Repairing the Intentionally Broken world

 R' Chayim Moshe Luzzato writes:

כלל ראשון: כוונת הבריאת

מה שנודע לנו מכוונת המאציל ב"ה בזה, הוא, כי ברצותו להטיב רצה להמציא נמצאים שיקבלו טובו. וכדי שיהיה הטוב שלם, צריך שיקבלוהו בזכות ולא בצדקה, שלא יהא הבושת פוגמו, כאוכל את שאינו שלו. וכדי שיוכלו לזכות, המציא מציאות אחד שיהיה צריך אליהם להתקן, מה שאינו צריך הוא, ובתקנם אותו – יזכו. והוא מציאות הספירות, כי הם מציאות אחד כמו מחברת צינורות, שבעמדה על תיקונה כראוי, ממשיכים השפע מן המאציל אל המתקנה. וזהו זכותו – שהקים חפץ המאציל ב"ה, שחפץ שיקבלו נמצאיו את טובו.

כללי פתחי חכמה ודעה
רמח"ל – חיים לוזאטו

What we know of the intention of the creator, blessed be he, is this: in his will to give goodness, he created the world in order for it to receive his goodness. In order for the created to receive the full measure of his goodness, they had to receive it on their own merits and not by means of charity, so shame will not blemish the receiving, like eating food that belongs to someone else. In order to be worthy, the creator created a world that needs repair, but it is not for God that we do the repair. In doing the repair, the created become worthy. The world that needs repair is the world of the sephirot. They are one system like the joints of a pipe, which, when repaired, draw down the shefa from the creator to the repaired (person). And this is what is meant by merit, that he fulfils the will of the creator, blessed be he, that desires that his creations receive his goodness.

- RaMCHaL - Moshe Chayim Luzzato - Principle Elements.

The simple interpretation of this text is that God wants to give us his goodness, but he requires our personal effort to make ourselves worthy. He created the world "broken" in order to give us the necessary challenges for us to earn the merit of his goodness. Essentially life is one big test, and if we pass, we enjoy God's goodness. If we don't do the repair, we presumably are cut off from God's bounty.

I really like that he frames the issue in terms of personal effort. It's not a gift from above or an innate talent, but our personal actions that determine our connection to God. God is always waiting there for us, but it's up to us to make ourselves worthy of the connection. In my mind, this is what Tikkunei Avon (repair of sins) are all about. When we first start to do spiritual work, the first step is to begin working on our own blockages between us and God. It's a continual process, something that we are never done with, and requires constant care and attention. This process is both internal and on our relationships in the world.

This worldview also gives us limitless possibilities. Every difficulty is an opportunity for a repair, and there certainly is no shortage of difficulties in this world. It also shows us how to have mercy on ourselves. If we come up short or miss the mark on today's repair, there will be another chance tomorrow. When the yetzer harah asks us to beat ourselves up for our failures, we just have to wait until the next test when we can try again.

One note on the translation: the word for goodness is הטיב or טוב which is accurately translated as good, but in this context, it could also mean Love. When I first read this passage, I thought that his worldview required an enormous amount of faith to believe that the world was intentionally broken just to give us an opportunity to be fix it. It means that the problems of the world are inherent in it's basic structure and can never be truly solved.

But it also means that God wants us to succeed because someone who loves us doesn't give us a challenge which is beyond our capabilities. I think my first impression was completely backwards: this worldview shows how much faith God has in us. He wants us to do the work on ourselves so that we can bring God's love into the world, which, as far as I'm concerned is the point of it all.