[Avodah] "Borei nefashos rabbos VECHESRONAM"

[Richard Wolberg]

Someone wrote:
That is indeed one of the interpretations given by the Rishonim, but  
another one does indeed understand "v'hesronan" as "defects" or "lacks".

This brings to mind Isaiah 45:7  "I form the light, and create  
darkness: I make peace, and create evil; I am the Lord Who does all  
these things."
Actually, the term evil (ra) here denotes calamity and suffering.  
These serve as means of punishment for the sins of man. Moral evil, on  
the other hand, does not proceed from God, but is the result of man's  
actions. Moral evil is an absence of God's morality. In most Siddurim,  
the phrase is changed to 'create all things.' Some commentators have  
detected in this verse, in which God is declared to be the universal  
Creator of both light and darkness, good and evil, a directr allusion  
to, and intentional contradiction of , the Persian belief in dualism  
according to which the world is ruled by two antagonistic gods, Ahura  
Mada, the god of light and goodness, and Ahriman, the god of darkness  
and evil. (Though we have Soton, it is never referred to as a god).  
More modern exegetes doubt the allusion and understand the declaration  
as a general denial of all polytheistic systems -- not just Persian  
dualism. 
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