What Motivated the Gods to Create Man?

[Aupmanyav]

According to Jewish thought, God created the world to bestow goodness upon us.

No world, no bestowing goodness of evil. Why this urge to create world and bestow goodness and accompanying badness? Who bestowed badness? A better answer is needed.

 

[Jacob Samuelson]

I believe there is simply a joy in creating things but I can imagine God wanting relationships.

Why do you feel that way?

 

[CBM]

No world, no bestowing goodness of evil. Why this urge to create world and bestow goodness and accompanying badness? Who bestowed badness? A better answer is needed.

There is a lot to unpack here, but to summarize:

There is a concept of “bread of shame”. Were God to simply bestow goodness upon us without us doing anything to earn it, that would not be the ultimate good.

Take the following parable as an illustration:
A guest arrives at his host, and is warmly welcomed. He is served day and night and his every need is catered to. When he offers to do something himself or to help out in return for the hospitality, the host refuses and doesn’t allow him to lift a finger. A guest treated in such a manner would want to pack up and leave as soon as he can make his exit.

To enable us to receive goodness that does not involve this “bread of shame”, God gave us the ability to earn the goodness.

The ultimate goodness is spiritual in nature and because we need to earn it, our paths will be strewn with lessons our souls need to learn. Sometimes those lessons are painful.

There are many additional perspectives from a Jewish standpoint to understand human suffering, but ultimately all those perspectives fit into a spiritual/ soul context.

 

[CBM]

As far as the “urge”, I believe it is the Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato, who states that it is the nature of goodness to give.
Since God embodies ultimate goodness, a natural consequence of that would be for that goodness to be “given”.

*Edited to correct the name of the Ramchal.

 

[Aupmanyav]

@CBM , you have not answered the question, and no religion can answer that: "Why this urge to create world?"
Don't take us around on a ride.