[Fred Hayek]

This is almost to the level of denying that there is evil in this world.
Let’s look at the book of Job. Was Satan the proctor in an exam. No, Satan wanted Job to fail, to curse G*d and die.

[Ancesthntr]

“Let’s look at the book of Job. Was Satan the proctor in an exam. No, Satan wanted Job to fail, to curse G*d and die.”

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That is simply not correct. Satan was/is an angel (granted a very high-ranking one) who was created by God - and the express purpose of ANY angel is to do God’s bidding. To think that something created by God to serve Him could disobey, let alone lead an active revolt, let alone succeed for more than literally a single micro-second...that is blasphemy.

No, in the Book of Job, Satan is charged with challenging Job’s faith by every means possible. He/it had the task of being very tough, of stripping away everything that Job knew, had or loved, so as to get to the essential Job. God knew that Job was faithful, but he had to be tested to prove it, and also to serve as a positive example to other people.

By the way, the Jewish concept of Hell is being without God in the World to Come (i.e. the afterlife or Heaven). There is no “Evil Central,” which sits there and plans to do evil and tempt humans...evil is just what our base nature leads us to do, from the standpoint of pure pleasure/self-interest. Having a physical body and physical needs, we are almost constantly tempted to stray from the ideals that God set forth for us...but that temptation is the very purpose of Creation - to allow us to exercise Free Will by having real choices. Without Free Will, there is simply no point to existence.

[jjotto]

Evil is very real from the coarse HUMAN, WORLDLY perspective. Analogies aren’t exact, but they do give insight.

Chabad sometimes describes it thus:

A king hires a harlot to seduce his son, so that the prince will reveal his wisdom in resisting her wiles. The harlot herself, knowing the king’s intention, does not want the prince to submit to temptation.

The harlot originally commissioned by the king subcontracts a second harlot, and the second a third, and so on. As the actual executor of the mission becomes successively further removed from the king, the original intention is lost, and finally the prince is approached by a harlot who has her own intentions in mind, not those of the king, as she attempts to seduce the prince.