The Short Answer:

The universe doesn’t have to be here. There is no reason that it or you or I or them or anything at all has to be here.

Why is it here? Deliberately, out of a desire.

That desire is the core element of reality, unfolding over history until it one day blossoms for all to experience. Call it purpose.

Explaining that purpose demands context. Which means we’ll need a longer answer.

The Longer Answer:

Who came up with this problem, anyway?

Contrary to popular misconception, this is not a question asked by all thinking people throughout the ages. Because it rides on a whole set of assumptions. The very fact that you are bothered by this question implies you have—perhaps unconsciously—internalized the Torah view of reality. Namely, that the world does not have to be.

To frame this a little: Let’s say you’ve never seen an automobile. And neither have you ever seen a road. Someone sits you down in the driver’s seat of a car and switches on the ignition. You play around with the knobs and buttons and come to the conclusion that this is a device for blowing cold air in your face.

Because for a car to have purpose, there must be a road. Similarly, for a hammer to have purpose, there must be nails, wood, builders, and buildings.

Purpose requires context. The universe only has purpose if there is something that precedes it and is bigger than it. And then we ask, “Within this context, what does a world provide?”

If you don’t have that context, then the world needs no explanation. It just is. You might look for some personal life goal, like, “I’ll enjoy as much as I can.” Or, “This is a bad trip. How do I get out of here to some place better?”

In either case, you’re not asking, “What is the purpose of this world?” You’re only asking, “What’s in it for me?”

The Torah provides a context. It tells us that the universe has a beginning. Time has a beginning. Now the question of purpose arises: Why did things begin? What does this world provide?

And, most importantly, “What is my purpose in being here?”

Secondly, to ask this question, you are also assuming its Creator is a free agent. Things don’t just happen by a chain of linear causality—A therefore B; B therefore C; ad nauseam. Neither do they happen “by chance” (whatever that means). There is design behind the cosmos and that design is not inevitable.

Again, this is the stance of Torah, “In the beginning, G‑d created…”—not, “In the beginning, things just sort of happened.”

Your question, “What is the purpose of this design?” can be framed in other words: “We already see the design in space—can we peek at the design in time?”

But now, back to the context issue:

How Big a Problem?

Torah creates the problem of purpose, and Torah makes the problem next to impossible to solve. Why? Because Torah posits that the Creator of all this is perfect. (That makes sense, too. If He were not perfect, He would also be a creation, as explained here.)

Perfect means, “not lacking anything.” No faults. No needs. Everything is possible for this absolutely free agent we call G‑d. Not only everything we could imagine in its ultimate state of perfection—ultimate wisdom, ultimate knowledge, ultimate creativity, ultimate power, ultimate beauty—but that which we cannot imagine, as well, since it is not part of our world.

Purpose, on the other hand, implies a deficiency, a want, a craving. As in, “I don’t have this—how do I get it?” I lack food—I eat. I lack shelter—I build a house. I lack love—I get into a relationship. Therefore, human relationships, eating, and building all have purpose.

G‑d is not hungry. He doesn’t have to worry about getting wet in the rain. He can do just fine without getting into a relationship. He’s perfect. That’s what makes Him G‑d. So if G‑d needs nothing, why does He need a world? When everything is possible, why settle for anything at all?

Reasonable Reasons

Perhaps G‑d is an artist. Do artists need their art? Good cocktail party material: Would a perfectly fulfilled artist nevertheless produce more masterpieces?

Interestingly, the Zohar presents a reason for creation along these lines. In an oft-quoted passage, the Zohar1 mentions that the world was created…

“…in order that there be creatures that will know Him in every measure by which He directs His world, with kindness and with judgment, according to the acts of humankind. For if His light would not spread to each of His creations, how would He be known? In what way would be fulfilled, ‘All the earth is filled with His glory’?”

Rabbi Chaim Vital, prime protégé of the “Ari” (master Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria), explains the depth of this passage: Without the act of creation, all of G‑d’s infinite perfections lie in a state of potential. Potentials are not fulfilled until they become actual. Since G‑d could make a world, He did, to fulfill those potentials.2

Creation, then, is something like the expression of an artist, bringing that potential into actual.

Certainly, this reason is absolutely true. But the Chassidic masters insist that it cannot be the ultimate purpose. Because it places human limitations on an unlimited G‑d.

Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, one of the Ari’s teachers, pointed out that, for G‑d, it’s better to leave things in their potential state. For us humans, he wrote, nothing is complete until it actually happens. It’s not good enough to know that you can win; you have to get out there and run past the finish line.

