Worlds Built and Destroyed and Why Death Was Decreed

"And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). From here we learn that He was creating worlds and destroying them until He created these. He said, "These please Me; those did not please Me." "And God saw all that He had made." A king of flesh and blood who builds a palace looks at the upper stories with one glance and the lower stories with another glance, but the Holy One, blessed be He, looks at the upper worlds and the lower worlds with a single glance. "And behold, good" refers to this world; "very" refers to the world to come. The Holy One, blessed be He, looked upon them with a single glance. This is like a king who built a palace, saw it, and it pleased him; he said, "Palace, palace, may you find favor in my eyes at all times as you have found favor before me in this hour." It is like a king who married off his daughter and made her a wedding canopy, plastered it and decorated it, and saw it and it pleased him; he said to her, "My daughter, my daughter, may this canopy find favor before me," and so on. In the Torah scroll of Rabbi Meir they found written, "And behold, good" refers to death. The first man was fit never to taste the taste of death, but the Holy One, blessed be He, foresaw that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and Hiram king of Tyre were destined to make themselves into gods; therefore death was decreed upon man. This is what is written, "You were in Eden, the garden of God" (Ezekiel 28:13). Was Hiram in the garden of Eden? Rather, He said to him, "You caused the one who was in Eden to die." If so, let Him decree death upon the wicked and not decree death upon the righteous. Rather, it is so that the wicked should not perform repentance out of deceit and say, "Are the righteous alive only because they store up commandments and good deeds?" so that their deeds would be found to be not for their own sake.