If evil is not real, but just a privation, then it is nothing to avoid.
Now, I think all of us, especially after Auschwitz, will recognize the limitations of this view. The path that many medieval theologians have taken in dealing with the problem of evil is quite simply to say that it is not real. If we maintain a belief in a God who creates and sustains the world, we come up against one of the most fundamental enigmas of religion–the problem of evil. I do so, not because I am foolhardy enough to believe that I have any definitive answers to these problems, but because I believe that it is only through groping together with the questions they raise that we can begin to pave the way for a viable Jewish theology. I would like to address myself today to the theological aspect of the problem of evil and, in a narrower sense. The following is Rabbi Bemporad’s acclaimed paper in its entirety. In 2000, these papers were collected in the book Good And Evil After Auschwitz: Ethical Implications For Today (Ktav Publishing) co-edited by Rabbi Bemporad. In September 1997, over 30 Jewish, Protestant and Catholic scholars, theologians and religious thinkers gathered at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome for a three-day conference focused on the issues of good and evil in light of the Holocaust.
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