Predrag Cicovacki: How do you approach the issues of good and evil?

Rabbi Michael Lerner: I start by turning to the Bible, turning to Torah, and trying to understand the human experience in part through its framework. The first things I come across in the Bible in relationship to the human experience, or to this world, is in the first chapter of Genesis that when God has finished her creation and she looks out at the world and says: “Behold, it was very good (tov m’od).” The notion that the world is “very good,” that there is goodness at the center, at the core of being is not real popular today and I want to talk about my own experience and intellectual development in trying to understand that.

I’ll actually begin with another reference to the Bible about goodness. There is a psalm that is read every Shabbat. It is a song that the psalmists had dedicated to Shabbat—Mizmore shir l’om ha-Shabbat, a song for the Sabbath Day—Tov l’hodot l’adonai u’l’zameir l’shimcha elyon, l’haggid baboker chasdecha v’emunatcha baleilot. “Tov” is the first word of the psalm. Good. Good. Then it goes on—l’hodot l’Adonai; U’l’zameir l’shimcha elyon—to sing praises to the transformative power of the universe and to give thanks to the transformative power of the universe and to sing praises to your name; you were on high. L’Haggid baboker chasdecha—to pronounce your loving kindness, chesed, your goodness, your love in the morning. V’emunatcha baleilot—your faithfulness, your steadiness in the night. The Rabbi commenting on this psalm said, well, first of all, what's this difference between morning and night. They said, well, the psalm really refers to “in the morning,” which means when things look bright, it's good to give thanks because your faithfulness, your chesed, your love and kindness, is clearly showing through. But in the night, in the dark times, in the times when things aren't so good, when it's very difficult, that's when emuna, faith, is necessary, when there is a faithfulness that is necessary.