What does it mean that Hashem builds worlds and destroys them?

Rabbi Landau explains the saying of Chazal, הקב״ה בונה עולמות ומחריבן, Hashem builds worlds and erases them, as something still happening. “Hashem is creating worlds and then is actually erasing them constantly.” He calls this “a creator running multiverse reality,” and says, “That’s not science fiction.”

In simple words: every time you make a choice, reality splits. There is a world where you said yes and one where you said no, one where you fell and one where you held strong. Both exist, but you live in only one.

That, he teaches, is what makes return possible. This world with its failures “is not the final draft.” Hashem has already built another one.

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Rabbi Landau teaches that Hashem is constantly building worlds and erasing them.

What may be behind it

Every choice splits reality; one world is where you fell and another where you held strong.

Deepest human truth

This world is not the final draft. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that returning to Hashem is a decision to stand in the place Hashem is creating, not the place He has left behind.

More questions from this teaching

• Does teshuvah erase my past, or does it do something else?