCTIONIST

In the words of Lady Blanche Balfour, as quoted by Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem: “Lord, preserve us from the dangers of metaphysical hair-splitting and unnecessary brooding on the origin of evil.” Indeed, philosophers and theologians have often split hairs on this question. And yet we continue to ask it because the pain and suffering that result from evil are all too real. And for Jews living after the Holocaust, the reality of absolute evil lives deep in our psyches.

For me the insights of Jewish mysticism provide a helpful framework for understanding evil. According to Gershom Scholem, “the nature of evil [in Kabbalah] is therefore the separation and isolation of those things that should be united.” Symbolically, this is represented as the separation between the “tree of life” and the “tree of knowledge.” Everything we do, create and believe as humans who reside within the sphere of “tree of knowledge” must also be connected to the sphere of “tree of life.” When the spheres are radically disconnected, there is the potential for evil.

“Although the human mind inclines toward evil, we are not inherently evil.”

Another way of expressing this is that evil exists where there is absolutely no empathy and no teshuvah. We see such evil where people who are under the absolute power of others are severely harmed in body, psyche and soul. This includes the torture of those held in captivity as well as the severe abuse and exploitation of children and other vulnerable beings such as animals. When we see the connection between our souls and the souls of other beings, as well as the divine soul, the potential for evil is diminished.

Rabbi Caryn Broitman
Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center
Vineyard Haven, MA