FREE CHOICE—TO WHAT EXTENT?

 

Rabbi Yeheskel Lebovic

G-D’S FREE CHOICE

In this week’s Torah reading, Re’eh, we find the expression “the place which G-d will choose”—referring usually to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem—mentioned 9 times! Why did G-d choose Jerusalem and the Temple site?

The true answer is that G-d has the absolute prerogative of free choice and no reason tipping the scale in any direction has to be sought. If there would be any compelling and sensible reason to explain His choice, it would not be totally free choice. To some extent, G-d likewise granted man the ability of free choice.

However man’s free choice is not as free as it seems to be. If it were total indeed, it would well explain the fact that we periodically reach life junctures when we stop to take stock, and we ask ourselves whether this or that decision of the past has been a good one. "should I have rather have opted this way” , "I wish I would have had more foresight and acted differently", "what would have happened if I would have done this, moved there, had married this one, had taken that job position etc."

Some are gnawed at by self-doubt and self-incrimination in this retrospective process. We are likewise tempted to project such questions in the historical arena, wondering what would have happened if a political decision different from the one actually taken would have been decided upon.

We also project into the future: who will be the next president and how will the nation’s choice of him/her affect the course of this nation? APPLICABLE ONLY WITH FREEDOM OF CHOICE
This type of questions can be voiced only in instances where decisions we make operate within a framework of total free choice. In cases, however, in which what one individual or nation decides and does is governed by Divine Providence, such questions have no place. Rather, in such cases, one accepts his lot in acknowledgment of a higher Divine Plan at work.

According to the Baal Shem Tov, Hashgacha Protis (Divine or Detailed Providence) is very extensive, not only in humans, but even in animals, plants and inanimate objects, down to the most minute details of Creation, all fitting within the gigantic jigsaw puzzle of Creation as only G-d knows it.

The areas in which there is freedom of choice for man to do and decide as he pleases occur only when the choice we make relates directly to good or evil: if one chooses to do a good action, say a kind word etc... or refrain from a prohibited act etc.., he has chosen good; if he chooses to act otherwise, he has chosen evil. This is expressed by the Rambam (hil. Tshuva 5:4) thusly: "In the same way that the Creator desires that (the nature of) fire and wind is to rise upwards .... and so likewise (the nature of) all creatures of the world to conduct themselves in the manner that He desires, likewise G-d desires that man should act within his own purvey and that all his actions be given over to him (in his ability to choose freely).

THE BOMBSHELL QUESTION

However, a contradiction can be raised from another statement of the Rambam in his Thirteen Principles of Faith, where he states (principle 5): "One ought not to serve any entity under G-d's (dominion), whether angels, constellations or elements and anything composed of the elements, for all of these are governed by natural processes, and there is no justice nor choice except for that of G-d." By adding the word choice, the Rambam is saying clearly that ascribing free choice to any entity other than G-d is contrary to monotheistic belief. This precisely was the mistake of the early idol-worshippers, who did not necessarily deny G-d's existence. Though they acknowledged His Existence and Dominion, they believed that G-d had granted freedom of choice to the heavenly constellations-- which, in reality, are 'but the hammer in the craftsman's hand'.

As such, homage is due only to the 'craftsman' and not to the hammer; to ascribe freedom of choice to the constellations, and worshipping them in order to elicit blessing from them is thus tantamount to full-fledged idol-worship. So why is ascribing free choice to man any less blasphemous than ascribing it to the stars???!!! If the Torah is so vehemently opposed to idol worship of any kind (even the more sophisticated type) because, to the faithful mind it is axiomatic to believe that "all of these are governed by natural processes, and there is no justice nor choice except for that of G-d" , why is there not a similar reaction to saying that man has freedom of choice and movement?

How can there be anything (even man's choice) divorced from G-d's arena of power and direction?!

SOLVING THE RIDDLE
This leads us to the inescapable conclusion that man's freedom of choice is not totally "free" and that, in the final analysis, there is a G-dly providence even in man's free choice of good or evil in terms of its results!!! The reason why man is punished for choosing evil, for example, is that there are two separate elements at work: 1) man's decision and freedom to choose evil. 2) the situation that results from his choice, be it golus for the entire nation, or whatever tribulations and punishment for the individual (as a result of having chosen evil).

Thus, though man has freedom to choose an (evil) course of action, against G-d's Will, Who would that he rather choose good and refrain from evil, --nonetheess the resultant situation is still within G-d's plan of Creation, within the framework of Divine Detailed providence, and is an area in which man's freedom of choice does not hold sway. In other words, man may choose a course of action that will "put him in a pickle"; however, there is plan and design in that he should find himself in this pickle in any event, regardless of the fact that it was his unapproved-by-G-d choice and action that led to this situation.

CURE FOR ALL PSYCHOLOGICAL AILMENTS
 This is a very soothing approach which helps one to be contently resigned and accepting of whatever situation he finds himself in, regardless of whatever bad choices he thinks brought him there. At any given point in one's life, one can literally pull himself up by his own boot straps, in the realization that G-d is pulling along with him and will certainly improve his situation.

For, though being in a pickle is in itself an indication that G-d designed it for him to be in that situation (as explained above), nowhere does it state that the duration of the pickling-stage has to drag on and on. Life is made of stages and cycles and it is up to us to "tracht gut, es vet zain gut-think good and it will be good", from any given point and forward, for this whole above-mentioned exposition works only in retrospect: no matter what the situation is, be it golus, divorce, sickness, abuse (physical, verbal, sexual) lack of nachas, crumbling towers, war etc.., we Jews acknowledge the Hand of G-d even when we are culpable of having made bad choices. But as far as looking ahead is concerned, we have utmost hope and confidence that ...... the end of evil and suffering will swiftly come to pass

Based on Likutey Sichos vol. 5 pp. 65-67, note 67