... Recommend this page to a friend.

Introduction

No problem is as difficult to fathom as that of "free will" and it's relationship to the existence of an ... "all-knowing and caring" G-d ... Here I will make a start for those interested in this question ... More on this subject can be found in some of the links found on the bottom of this page.

The Jews, during the days of the Second Temple, did not subscribe to the religions doctrine (and later adopted by Christianity) - that sin was "original" and hereditary for all mankind on account of Adam's fall. On the contrary, Jewish teachings denied that man was naturally evil ... In the Apocalypse of Baruch ... a post-Biblical Jewish work apparently written prior to the rise of Christianity, this optimistic view of the nature of man was colorfully expressed:

For although Adam first sinned and had brought untimely death upon all, yet of those who were born from him, each one of them has prepared for his own soul torment to come, and again each one of them has chosen for himself glories to come ... therefore, only Adam was the cause of his own downfall. Therefore, each one of us, each individual, is the "Adam" of his own soul ... the meaning of "individual responsibility" ... that is free will.

Traditional Judaism never taught the doctrine that salvation for the individual lay in his special election by grace of by a predetermined heavenly decision ... No, we can see in Deuteronomy 30:19 ... how G-d addresses the Israelites with the challenge that they exercise their free intelligence and moral will ... "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day ... that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life." Again the phrase, "L'Chaim," to Life.

The second century Tauna (Sage) and teacher of ethics, Rabbi Akiba, incorporated the essential point ... "Everything is foreseen (by G-d), and (nonetheless) freedom of choice is given." (Pirke Avos 3:19) ... The "freedom" was the individual's volitional choice to do what is good or to do what is evil. G-d, so stated Yochanan ben Zakkai, the first century Judean religions authority ... can be served only by those who will exercise their moral will for doing good freely ... "He cannot be served by slaves." This opinion was in line with the concept, general among Jews, of the dignity of man, and of its corollary ... that, having been made in the image of G-d ... man was then to imitate Him by striving to do good and by creating the perfect and the harmonious society.

So for eight centuries Jews in every land have taken to heart, and repeated word for word ... the memorable testament about the freedom of the will formulated by the medieval rabbinical philosopher, jurist, and physician ... Maimonides or "Rabbi Moses ben Maimon" of Cordova, (born in Spain, March 30, 1135 - lived in Egypt, and died there, December 13, 1204), known as the Rambam. Note that "ben" in Hebrew means "son of" so his initials spell RMBM, and adding two vowels make Rambam.

Before quoting him, I'll give his biographical abstract ... For 13 years his family lived as cryptic Jews under Muslim rule in Spain. In 1159 the family moved to the city of Fez, Morocco, where Maimonides continued his rabbinical studies, philosophy, and medicine. In 1165 they settled briefly in Palestine before moving to Egypt. Forced by economic necessity to practice medicine Maimonides gained renown and was appointed physician to the Sultan.

His first major work, which was begun at age 23 and completed 10 years later, was a commentary on the Mishna ... in time a monumental code of Jewish law in Hebrew. Then came The Guide for the Perplexed in Arabic, and numerous other works, many of major importance. His deep intellectual contributions in religion, philosophy, and medicine have always influenced Jewish and non-Jewish scholars alike; his writings having been translated into many languages. And now what follows is his testament about the freedom of the will:

Every human being is master of his actions, master of what he does or leaves undone ... So if he desires to set out upon the good way and be a righteous person, he is free to do so ... and if he desires to set out upon the bad way and be a wicked person, he is also free to do so ... Man is the only being in creation ... and no other resembles him therein ... man who by himself, and through his own discernment, and by his own thinking ... can differentiate between the good and the evil ... Therefore, do not listen to the idle talk of the fools among the heathen and of the stupid among the Jews who say that G-d decrees for man before he is born whether he'll act uprightly or wickedly. That is not so" ... and now on to the main section:

I'm sorry he uses the word - "heathen" - but then remember, we see he speaks of "the stupid among the Jews" ... hey c'mon now, you gotta be fair ... what's good for the gander is good for the goose (or is it goose/gander, whatever).

Free will is our greatest gift.

The Talmud is a virtual library of treatises which dwell on the Rabbinic laws and regulations, traditions, customs, rites and ceremonies, and civil and criminal laws. In addition, the Talmud contains opinions, discussions and debates, and moralistic aphorism and biographic notes on the Rabbinic Sages.

