Do not ask at all about creatures in the world other than humans. For humans are the center of creation, as we will discuss later in chapter 39. The rest of the creatures are not at all valuable in themselves, except to the extent that they contribute to humanity by bringing [people] to perfection. Hence, they [other creatures] rise and fall with him [man], and they are insignificant in themselves.
SUFFERING The above also answers inquiry four. We had asked: It is the nature of the good to be benevolent. If so, why did God intentionally create creatures who would suffer throughout their lives? The answer is that all of the suffering is necessary due to the first stage. The perfect eternality there [in the first stage] depends on the future third stage. This forces one to walk either on the path of Torah or the path of suffering [in the second stage] in order to arrive and obtain his eternity in the third stage (see above, chapter 15). All of this suffering impacts only the husk of one’s [physical] body, which was created only to die and be buried. This teaches that the selfish desire to receive that is present [in the body] was only created to be erased and removed from the world. It is to be transformed into a desire to give. Our suffering only serves to reveal the insignificance and damage that are present in it [the body].