“And the L-rd regretted that He had made man upon the earth, and He became grieved in His Heart.” (Bereishis 6:6)

It’s obviously beyond human comprehension to understand how Hashem could have regret and how He could grieve. Yet within our limited understanding, it’s hard to comprehend how Hashem could rue the fact He made the world. Isn’t every outcome revealed before Hashem — what was and what will be? So where does grief come into the picture?

The Kli Yakar answers that although this concept is beyond our puny human capabilities, we remain with an obligation, despite our limited ability, to try to understand what the Torah wants us to learn from this. (Rav Shalom Noach Berezovsky, Nesivos Shalom)

“He needs six root canals.”

My jaw dropped.

“He’s only six! He brushes his teeth!”

“Yes, but he doesn’t floss.” The dentist gave me that look dentists have perfected throughout the ages: You are failing as a mother!

He picked up his mirror and gestured to Yitzi’s mouth. “If you look at the decay, [No, thanks!], you’ll see it’s all between the molars. Which is why all six need root canals.”

Well, this was going to be fun. “Are you going to start today?”

“No. He’ll need laughing gas because he’s so young, so he needs to be fasting. Besides, we can only do one at a time.”

This question becomes even more complicated when one looks at the end of the Six Days of Creation when Hashem said (1:31): “And G-d saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good…”

Hashem judged the Creation to be very good. The words of Torah are eternal. So how can it be that Hashem now regrets His Creation?

So began the Month of the Mouth. Every week found me dragging Yitzi to the dentist, offering grandiose prizes like a rocket ship to the moon, anything to get him back on that dentist chair.

The first time he was blessedly ignorant. He climbed up blissfully, dreaming of the prizes I’d promised if he’d “help the dentist.” Not so after being tortured. Once was enough for him. There was no prize in the world big enough to offset the agony of that dentist appointment.

He dug in his heels, came up with horrible incurable diseases that the dentist would catch should he even touch his mouth. Once he tried to convince me that Eliyahu Hanavi came and miraculously cured his cavities in the middle of the night.

The key to understanding this question is to acknowledge that, in essence, the core of Creation is still good and will always be good. When Hashem beheld the world on the sixth day and said, “This is very good,” Adam had not yet eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. Therefore, everything within the Creation was very good.

Once Adam did sin, he implanted a flaw within the Creation that applies still. His sin didn’t only have repercussions on him as an individual; it was a sin that affected the entire Creation, bringing it down from its exalted level. Once Adam caused a fault within Creation, evil took root in the world.

When we look at the world now, we see tzaros and suffering and we wonder: Didn’t Hashem create a beautiful good world to do good to us?

Yes, the world as a Creation is eternally good. But our sins are what’s causing bad to become rooted in our world. And that makes Hashem “feel bad.”

Besides the time and money this was costing me, my heart went out to him.

“You know, Yitzi, I wish it didn’t hurt so much at the dentist. It hurts me knowing it hurts you.”

“Why do we need teeth anyway?” he mumbled, his face swollen from Novocain. “If Hashem never gave us teeth, I wouldn’t get holes in them! And if I didn’t have teeth, I couldn’t eat too many treats and throw up. And if Hashem took away my stomach, I wouldn’t ever have stomachaches! And if he took away my tongue I’d never bite it and…”

And so he went on, blithely discarding all life’s essentials because they cause him pain. Apparently, he’d prefer the world destroyed, tooth and nail.

“But Yitzi,” I took his hand, “if you didn’t have all those things, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy all the terrific things Hashem gives us.”

“That’s true,” he agreed with the flexibility of youth. “I’ll keep ’em all.”

Rest assured, world. Yitzi’s rootin’ for ya.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 611)