How can Hashem make a mistake in thinking to make the world with Elokim (Midas Hadin)

Question

Genesis 1:1 Rashi s.v. ברא א-להים:

ברא א-להים: ולא אמר ברא ה׳, שבתחלה עלה במחשבה לבראתו במדת הדין, ראה שאין העולם מתקיים, הקדים מדת רחמים ושתפה למדת הדין, היינו דכתיב (להלן ב ד) ביום עשות ה׳ א-להים ארץ ושמים׃

I have a few questions from 1:1-2:4 on this point:

1. How can Hakodosh Baruch Hu make a mistake in thinking to make the world with Elokim (Midas Hadin)?

2. How can Hakodosh Baruch Hu make an even a bigger mistake in lasting until 2:4 (see rashi) with the same mistake? Even when, for example, humans make a house, if they see one wall falls down they make the wall with a different, stronger material. So this seems like an even bigger mistake by Hashem for keeping Elokim until 2:4.

3. So you're saying that 1:1-2:14 is just the creation that Hashem made with midas hadin which could not survive?

4. If not then why does it keep saying Elokim from 1:1-2:4 and He only realizes His mistake at 2:14 after creation?

Answer 1

1. Hakodosh Baruch Hu did not make a mistake. שבתחלה עלה במחשבה means that was the starting point, that is, the ideal. Had a human thought this through, that would have been his starting point.

2. How is midas hadin a mistake? It is not workable on its own, but it is not a mistake.

3. The placement of the verses does not mean "between these verses it is midas hadin". They just happen to be two verses that discuss the midos used.

   If we only had 1:1, we would not know that midas harachamim was used. If we only had 2:14 we would not know that midas hadin was better, or that it should come first. By having both, we discern what the ideal is and what was actually used.

4. Similar to the above. Only one shem need be used. We learn the connection in 2:14, and that the entire world used both (something that would not be expressed in any verse other than it and 1:1.) Elsewhere, whichever shem is more appropriate is used, though it is not necessarily a negation of the other shem.

Answer 2

When we say that the world wouldn't survive, we point that the world is too weak for the meaning of the Creation, and God needed to create the world in a lower form so it will develop over time so that it could stand the Midas Hadin. This was done so that the Midas Hadin would be something that the world lost and not a new thing to achieve (since regaining what you lost is more motivating than gaining something new); the world was therefore created in the higher form, even though it couldn't stay there, so that it could work to come back to that higher level that it was on to begin with.