The Problem of Evil: A Jewish Myth

 

Once there was a man who had felt no fear. He looked out at the wicked world and wanted to find true justice. So he set out, finding awful people wherever he went who mocked his supposed fearlessness and told him there was no true justice. But the Fearless Man paid them no heed. He searched the wide world, finding the worst sort of men (the ones who don’t think they’re bad  sorts at all! Decent men!) who greeted him with the same mockery. But the Fearless Man paid them no mind, even as the places he had to explore dwindled like a flame on a shrinking wick.

One day he found a deep and frightening wood. No one he met had ever gone in, for the place was most unnatural and awful, a place of true nightmares. But the Fearless Man paid the terrors no heed and strode in, iron set to find true justice.

Eventually the light waned. The Fearless Man wearied, so he looked for a place to stay, although whoever would stay here and offer him hospitality was beyond him! But sometime after dark he saw the soft glow of candlelight from a window; a cottage loomed in the sudden clearing. Exhausted, the Fearless Man only knocked once.

The inside of the cottage seemed to go on forever, startling the Fearless Man so much that he didn’t hear the door shut behind him. Stretching on into infinity were shelves upon shelves, filled with lit oil lamps. It was a hypnotic scene, as the possibly infinite candles produced a bright but wavering light. The Fearless Man walked up and down the rows of shelves, noticing that some lamps had a lot of oil and some barely had any.

“May I help you?”

The Fearless Man jumped. Behind him was a man so old his eyes were almost completely hidden by the wrinkles. “Pardon me sir, I’m sorry. It’s dark in the woods and I’m in need of a place to sleep.”

“Well of course!” The old man began to escort the Fearless Man down the rows of flickering candles.

“What are these?”

“The lives of all living men. When the oil goes out their life ends.”

The Fearless Man said nothing for a moment as he surveyed the limitless space. “May I see my own?”

The old man shrugged and hung a right. The Fearless Man followed. After a few turns the old man stopped, and the Fearless Man found himself staring at one oil lamp.

There was barely anything left.

The flame was guttering out. 

A cold feeling invaded his stomach. And then his limbs. And then his brain.

But next to it… one only just filled. It had  some oil trailing on its side! So much!

If only he could not dump it all out on the shelf-

The grasp on his wrist was that of iron. The old man’s eyes shone with a terrible light.

“Is this the justice you were searching for?”

And then the man was in the woods. But now he heard them. The whispers. The souls of the departed were in these woods. He hadn’t  heard them before, when he first had entered the wood.

Why could he hear them now?