But for G‑d, it’s quite the opposite. He has won before running the race. Everything is possible for Him and there are no competitors or obstacles. When any possibility actually happens, all that does is exclude other possibilities that did not.

As Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch (“the Rashab”) points out:

For a created being, what is potential is not actual. But Above, this is not so: Potential is not lacking actuality. Potential and actual exist as one. 3

Turns out, G‑d does not even have the need to be an artist—whatever creative expression could provide Him, He has already without doing a thing. In the language of the Kabbalah, the Infinite has Infinite Light, which manifests all perfections.

So what need is there for a world?

More Reasonable Reasoning

Rabbi Chaim Vital himself presents another reason:

“…When it arose in His will, blessed be His Name, to create the world in order to do good to His creatures, that they might recognize His greatness and merit to be a vehicle for that which is above, to bond with Him, blessed be He…”4

G‑d is good, therefore He creates. This is taking things a little further than the artist metaphor.

Being good is more than self-expression, more than being an artist. Both an artist and a philanthropist give. But while the artist is driven by the urge to actualize his talents, the philanthropist is driven by the needs of others.

To the artist, the audience has arguably no intrinsic worth, other than being an outlet for his art. The philanthropist, however, is concerned with more than just giving—he is concerned that someone should receive. If he is giving food, he is concerned that the people should no longer be hungry. If he is providing education, he is concerned that the students should no longer be ignorant. The recipient’s personal world is of prime importance to him.

This reason avoids the pitfall of the previous reason: It doesn’t help for G‑d to say, “If there were created beings, I would be good to them.” It has to actually happen, they have to actually be there and actually receive goodness. That is what being good is all about.

So, a world came to be by implication of G‑d’s absolute goodness. Again, in the language of the Kabbalah (because it’s such an elegant language for discussing these things), infinite, unbounded light is not enough—there must be recipients to absorb that light and respond to it, i.e. a world.

All the toil and tribulation of humankind can be explained this way: Why do we have free choice? Why must we blunder about in the dark? Why all this struggle? All because G‑d is good and wishes for us the ultimate good.

“Free bread,” the sages say, “is bread of shame.” If you truly want to give to others, give them the opportunity to earn the gift. That’s dignified bread. So G‑d allows us to struggle, so we can feel a sense of ownership to the fruits of our toil.

Yes, but...

Why This World?

In short, whether G‑d wanted to be famous or kind, this is the last world He would create. Tell me, seriously, that this world is the ultimate in kindness.

Yes, I just explained that true goodness is when you work for something and deserve it. But who made it that way? Obviously, the Creator did. He could have just as well created us with a nature to feel lousy when we have to take ownership of things and true goodness would be freebies all day long.

As for fame, yes, He’s a published author with wide acclaim and a major influencer on the world stage. Yet, nonetheless, to almost every creature that breathes on the planet, there’s someone else far more important. That’s the creature itself. This is a world where each thing worships itself more than anything else in the world—or beyond it. If it’s fame G‑d’s out for, so far, He lost the contest down here.

Perhaps we’ve been looking in the wrong place. Instead of looking up at G‑d and asking what does a world give to a G‑d who has everything, we should look down at this world and ask, “Why on earth would G‑d want to make this?”

Indeed, the answers of the Zohar and Etz Chaim provide a great backdrop against which we can examine the outstanding features of this world. It’s a world that first and foremost screams out, “I’m just here.” Any indication of a Creator is only an afterthought. Indeed, it requires a considerable amount of dedicated contemplation to keep in mind that it’s not “just here.”

It’s a world where each creature is out for itself. Life in this world fundamentally means sucking as much energy as you can out of your environment without turning it against you and making yourself as big and numerous as possible without getting eaten. The fact that the system avoids crashing in most places for most of the time is nothing short of miraculous.

And it’s a world in which, as Rabbi Chaim Vital writes, “life is full of hardships and suffering and the wicked always have the upper hand.”5

So why create it?

The Case For Opposition

Rabbi Schneur Zalman, founder of Chabad, addresses this issue head-on in a way that is at once both radical and traditional.

In his classic work known as “Tanya,” he first points out that any world, no matter how spiritual, luminous, good, sweet, and kind, is a descent for G‑d. G‑d is known to kabbalists as “Light Without End.” A world has to have endings—some sort of boundaries, definitions, specs. No matter how wonderful a world He would create, the endlessness of His light would in some way have to be compromised. What’s the point of that?

Like we said earlier, for G‑d, unlike us, potential wins over actual hands down. There’s nothing new in a perfect world, other than compromise.

