This week we read two sections: Nitzavim and Vaielech (Standard and It Was). In the Nitzavim section, we find a verse that is the source of one of the Thirteen Fundamental Principles of Judaism: free will. The verse says (Deuteronomy 30:19): “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your descendants may live.” Clearly, God presents us with various paths, and it is up to each of us to choose the one that seems most appropriate.
Of course, there is the strength and ability that God gives us to choose well, as the verse itself says "and you must choose life," but that does not mean that we cannot and should not choose at all times.
Now, our sages dwell on this concept at length, and many texts have been written to try to resolve this conceptual problem based on this premise. God knows everything, including what a particular individual will choose. Given this, do we truly have free will, or are we like puppets?
One of the first to dedicate himself to this was the Rambam, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, known as Maimonides (1135-1204). The following is a free translation and adaptation from the Book of Knowledge, Laws of Repentance, chapter 5, law 5:
“Perhaps you say, ”Does God know everything that will happen and before it happens He already knows whether this person will be righteous or wicked, or doesn’t He know?’ If He knows that this person will be righteous, then it cannot be that they are not righteous; and if you say that He knows that this person will be righteous and it may be that they are wicked, then [God] did not know the matter clearly.”
“Know that the answer to this question is longer than the earth and wider than the sea, and many important foundations and high mountains depend on it. However, you must know and understand what I say: We already explained in the second chapter of the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah that God does not know with knowledge external to Himself, as human beings do, that they and their knowledge are two, but rather that He, praised be He, and His knowledge are one, and human understanding cannot fully grasp this. Just as human understanding cannot understand and find the Truth of the Creator, as it is written, 'For no man shall see Me and live,' in the same way it is incapable of understanding and finding the Understanding of the Creator.'
“This is what the prophet says: 'For My thoughts are not like your thoughts, and My ways are not like your ways.' Since this is so, we do not have the capacity to understand how God knows all creatures and what happens, but we know, without a doubt, that man's actions are under his control, and God does not incline him or lead him to act in a certain way.'.
“And we know this not only by accepting religion, but with clear evidence of wisdom, and that is why it was said in the prophecy (the Torah) that we judge a person by their actions according to their deeds, both good and bad, and this is the foundation upon which all prophecies (the laws of the Torah) depend.”.
Basically, he's saying that we can't understand it, but that's how it is... Many years later, Rabbi Ishaia Horwitz (1565-1630), author of a monumental work called Shnei Lujot HaBrit, He wrote about the subject in a way that was closer to the human intellect. In the introduction to his book, in the section Beit HaBejirá, Questioning the teaching of our sages (and many others like it) that says that God showed the first man each generation, his leaders and sages, which sounds as if it was already decreed that it would be so, he wrote thus (free translation and adaptation):
“Knowledge is will, and vice versa. For will is what He desires to do and is the root of the entire universe. Everything God desires to do, He does, and that very will is the knowledge of everything; by knowing His own will, one knows everything. The Divine Will contains all possibilities, even opposite ones, and man has the capacity to awaken any possibility he desires […].”
“Now, before man does anything, good or bad, those paths were already prepared […], as it says in parashat Nitzavím 'Behold, I have set before you today life and goodness, etc., and you must choose life.' Behold, there is a path of the righteous and a path of the wicked, and the root of them all is the divine will, which is His knowledge. Behold, everything a person does, he does within the possibilities set forth by God, only the righteous choose and go on the straight and holy path, and the wicked on the opposite.'
“If man had always been righteous and not awakened evil possibilities, then all his descendants would have been different from what they are now, because a source of good alone would have been opened and would have spread and branched out generation after generation. After he sinned, a different source of good and evil was opened, and, based on this source, God showed him all the generations, their leaders and sages according to the channel and source opened and how it would spread over time.”
“It is true that this does not constitute a divine decree, since whoever wishes to strengthen themselves and separate themselves from that open channel and open a different one, has the capacity to do so and will project from that new channel according to their will. […] Certainly, throughout history, things that should have occurred according to the open channel did not occur due to the free will of individuals, and many others turned out as they should, according to the open source of Divine Will.”
According to this new explanation, we see that, in reality, God, in His infinity, poses and thinks about all possibilities, and man, with his free will, simply materializes one of the infinite possibilities already known and thought about by God.
This idea is a foundation of our faith, and should serve as an energizer, both for merit and responsibility, to assume our role in the universe.