<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Someone wrote:</div><i>That is indeed one of the interpretations given by the Rishonim, but another one does indeed understand "v'hesronan" as "defects" or "lacks".</i><div><br></div><div>This brings to mind Isaiah 45:7 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#090A17"> "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I form the light</span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#090A17"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, and create darkness</span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#090A17"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">: I make peace</span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#090A17"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, and create </span></font><a href="http://www.godrules.net/library/topics/topic670.htm" style="text-decoration: none;"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#090A17" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; ">evil<span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">;</span></span></font></a><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#090A17"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> I am the Lord Who does all these things." </span></font></span></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#090A17" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Actually, the term <i>evil</i> (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. </span></font></div></body></html>