But what about this world? As he writes:

This world is the ultimate descent in terms of negation of His light and multiple layers of darkness. The descent is to such an extreme that…it actually opposes G‑d, saying, “I and nothing but I!”6

Now, that’s something new. It’s no longer just expressions of divine will and imagination. It puts up a fight. It stands up and says it’s real. It even denies the existence of its Creator.

But why would He want such a thing? What does this give Him?

Quite simply, nothing. Because, as we said, He needs nothing. So why create it? Because:

It simply was His decision that He would have pleasure when this opposition is suppressed and darkness transformed into light; when His infinite light will shine in the places of darkness and otherness throughout all of this world, shining with greater intensity and greater power—with the advantage of light that emerges from darkness—than the mere reflection of His light that shines in higher worlds.7

Perhaps somewhat counter-intuitive, but it satisfies all the requirements. It frames the Creator as a free agent—He doesn’t need this, but He decided to desire it. It explains the darkness and harshness of this world. It gets past the potential vs. actual problem—because there’s something new here: darkness transformed into light. And it provides purpose for us who live here.

Yes, it sounds radical, but, as I said, it’s also traditional. While discussing the day that the Biblical tabernacle was raised in the desert, the ancient Midrash says:

Rabbi Shmuel, son of Nachman, said, “From the time that G‑d created the world, He desired that He should have a dwelling in the lowest world.”8

It’s a desire, not a need, not a reason. A raw desire. It’s unreasonable, and therefore absolute and unmitigated. And it’s a desire for the “lowest world.”

How does winning over the opposition and “transforming darkness to light” create a dwelling for G‑d? There’s an explanation for that:

Egos vs. Angels

Down here, we have egos. As we quoted from Tanya, this is a world of “Me and only me!”

There are higher worlds. They are filled with divine light. Every denizen of those higher worlds is awestruck by the light. There’s no room there for egos.

And that’s a problem. How can a being who has no ego identify with its Creator?

The Creator is the only one true ego. Everything comes from Him. Nothing happens without Him willing it to be. From His point of view, there really is nothing other than Him. Even in those creatures that oppose Him, He sees nothing but Himself.

An angel, living in one of those ideal, wonderful worlds, can have no concept of such an utterly absolute sense of being. Consequently, the angel’s world cannot provide a dwelling place for G‑d.

But when a human being who has hit rock bottom of an ugly, dark pit picks himself up and says, “It’s my choice. It’s up to me and me alone. I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to take charge of my life.”

And then, he turns himself around, replaces his destructive addictions with an obsession for Torah wisdom, throws himself into mitzvahs and acts of kindness, and with the same passion with which he destroyed his world now fills it with divine light and goodness—there you have a created being creating his own life, acting out G‑d.

He is G‑d’s dwelling that can only happen in this lowest of worlds.

Practical Application

Not an addict? Here’s a practical application I heard from the Chabad teacher par excellence, Rabbi Yoel Kahn:

Let’s say someone is about to eat a meal. Common wisdom would place all possible postures to this exercise between two poles:

The brainless, egocentric posture: “I am hungry. If I am hungry, I eat. This food is what I like. I eat what I like. Why? Because when I am hungry I eat the food I like.”

The enlightened, egoless posture: “I am hungry, but that is not important. I don’t even notice I am hungry, because I am so enwrapped in higher metaphysical matters. What is food after all? What is hunger? What is a body? What am I?

But, since G‑d has commanded me to support this body and this is done by eating food, I will partake of a small morsel of food to fulfill my obligation.”

Which one of these fulfills the Creator’s purpose in creation?

The answer is neither.

The first posture has a real-world feel to it, but no sense of anyone dwelling there but the human ego.

The second has a higher consciousness dwelling there, but no real world. Because the subject has suppressed that part of himself that makes him a citizen of this lowly, egocentric domain. To achieve the mandate of a “G‑dly home in the lowest world,” there must be a nexus of these two poles.

And that is the third option:

“I am hungry. When I am hungry, I eat. Why? Because that is what earthly beings like me do. And here is the food I like to eat. But, wait. I have a purpose. My desire for food has a purpose. So, I will say a blessing on the food and eat it with the proper mindfulness that I am eating so I can fulfill my purpose in life and do lots of good things. Now let’s eat.”

In this posture, there is a real person, living in a real world, but doing something G‑dly. And so G‑d says, “Yes! That’s what I was looking for! There I am, in a real, egocentric world, creating light out of darkness!”

Counter-intuitive. But eminently doable.