Anyway, it says in the Talmud (Pirkei Avos 3:18): "How precious is man for he was created in the image of G-d."

What does it mean to be created in the image of G-d?

It means that unlike all other creations, the human being was given free will. The Almighty gave us a unique gift, a divine spark, and again, that is free will.

The result of this unique power is that more than any other creature, human beings have the ability to shape and change the world ... If we use our free will correctly, we can beautify and enhance the world. If we misuse it, we plunder and destroy the world.

Reflecting on this awesome power, King David said in Psalms: "When I raise my eyes to the Heavens and see the stars, I must say, what is man that you should take notice of him, and what is the son of man that you should care for him? And yet you have left him a little less than G-d. You have crowned him with meaning, honor and beauty."

As awesome as G-d is, He made man just a little less than Him. He gave each human being the gift of free will ... the power to perfect the world. We just have to learn how to use this power.

Knowing we have free will is an even greater gift.

In the Talmud (Pirkei Avos 3:18), it continues by saying ... "A greater sign of our preciousness to G-d is that He told us that we were created in the image of G-d." In other words, greater than the gift of free will, is the fact that G-d told us we have it.

Why is this a greater gift from G-d?

To answer this question, consider the following:

Imagine a group of homeless people out on a cold, dirty street. And they're all pushing shopping carts, loaded with their meager belongings; they beg for money; they sift through garbage pails for a piece of bread. It's a miserable existence.

Now suppose you give one of them 10 million dollars. Imagine what he would do. With a thousand dollars, he'll rent a warm home for a month. And with another thousand, he'll buy new clothes. With another thousand, he'll buy a kitchen-full of groceries.

There's only one problem, though. You hid the money in the bottom of his bag and he doesn't know a thing about it. Here he's shlepping around 10 million dollars, but he lives with the same homelessness, the same misery, the same hopelessness - and all because he doesn't know what he has.

This is what the Sages are trying to teach us. The gift of free will gives each of us enormous power and potential. But if we don't realize we have this power, then we can't take advantage of it. We'll have lived the life of a beggar, so to speak, when in actuality each of us are of royalty ... princes and princesses.

As potentially powerful as free will is, it is often badly under-utilized. So now that we know we have it, let us clarify exactly what it is and how to use it to its fullest capacity.

What exactly is a free will choice?

In the Torah, our "Instructions for Living," G-d says the following: "See I have put before you, life and death, good and evil, blessing and barrenness. Now choose life so that you may live." (paraphrased from Deut. 29:15-20)

Free will means the ability to choose. But don't get confused ... not all the things we choose are what we would call "free will choices."

For example, picking chocolate ice cream over vanilla is not a free will choice. It's simply the exercise of a preference. That is something animals do, too. When we talk about free will, we mean a type of decision that is unique to man.

Most people think that free will is the choice between good and evil. However, the Torah doesn't advise us to choose "good." And that's because everyone naturally chooses good ... Even the most evil, immoral people in the world want to be good. They simply rationalize their evil activities as "good." (Even Hitler rationalized that the Jews were the enemies of mankind, so that in his mind, he was doing "good.")

The Torah says the problem isn't that we choose evil. No, the problem is that we choose death. So the real arena of a human being's free will is between life and death. That's why G-d doesn't say "Choose good." Instead He specifically tells us, "Choose life."

Death is really an escape.

Now what does the Torah mean that free will is the choice between life and death? Who amongst us is choosing death?

In order to understand, let us analyze the ultimate "death" decision: suicide. Now what is at the core of someone's choice of suicide? And what is really driving the person when he picks up a gun to put an end to it all?

He wants to avoid pain. He wants to escape.

In the words of Shakespeare, "To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ... or by taking arms against fate ... to end it all" ... That's what he's looking for ... He wants to sleep.

Here's an example:

Imagine someone who's about to jump off the Brooklyn bridge. The television crews are on the scene and they say, "Give us an interview before you go. The public's got a right to know."

He says, "Okay."

The reporter asks, "Why are you jumping?"

"I lost 10 million dollars in the stock market. I'm devastated. I'm wiped out."

"Tell me before you go. Do you have any money left?"

"Well, between the chateau in Switzerland, the yacht, and the Rolls Royce, I guess I'm still worth about a million and a half."

"A million and a half ... For goodness sake, that's more money that most people ever make in a lifetime. With a million and a half, you could really live it up."

