“He said, ‘I will pass all My goodness before you, and I will proclaim the name Hashem before you. I will show favor when I choose to show favor, and mercy when I choose to show mercy.’”

This verse appears almost impenetrable. Clearly it contains profound meaning, yet the Torah offers us no obvious key with which to unlock it.

Let us attempt an approach.

Chazal tell us what Moshe sought to understand. He was troubled by the enduring riddle of tzadik ve-ra lo—the painful observation that Divine justice does not always seem evident in this world. At times we see the righteous person—who appears to deserve only blessing—enduring a life of suffering. Meanwhile the evildoer seems to prosper effortlessly. To human eyes, this seems not only unfair, but almost like an imperfection, chas v’shalom, in the justice of Heaven.

But a closer look at the language we use to describe people reveals something important.

When we examine any individual life carefully, we can always find flaws, shortcomings, and mistakes. This should not surprise us. As the verse teaches, “There is no righteous person on earth who does only good and never sins.” That is simply the human condition.

Yet despite this, we sometimes describe a person as a tzadik. What do we really mean? Not that the person is perfect. Rather, that the overwhelming majority of their actions—perhaps an immense majority—are righteous and good.

The same is true in the opposite direction. When we label someone a rasha, we do not mean that every aspect of their life is evil. They too may possess admirable traits and worthy deeds.

Our categories, then, are relative rather than absolute. We call someone righteous or wicked based on the overall balance of their lives as we perceive it. This is the best that human judgment can do.

But our perspective is profoundly limited. We do not truly know another person’s inner struggles, their particular gifts, their upbringing, their temptations, or the precise circumstances that shape their choices. Were we able to see the full ledger—the complete accounting of a human life—we might better understand how Divine justice relates to that person. But such knowledge lies beyond human reach.

Our questions about Divine justice, therefore, arise from our incomplete vision.

The same reasoning applies to those who extend the question of tzadik ve-ra lo into a condemnation of existence itself. If we could perceive the total balance sheet of human existence—if we could weigh the world’s goodness alongside its deficiencies—we would discover that the world is in fact filled with extraordinary goodness.

When Moshe asked to understand Hashem’s kavod, he was asking to comprehend the manner in which Hashem governs the world.

Hashem’s reply now becomes clearer:

“I will pass all My goodness before you”—I will show you the vast scope of the goodness embedded within creation.

“I will proclaim the name Hashem before you”—I will allow you to glimpse the world as it appears from My perspective.

From that vantage point, Moshe would understand that nothing is lacking at the Divine table, that the administration of justice is neither deficient nor arbitrary.

Thus when Hashem says, “I will show favor when I choose to show favor, and mercy when I choose to show mercy,” it is not an expression of caprice. It is the declaration that Divine decisions are grounded in a fullness of knowledge and goodness that lies beyond human sight.

What appears to us as inconsistency is, in truth, perfect justice operating within a system whose totality we cannot see.