@ The only world in which Creation makes sense

Rabbi Steinsaltz stated in an interview that the Jewish response to whether ours was the best of all possible worlds or the worst of all possible worlds is that "We are living in the worst of all possible worlds in which there is still hope."

He was then asked: “But has G-d placed us in this worst of all possible but hopeful worlds for a reason?”


 Rabbi Steinsaltz: "After everything has been said and done, we touch upon certain mysteries that simply cannot be answered. One of these is the question which asks about the purpose of Creation.

 As one chasidic rebbe said with respect to this very question, there is language in the Midrash to the effect that the Almighty had a taiva, a desire, and if you have a desire you don't ask "why".   The Midrash is very suggestive here because a taiva is something we can't explain.

 To answer the "why" of Creation can, philosophically, be proven to be impossible. You get to a point where you ask questions that are unanswerable, not because we lack knowledge, but unanswerable by definition. 

But perhaps  this much can be said: When you speak about the world from this point of view, it is, so to speak, a tour de force, an experiment in existence, an experiment of what I might call "conquering the extreme case." 
So in a way, existence in any other world is not "proof."

 Proof in the most extreme case occurs only when you can do things under the worst of circumstances. If I want to test a new car, the way that I test it is not on the smoothest of roads, under the best conditions.  To have a real road test to prove the car's worthiness, it needs to be put under the most extreme conditions possible but without crossing a threshold when it begins to disitegrate.

 I can't test it by driving it off a cliff, but I can test it on the roughest terrain where I must come to the edge of a cliff and have to stop. How is a new plane tested? They put it under nearly impossible conditions which the plane must withstand. 
Otherwise the whole experiment doesn't prove anything. 

The same can be said about Creation. Creation would have been pointless unless it was a Creation under precisely these difficult circumstances. 

 So I am saying, theologically speaking, that the worst possible world in which there is yet hope is the only world in which Creation makes sense." 

 From "The Mystic as Philosopher: An Interview with Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz," in the Jewish Review conducted by Sanford L. Drob and Harris