"My friend, you don't know how painful it is to lose 10 million dollars."

"You made 10 million dollars once. Tell me, if you stuck around, could you make another ten million?"

"Tell me, Mr. Reporter, how much do you make a year?"

"Forty thousand."

"I'll make 10 million darn faster than you're ever going to make it."

"So stick around. Come on, you did it once, you'll do it again."

"But you don't know how it feels to lose ten million dollars" ... And so, Zoom ... he jumps.

Why did this man jump? ... He was relatively wealthy, and by his own admission he could have made more money. But he only focused on the pain of his loss - and he couldn't deal with that pain. So he escaped it. He took the easy way out to avoid the pain and effort of facing his problems and challenges.

When we escape problems, we escape being great.

Once we see that suicide is, underneath it all, motivated by a desire to escape, we can easily understand why the Torah says - "Choose life" ... Death, or escape from responsibility, is a choice that is available to all of us, every second of the day. And suicide is only the most extreme and final form of escape ... But in life, there are many other ways we may choose to escape ... Drugs are one form of escape, a slow death that's not quite as traumatic. Killing time is an escape. That's a form of suicide, too ... If you're turning on your television just because you're bored, isn't that a form of suicide? You could be using your time to live and grow. But you quit because it's too difficult.

Many times we choose to escape, now and then, from the effort that's involved in accomplishing the goals and ambitions that we have for ourselves in life ... We all want to be great; we all want to change the world. It's just that we don't always feel like putting in the effort. So we distract ourselves and escape from who we really are and what we want to achieve.

Every moment we are alive, we are using our free will to choose between life and death, reality or escapism. It's a constant choice. We are either making the choice to take the pain in order to grow, or we're quitting.

How we resolve that conflict is where our greatness lies. Our greatness is found in using our free will to live, fight and accomplish - rather than run away.

I'm going to describe "Five Stages of the Free Will Struggle" ... Keep in mind that once you grasp the concept, it will take a lot of practice in order to live this. Using your potential, using your free will, is very heavy-duty living. If you master it, it will make you great.

Level One of Free Will: Self-Awareness.

First and foremost, you have to become aware of what choices you're making. Life consists of a constant stream of decisions, an expression of our choices. Once you become sensitive to the fact that you are constantly making choices, then you can monitor your choices. At this point, you'll be using your free will actively and not passively.

In other words, put your periscope up. Get in touch with yourself and become aware of the decisions and choices you are making.

This goes for everything in living. At this very moment, you're making decisions. Ask yourself ... Am I concentrating? ... Is this a more serious website than I bargained for? Why am I here? Am I just going to surf around - or do I have a goal? Am I going be stagnant or am I going to master a new technique today?

Become aware of the fact that you are constantly making decisions. Don't let your decisions just happen. Take control. Ask yourself: Is this the decision that I want to be making? If it isn't, then change it.

Your decisions are what shape your life. By getting on top of your decisions, you will be taking charge of your destiny ... If you don't, you're just a pedestrian, watching life pass you by.

The first level of free will is becoming aware of the fact that you are constantly making decisions. In this way, you can take charge of your decision-making powers.

Level Two of Free Will: Don't be a puppet.

To achieve greatness, every person needs to evaluate the basic assumptions and guidelines he uses to make decisions about life.

The key is to be your own person ... Don't accept society's assumptions as your own unless you've thought them through and agree with them. Take responsibility for your decisions. In everything you do, live for yourself, not for society.

And just as you should not be a puppet of society, don't become a tied down to decisions you made five or ten years ago ... (or even those you made yesterday). Start each day anew. Constantly reevaluate where you are in life in order to be sure that what you chose then is what you would still choose now. You must make sure it is you who are guiding your decisions ... and not your decisions guiding you. That's the horse and the cart analogy, but now used with you and your decisions.

Don't assume that because you decided on a particular career five years ago, it's still the best thing for you today ... And don't assume that because you decided at one time there is no G-d, that you can't find more evidence today and make a more informed decision. Check your assumptions and goals to make sure that they are really yours and not someone else's.

Level Three of Free Will: The conflict between body and soul

Now the next stage is to become aware of the disparity between your body's desires and your soul's aspirations ... There are times when you know objectively that something is good for you, but your physical desires get in the way and distort your outlook.

The Talmud says that within each of us, a fierce battle is raging constantly between what our soul wants and what our bodies desire.

