Can the World be Perfected?

So much thought has gone into whether or not the world can be perfected, whether we're striving for a utopia, only magnifying the gravity of that first, almost primordial sin.

A simple reading of the text, though, seems to point otherwise. In fact, so much of our life is linked to God's commands to Adam and Eve before they ate the forbidden fruit - from advancing the world and developing it - that truth be told I don't think anyone of us really wants to live forever. 

A world in which time has no finiteness, where it stretches into infinity seems to be antithetical to the very message of the Torah, that we, the Jewish people have been chosen to make the most of our time, and use it to shape our values by prioritizing and triaging and deciding what's most important for us. 

In the Sheva Brachot, we do speak of a return to that world, an idyllic one, and yet it is only then that it has any significance in our waking consciousness, as opposed to our daily prayers which make no mention of it; holiday and Sabbath prayers, likewise make no mention of the Garden of Eden or its import for us, or society. 

The world, thus, was never intended to be perfect and God's first act of creation was essentially to create darkness, like we say every day in the blessings of Shema, "yotzer or u'voreh chosesh." God fashioned light and created darkness, darkness perhaps on a metaphorical level being our ability to partner with Him by sheer virtue of His willingness to have us have a role, one where His presence is less evident. 

Making room for another, be it marriage - or friendship - and the very recognition of the other reverberates that act of creation, the term "create" - or barah - itself only used on the first day of creation. 

May each and every one of us engage in that Godly pursuit by forming new relationships, by letting others in, be it a friend, spouse or colleague and shine our light onto our fellow man.