Free Will, Providence & the Challenge of Hope
This essay focuses on Derekh HaShem “the Way of the Eternal One” by Moshe Chaim Luzzato, the Ramchal being his familiar acronym and title and related halachic discourse by Rambam [1]. What can one do as the world collapses, as a client regime run from abroad, “the government of atheists” foretold for the end of days [2] represses Jews in the Promised Land and Yeshiva students are shot to death en masse in Jerusalem; as one’s own life collapses amid the planned and general take down of cultural institutions, the swelling tyranny and conditioned mindlessness that negates the way of Judaism?
The answers are as simple as the anguished questions are real. “Why do You conceal Your countenance? [Why] do You forget our affliction and oppression? Arise! Assist us for the sake of Your kindness” (Psalm 44:25-7). That is how it is for too many who work, each in their way, for the perfected community [3]; even when there are no doubts of the Highest Wisdom, there is the long-borne pain: “If I were to tell you how it is, I would cause the generation of your children to rebel,” it’s that bad; “for I was plagued all day long, and my chastisement came every morning.” And in the midst of this, while chased by strutting and venomous tongues, by arrogance, rockets and betrayal “I saw the peace of the wicked” (Psalm 73:3-15). But these are lashes, or, as Ramchal kindly describes it, “suffering is the purification decreed by the Highest Mercy” so that the good can rectify our failings here, in a shorter period of time and enjoy our good deeds for eternity in the perfected community (Kibbutz HaShlaimim) that attains nearness to the Creator, Source of all goodness. Our thirst for the light, our response to the petty and great horrors of every day guides the denouement of all things. “Truly, the human race is unique, having been given free will, the ability to choose freely good and evil” and thus “in many indirect ways affect even the transcendent forces and draw near to the Highest Wisdom” [4].
“Everything is foreseen, but freedom of choice is given. And the world is judged by grace, yet all is according to the amount of the work” [5]. The essence and depth of freedom in the Jewish way inheres in the fact of a Creator that limits himself, that does not micromanage or “predestine,” that builds indeterminacy into the wisdom with which He creates, forms and makes all things, allowing human beings to participate in the work. “Free will is granted to all men” states Rambam, and “a person should not entertain the thesis held by the fools among the gentiles and the majority of materialists among the Children of Israel that at the time of a man’s inception the Holy One, Blessed be He decrees whether he will be righteous or wicked” [6]. As early as the choice put to Cain, the Hebrew Scriptures, the account of human history, its potential and rectification, the Jewish way emphasizes the ability to actualize this potential to defeat or be conquered by sin (Genesis 4:6-7).
The client regime that accepts the murder of Jews and the division of the Land of Israel makes their choices: their hearts are hardened by arrogance and prestige of position. They have lost the ability to repent or change. We have quoted the sages on them before. They must and will be replaced, one way or another, those idolatrous judges.
An extra level of purification, a failsafe that will accommodate all but a few is the shame of the ‘naked’ soul, whose form is knowledge (da’at) before the Highest Wisdom. “This [shame] is Gehinnom a punishment that pains the individual for his failings such that he is then free of liability for the evil he may have done and able to receive the reward for his good deeds. So the number who are actually annihilated is small” [7].
Thus, “free will, providence, and the challenge of hope” is an apt title for an essay, long or short on the situation of humankind and especially Israel, whose task is to model the perfected community on earth, in the Promised Land. The role, endurance and afflictions of Israel emphasize the glory of human potential, its frequent misdirection by the ignorant nations and the materialists everywhere, those who seek to crush the light of Torah that must go forth from Zion for healing to spread and succeed.