The Midrash tells of a group of soldiers who were returning from a victorious war. They were marching and singing, flushed with victory ... A wise man met them and said, "Friends, you are returning from a minor battle. Now you are going to face a major war. The war within yourselves."

• When you fight a human enemy and win, you have peace, at least you have it temporarily, until he regroups. But in this internal war, even when you've just won the battle, the enemy's after you again.

• In war, if you're defeated and you run, you'll be chased for a day or two ... But if you run far enough away, your pursuers will stop coming after you. In the internal war, no matter how far you run, he'll come after you.

• In war, if the enemy is within your camp, you know you're in real trouble. In this battle, he is right beside you constantly.

What is this battle? Between body and soul.

Here are a few illustrations:

Do you know anyone who smokes? Isn't there an enormous battle over whether to quit? How about someone on a diet? Isn't that doing battle with yourself?

Sometimes we can actually hear ourselves fighting it out. Do you remember the first time you went jogging? Here's a conversation you may have had with yourself: "This is going to kill me" ... "Stop complaining and keep jogging" ... "So how can I do this? My heart's going to stop." ... "Relax, it doesn't happen."

What's going on? Are you schizophrenic? No. You are just battling the opposing sides within yourself. The soul wants to jog - it's healthy, there's a purpose. The body says, "Leave me alone. I'd rather sleep." The soul says, "Lose some weight." The body says, "I can't." The soul says, "Come on, let's live." And the body says, "Relax, what's the big deal if we die a little early?"

This is the battle we face constantly. The body wants to take it easy - to escape, and really to achieve the ultimate escape: death. But the soul wants to do what's meaningful, what's right, what's productive. At this very moment, your soul is saying, "This might be important information for my life. Now pay attention." And the body's saying "Don't take this stuff too seriously. We've been living just fine until now."

Do you know what the ultimate desire of the soul is? ... To live fully, vibrantly. To be completely alive with every fiber of your being.

Do you know what the ultimate desire of the body is? ... It is to sleep. To exist in perpetual comfort. To slip into oblivion, into death, rather than make the effort to confront life head-on.

In order to win the war within yourself ... you first have to learn to distinguish between the cravings of the body and the aspirations of the soul. In other words, what does the body feel like doing and what does the soul want to accomplish?

Make yourself a list. What does the body want? Comfort. Sleep. Indulgence. Excuses. What does the soul want? Greatness. Understanding. Meaning. Reality.

This is the battle of free will. Until you can identify whether it's your body or your soul talking, you don't even know why you've made a decision. However, if you know for example, that your body doesn't feel like making an effort, now you're ready to use your free will. And by surfacing these conflicts, you will become aware of the opposing choices being offered by your body and your soul. Once these options are clear, you can use your free will to "choose life" ... i.e. what is meaningful and productive, and avoid the various escapes. It's when we're not clear about these conflicts that we get ambushed, and can end up doing what the body feels like.

A master of free will knows how to sort out the difference between cravings of the body and aspirations of the soul.

Level Four of Free Will: Identify with your soul, not your body.

Point to yourself ... Where are you? In Judaism we say that the soul is the real you. Therefore, if you can identify with the desires of the soul, it will satisfy the needs of the real you. Your task is to train the body and coax it to reflect the reality of the soul.

You achieve this mastery over your body by identifying with your soul. Once you mentally distance yourself from what the body wants, then you can begin to deal with it effectively. As a soul, you'll won't say, "I'm hungry." You'll say, "My body wants some food." You won't say, "I'm tired." You'll say, "My body needs sleep."

Now let's imagine that you start feeling hungry. You can say to yourself, "My body claims that it's hungry and that if I don't feed it it's going to starve to death. Is that true? When was the last time I ate?"

Attaining Inner Peace.

The Torah describes a righteous man as one who "Speaks to his heart." His soul tells his body what to do. In contrast, the Torah says that an evil man says in his heart." The evil man's body speaks to him. It is his desire, and not his soul, that guides his actions. Judaism views the evil man, not as a person who is intrinsically bad, but as one whose body dictates his actions.

If you confuse the body's desires as being your true desires, then when the body says "I'm hungry," then you have to go eat. If you identify with your body, you'll never achieve your goal ... the body will always try to dissuade you from getting there.

We all want inner peace. The evil man tries to attain peace by having the soul follow the dictates of the body. The righteous man lifts the body into what the soul wants.

