Why Did Hashem Create the World With Both Justice and Mercy?

Parashat Bereishit takes us back to the very beginning: the creation of the world. But hidden within its opening verses is a powerful question that remains just as relevant today.

What allows a world filled with different personalities, competing interests, and human weaknesses to continue to exist?

Rabbi Shimshon Chaim Nachmani, the great Kabbalist and author of Zera Shimshon, finds the answer in the way Hashem created the world itself.

Why Couldn’t the World Survive With Justice Alone?

The Torah begins:

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Rashi notices the Divine Name used in this verse and explains that Hashem initially intended to create the world through the attribute of strict justice. But He saw that such a world could not endure, so He joined the attribute of mercy to it.

Rashi points to a later verse as evidence: “On the day Hashem God made earth and heaven.”

But why, exactly, would a world governed by justice be unable to survive?

The Zera Shimshon connects Rashi’s explanation to a fundamental teaching of our sages. Pirkei Avot teaches that acts of kindness are among the pillars upon which the world stands.

Our sages also teach that the Torah’s command to “walk in His ways” means that we should imitate Hashem’s attributes. Just as He acts with kindness, we too are expected to act with kindness.

This, explains the Zera Shimshon, reveals why mercy had to be built into Creation from the beginning.

Hashem’s Mercy Teaches Us How to Treat Each Other

If Hashem had created and governed the world through strict justice alone, there would have been no Divine model of mercy for human beings to imitate.

We learn how to treat others by looking at the way Hashem treats us.

Because Hashem joined mercy with justice, we learn that life cannot be governed by what is technically deserved alone. There must also be room for compassion, patience, generosity, and chesed.

Without those qualities, the Zera Shimshon explains, human relationships would be dominated by jealousy, hatred, and competition. Even if people were meticulous in their obligations between themselves and Hashem, something essential would still be missing from the world: kindness between one person and another.

That is why the statement that Hashem “saw that the world could not endure” takes on a deeper meaning.

The world does not survive through justice alone.

It survives because mercy is part of its foundation.

The Foundation Hashem Built Into Creation

From the very first chapter of the Torah, Hashem teaches us that strength does not mean insisting on strict judgment at every opportunity.

A family cannot thrive that way. A friendship cannot thrive that way. A community cannot thrive that way. And according to the Zera Shimshon, neither can the world.

We need boundaries and justice, but we also need the ability to forgive, to give someone another chance, to help when we are not obligated to help, and to see the person standing in front of us with compassion.

When we do that, we are not simply being “nice.” We are fulfilling the Torah’s instruction to walk in Hashem’s ways.

Perhaps that is one of the first lessons Bereishit teaches us: the world was never meant to run on strict justice alone.

Hashem built mercy into Creation itself. Our task is to bring that same mercy into the way we treat one another.