Zera Shimshon - Bereishis

In the beginning Hashem created (1:1)

Rashi points out that the Torah refers to Hashem by the name Elokim as opposed to ' . 

When Hashem acts with judgment, He is referred to as Elokim and when He acts with mercy, He is referred to as ' . 

Here, Hashem is called Elokim since when Hashem decided to create the world, He wanted it to be governed by strict justice. However, looking into the future, Hashem saw that such a model would fail. Hashem therefore brought in the trait of mercy and only then added the attribute of exacting justice to ensure that the world

would endure.

The Zera Shimshon asks - 

what was the original plan and why did Hashem seemingly change His mind?

The Zera Shimshon offers an interesting answer. 

He explains that the fact that Hashem added mercy to the creation of the world, is in truth not a deviation from the original plan. What the addition of mercy does is that it gives the sinners time rather than punish them immediately. However, this serves to their detriment since when there is no immediate retribution, they continue to sin. Once they accumulate a large amount of sin,

Hashem punishes them appropriately. So in essence, this mercy has a severe flipside since it holds off punishment until the wicked have sinned so greatly that they are severely punished.

Thus, in reality, even the attribute of mercy has a component of strictness to it. 

With this, the Zera Shimshon explains that Hashem never changed His mind, the only question was how to actualize the attribute

of judgment in the world, immediately, or after a certain amount of time.

The Zera Shimshon deliberates that perhaps, had Hashem created the world with exacting judgment, the moment a person sinned, he would have been punished on the spot. Such a system would have, at a first glance, significantly lessened the amount of wicked people in the world. 

Why then does Rashi say that this model would fail? If anything, it would guarantee that there would be much less sinners?

The Zera Shimshon answers that even so, there is a significant flaw with this model. 

Had the world not been created with the added factor of mercy, there would have been no mercy between humans.

Everything would have been decided with exacting justice. (A person who did not work, should not be given charity. There would be no concept of helping someone who needed help.) This would create hate and strife. So although people would not sin to Hashem,

the relationship between humans would be catastrophic. Such a world could only fail. For this reason Hashem had to combine exacting justice with the attribute of mercy.

With this, the Zera Shimshon explains the following Medrash. 

The Medrash says (Bereishis Rabba12:5), that with the light that Hashem originally created, Adam Harishon was able to see from one side of the world to the other. 

However, when Hashem looked into the future generations and saw their wicked ways, He hid this light for the benefit of the righteous people in the world to come.

The question is - for Hashem, there is no difference between the present and the future. 

If Hashem knew that there would eventually be wicked people, why did He create this light only to conceal it?

The Zera Shimshon explains that this light was created for the world that would have been governed by strict judgment. In such a world where the people were not sinners (at least not to Hashem), they would have been worthy to use this light. When Hashem modified the strict judgment with mercy, this gave room for

wicked people to flourish and Hashem had to create a new light who's flipside was darkness to mirror the ability of the wicked to flourish alongside the righteous without being punished immediately. 

(It would seem that the original light was of an entirely different nature, not light the way we know it, who's opposite is darkness.)

Thus, the creation of lights mirrored the question of how the world should operate. 

The only difference is that although Hashem did not change His mind, as explained, nonetheless, the light that would have used in the original model of the world (which was created through Hashem original 'desire') could not have been used in the modified version that was created together with mercy, and therefore, a new form of light had to be created.

Interestingly, the attribute of mercy that allows the wicked to sin, is the attribute that the wicked always rely on. They continue sinning, never fearing that their actions will catch up with them because they expect Hashem's mercy for them to be endless.

The righteous are the exact opposite. They always fear the original attribute of strict justice and act accordingly. Eventually though, the mercy extended to the sinners turns back into its original exacting justice and the wicked are paid up in full. While the righteous ones, enjoy the world the way Hashem created, fearing the original attribute of exacting justice but with Hashem acting with them with mercy.