In order for you to get control of your body, you have to be clever. You have to use the same tactics your body uses to convince you to do something you don't want to do.

What happens, for example, when you are trying to diet and someone offers you a mouth-watering piece of chocolate cream pie? Your first reaction might be, "No. I shouldn't. I'm on a strict diet." But then your body (the evil inclination we all have), tries to persuade you otherwise. "Just take a little piece, it won't hurt you" ... Or, "This is the last piece of cake you'll have, and tomorrow you'll begin the diet."

Do you appreciate the body's strategy? The body doesn't say, "Forget the diet. It's okay to be fat. Have the cake." The body knows you'll reject that reasoning altogether. So it lets you believe that you can just give in a tiny bit, yet still be in control. But the body knows that once you go along a little bit, it'll be harder for you to resist the next time and the next time. And the body is relentless. If you give it a finger, it'll eventually take the whole hand.

So to be effective at winning the war with your body, use a good counter-strategy. Beat the body at its own game. Coax it the same way it coaxes you. Do you want to keep to an exercise routine? Don't tell your body, "From now on, every morning, fifty pushups." Tell it, "Just for the next five minutes, we'll exercise ... And then we'll go have chocolate cake." And do you want to use your mind to study something worthwhile instead of killing time in front of the TV? Then tell your body, "Come on, let's just study for half an hour. Then we'll go watch TV." And the body will follow.

Little by little, as you gain control over your body, the body will learn to appreciate what the soul wants. They might make friends ... (but don't count on it; that's life's drama.) So If you start to jog, the first few times, the body says, "You're going to die if you keep going." And two months later, if you miss a day of jogging, the body says, "Hey, I missed the pleasure of that workout, what's going on?" In reality, the body can learn to enjoy what the soul wants ... But the soul can never learn to enjoy what the body wants.

Identify with your soul and make your body as a reflection of the soul. If you do that, you'll have real inner peace.

Level Five of Free Will: Make your will G-d's will.

Finally, the highest stage of free will is not when you ask yourself ... "What does my soul want?" It's when you ask yourself, "What does G-d want?" When that is the only thing that interests you, you will have achieved the highest form of living ... You will then be using your power of choice to merge with the most meaningful and most powerful force in the universe ... the transcendental.

As we said before, the conflict between the body and the soul is really a conflict between life and death. Clearly, the body wants to die and the soul wants to live. The ultimate form of living is eternity, that is, life without any semblance of death. Therefore, attaching yourself to G-d is attaching to the highest and purest form of life itself: eternity. That is the ultimate use of our free will. That's what G-d means when he says in our Torah, "Choose life." Make your will His will. If you do, you'll be a little less than G-d Himself. Partners in changing the world.

Now let's summarize ... Level One is: Don't be a sleepwalker. Make decisions actively. Level Two is: Don't be a puppet of society's goals, or even of your old decisions. Level Three is: Be aware of the conflict between the cravings of your body and aspirations of your soul. Level Four is: Identify with your soul, not your body. And Level Five is: Make your will G-d's will.

The hallmark of the careless, irresponsible person is the notion that something 'just happened'. It's not my responsibility, it just sort of happened. It is all too easy to find oneself denying one's culpability - blaming somebody else, or external circumstances - anything to avoid taking responsibility and accepting that, ultimately, we are the ones to 'blame' for whatever actions we take.

This may sound obvious yet it is amazing how often we find ourselves denying this feeling of responsibility for our actions. It is an awesome burden but one which nonetheless falls upon our shoulders since our actions and decisions affect our own lives, not to mention those of others.

A Rabbi Jonathan Sacks relates the story of how he visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe many years ago. Rabbi Sacks told the Rebbe that "I find myself in such-and-such a situation". The Rebbe seemed dissatisfied with this statement. After several more attempts finally Rabbi Sacks said something to the effect of "I placed myself in such-and-such a situation."

Whilst everything that happens may be divinely ordained, the way we see things in our everyday lives we do not just "find ourselves" in a particular situation, rather we "place ourselves" there. Insofar as we have free choice, we are responsible for what happens once we get to that place where we supposedly "just found" ourselves.

Bottom line ... So now that you are an expert on free will, etc, I'll ask you the following question: If your wife and a lawyer were both drowning and you had to choose ... would you go to lunch, or would you go to a movie?