The choice is yours

By Hazzan Jacob Sandler.

Do you believe in free will for human beings? Or are you more inclined to believe in predeterminism? How does destiny or fate play into the choices we appear to make? And how do we square that with our conception of God? If everything is fated, to what extent can we be held accountable to our choices? 

Are these questions racking your brain? Or are they platitudinous cliches for some philosopher to struggle with while you tend to practical matters? 

As we continue to move through the period between Tisha B’Av and the High Holy Days, we’re encouraged to reflect on these questions. Accountability to our actions is a key ingredient in teshuva and forgiveness. Yet, God is the supreme power in the universe. Annually we rely “not on our own merit, but on God’s great mercy” for that forgiveness.

In this week’s parasha we are offered a choice: 
רְאֵ֗ה אָנֹכִ֛י נֹתֵ֥ן לִפְנֵיכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם בְּרָכָ֖ה וּקְלָלָֽה׃

“See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you obey the commandments of your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if you do not obey the commandments of your God, but turn away from the path that I enjoin upon you this day and follow other gods, whom you have not experienced.”

The choice is obvious, right? Obviously, I’m going for blessing over curse every time! Yet, I know that all of us struggle to obey every one of God’s commandments all the time, every day. Sometimes it’s not that simple. 

I saw a TikTok user arguing against free will and their best two arguments were:

1. We don’t choose the choices – so our free will is limited by the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
2. We don’t choose our desires. For example, I happen to dislike strawberry ice cream. And I like vanilla ice cream. Putting aside the fact that I’m lactose-intolerant and can’t responsibly enjoy either flavor, I didn’t choose to like vanilla over strawberry, I just do. So I could choose:
   1. To do what I want – eat the vanilla
   2. To do what I don’t want – eat the strawberry
   3. To not do what I want – not eat the vanilla, but still perhaps not have strawberry either.
   4. To not do what I don’t want – not eat the strawberry, but perhaps also not eat the vanilla.

I didn’t choose to want what I want. I chose only how to act, informed by that desire or taste. And I didn’t choose the choices. I also don’t have any real choice about the consequences. So if I’m not free to choose the circumstance or the consequence, what am I responsible for? Simply the action I choose to take. 

I do still believe that, even with this narrowly free will, I am accountable to my choices. Because, as human beings, we have the imaginative faculty that helps us empathize with those impacted by our choices, predict plausible outcomes, and learn from past experiences. We also have the gift of Torah and millenia of wisdom that suggests best practices for making choices that will lead toward the ultimate good. 

I didn’t choose the choice between blessing and curse, nor did I choose the commandments, but I can choose how I’m going to act, and what I’m going to strive for. In fact, the sages suggest that true inner strength is the ability to overcome one’s inclinations to do good.

And where does God’s providence factor into this? What choices does God get to make? All of it is interconnected. Aryeh Kaplan gives the analogy of a computer system. It is dynamic.

“God’s providential direction of the universes never ceases. He is always acting in the world, guiding events based on our actions. In effect, therefore, this is a “two-way” process with a built-in feedback loop to allow for changes in programming. On the one hand, God is directing an ongoing input into the universe, regardless of our actions. On the other hand, God looks at what we do, judges it, and puts into the universe what He decides is appropriate relative to what we do.”

Kaplan describes an automated traffic system, which might detect a major back up and close down a bridge. Those on the bridge see the catastrophe, but have no inside knowledge of the context which caused the bridge closure. Similarly, the output we see in our world might seem to be terrible at times – and, in fact, it is. However, it may be in response to other inputs of which we’re not aware. I wouldn’t suggest sharing this to someone in the midst of a crisis, but it could be a useful framework for recognizing how intricate the ‘math’ of the moral universe would have to be. I, for one, am glad to leave that computing to God.

More importantly, perfecting the world is actually our human responsibility. And it is our choices, collectively, that either help lead the world toward that perfection, or slow it down. And this doesn’t remove God from the process either. Kaplan writes, “Although He gave individuals free will, He still influences the large scale course of history. Even though He does not determine the conduct of individuals, the collective wills of nations and societies are largely determined by God…God also guides the destiny of each individual to fulfill His purpose. Man might have free will, but God interacts with him to bring about His goal.”

And regarding the fate or destiny of the world, Kaplan shares, “God’s overall plan is to bring mankind to an ultimate perfection. Nothing can prevent this. It is, however, in man’s hands to decide how we will reach the goal.”

If at this point, you’re wondering if we have any choice at all, or if it matters, I’ll conclude with one last analogy. Do you remember those choose-your-own-adventure books? You didn’t get to choose the first page, the last page, or any pages in between. But you got to choose how you went through the story, and in many cases the individual story’s ending depended on those choices.There were many paths to only a few destinations. In the grand scheme of history, our small choices might seem insignificant. But the more we choose blessing, the more good we choose to put into the world, the more good and blessing there will be. Period. And since few, if any, of us will be here for the ultimate end, we must make choices that help bend the arc of our portion of the universe toward justice, toward good, toward blessing. Behold, God has set before us the choice – what will you choose?