As previously noted, the thrust of the first blessing before the Shema—the blessing that deals with creation—is that everything comes from
G-d. In Catskill comedian style, we could ask, “Where else?” But seeing that G-d is the creator of literally everything, good and bad, is still a hard concept to wrap your head around.

Harder still is the fact that the verse on which this phrase is based, Isaiah 45:7, says, “makes peace and creates evil.” The Rabbis, sensing how radical this concept would seem to your average davener, softened the language to “creates everything.” Which includes evil but doesn’t emphasize it.

But there is a subtle grammatical hint that makes the idea a lot more palatable.

G-d “makes peace.” Literally, “does peace.” It is a current and ongoing activity that requires action. “Creates,” on the other hand, is less a matter of ongoing engagement and more a fait accompli—something gets created, and then moves on from its creator. One and done.

So one way to look at it is this; G-d creates everything, good and evil alike. After all, if you only had good, how would you be able to tell? Without contrast, nothing can be perceived. As a result, no joy without sadness, no sweet without bitter. That’s our world in a nutshell. But G-d works on that world. G-d “makes” peace. Right now, G-d is making peace. G-d works actively—and potentially with us, if we choose to partner with G-d—to make peace in the world.

It ain’t easy. Not because of G-d, but because of us. As Mark Twain wrote, tongue firmly in cheek, in his brilliant, “The Damned Human Race,”:

“One is obliged to concede that in true loftiness of character, Man cannot claim to approach even the meanest of the Higher Animals. It is plain that he is constitutionally incapable of approaching that altitude; that he is constitutionally afflicted with a Defect which must make such approach forever impossible, for it is manifest that this defect is permanent in him, indestructible, ineradicable. I find this Defect to be the Moral Sense. He is the only animal that has it. It is the secret of his degradation. It is the quality which enables him to do wrong. It has no other office. It is incapable of performing any other function. It could never have been intended to perform any other. Without it, man could do no wrong. He would rise at once to the level of the Higher Animals.”

Simply put, we have our work cut out for us. But contrary to Twain, our “defect” is not “permanent” within us. Our moral sense doesn’t just enable us to do evil (a variant on Pauline Christian theology, by the way). It also points the way toward making the world what G-d ultimately wants it to be.