Episode Notes Notes go hereRabbi Shulman explains a teaching of the Maharal on the concluding “הודו לה׳” in Tehillim 118, showing that the chapter opens and closes with gratitude to highlight that the entire story is fundamentally about הודאה. Drawing on a Gemara in Pesachim that assigns different verses to different figures around David HaMelech (David, Yishai, Shmuel, and David’s brothers), Rabbi Shulman emphasizes the Maharal’s central point: Hashem’s good is not a “main recipient plus incidental bystanders,” but a perfectly ordered plan in which each participant’s benefit is directly intended.

Rabbi Shulman explains the philosophical problem of how “evil” can exist if Hashem is the source of all goodness, developing the Rambam’s model that evil begins not as a created substance but as the withdrawal of divine revelation (hester panim). He then adds a second stage: once that “absence” forms a dysfunctional “blueprint,” Hashem’s ongoing life-giving power can animate it into real existing forces of harm—without implying that evil reflects Hashem’s essence. The dvar Torah concludes by mapping how varying degrees of divine concealment empower forces of tumah, how this weakens the side of good in a “zero-sum” dynamic, and how even destructive angels remain loyal servants carrying out Hashem’s decree. Outline: https://danielggordon.github.io/ateresami/dh-1-5-89-20260714-121944-outline-20260714-122027.pdf

Rabbi Shulman explains the philosophical problem of how “evil” can exist if Hashem is the source of all goodness, developing the Rambam’s model that evil begins not as a created substance but as the withdrawal of divine revelation (hester panim). He then adds a second stage: once that “absence” forms a dysfunctional “blueprint,” Hashem’s ongoing life-giving power can animate it into real existing forces of harm—without implying that evil reflects Hashem’s essence. The dvar Torah concludes by mapping how varying degrees of divine concealment empower forces of tumah, how this weakens the side of good in a “zero-sum” dynamic, and how even destructive angels remain loyal servants carrying out Hashem’s decree. Outline: https://danielggordon.github.io/ateresami/dh-1-5-89-20260714-121944-outline-20260714-122027.pdf