Paragraph two above quotes anguished questions from tehillim 44 and 73. In each case, the book is arranged so that the answers are given soon to the apparent distance or absence of the Creator, the hiding of His ‘countenance’ (approval) by the misdirection of our free. To the extent that we know, affirm and unify the Highest Wisdom, — and how difficult this is in these days of galmei, the rule and dogma of materialism and its votaries – then “God is for us a refuge and strength, a help in distress very accessible.” Thus, despite the political, social, economic and moral convulsions of our end times, and the natural convulsions that always attend them (as Shakespeare shows), “we will not be afraid at mountains collapse in the heart of the seas, when its waters rage” for then we have expectation, we have a teaching “that a stream will gladden the City of God, the most sacred of dwellings of the Most High. God is in its midst, it shall not falter. He will help it toward morning [while] nations are in turmoil and kingdoms totter.” Behind and moving through the designs of the nations against the city, land and people of Israel “God has raised His voice: the earth dissolves,” its oligarchic violence and theft and its cultural madness dissolve even as the earth ‘melts’ in fertility quickened in no small part by brilliant scientists whose very being, as Jews is imbued with the wisdom of creation; and by the hills of Israel sending forth, once more, their fruits, “a sure sign of redemption” [8]. Also, in reference to our previous essay and the comments above on the atheists and materialists, “the son of David will not come until petty government has ceased from Israel” and “until the arrogant are eliminated from your midst” leaving in their place, “a humble and forbearing people.” This deliverance will not come until Rome, “a corrupt and debased kingdom,” filled with lies of every sort, corrupt language, relationships and arrogant teachings of damnation or imperial sway itself disintegrates [9].
When the dominion of Rome and global arrogance, West and East, dissolve in madness, then our grief will be lightened by insight and clarity. The peace of the wicked is a set of illusions, a murderous madhouse brutally enforced and thus doomed to dissipate and collapse. “Only on slippery places do you set them…” Already the psalmist saw, “they were consumed through bewildering terrors”; as it was, so it will always be. They may seize Jerusalem again, but, “like a dream upon awakening, in the city You will render their appearance despicable,” all will see them for what they are (tehillim 73:16-23); their media sorcerers will no longer be able to disguise their ugly truth. “The benefit of their few merits will be used up” in their period of sway and then they will be gone. There will be abundant peace, partly (and this is the down-to-earth, kindly wisdom of the Jewish way) “when all prices are fair” because just weights and measures, truly valued coinage that represents actual property and goods replace the financial games of the oligarchs [10].
Prophets are sent to Israel and from them to the nations, and they “continue explaining” the key to redressing the misery and lies of our day, that “free choice is in our hands, and our own decision…this principle is a fundamental concept and a pillar of Torah” emphasizes Rambam (Hilchot Teshuvah 5:2-3). These teachings lead us back to the discussion of the Perfected Community by Ramchal, Israel in its place with Torah and Temple service and deeds of loving kindness, the pillars upon which the world rests if it is to have balance, health and joy [11]. The challenge of hope, ascending the Temple Mount, the exercise of our free will for good are one: “The Highest Judge decreed that each individual’s deeds result in God helping him and simplifying his task…overcoming obstacles that require much struggle and effort” [12]. “God thus made the rectification and elevation of all creation totally dependent on the Jews…He subjugated His Providence to them; through their deeds they can cause His light to shine forth” (ibid. 2.4.9).
In our days the evil kingdom gathers its horns to complete the re-conquest of Israel, so briefly and partially undone, and yet with how great a flourishing of the spirit of the land and the people. To observe the nations gathered against Jerusalem and intent on expelling Jews is to see Rome exalted again, the sick imperial spirit in its post-modern pagan materialist forms. The resultant events are a challenge to hope that obscure, or seem to obscure from us to the extent that we are imperfect the Providence of the Eternal One and the freedom with which the Highest Wisdom endowed us. Take heart all who suffer as does this scribe: each of us “are judged in relation to his forbears, his descendants, and the people of his generation, city and community. After these are taken into account, he is then given his particular service assignment and challenge as well as a specific responsibility in serving before the Blessed One” [13]. Remember, don’t forget: while hope is challenged by the lashes of the assignment we must work toward the battles that will restore Israel; acts of kindness take arms [14].
1. My edition is that translation and annotation by Rav Aryeh Kaplan as emended by Gershon Robinson (Feldheim, NY / Jerusalem 1978; 1999). Luzzato (b. 1707) lived his early life in Padua, Italy just northwest of Venice. After a few years in Holland, he made aliyah in 1743 and passed on in Akko in 1746.
2. Sanhedrin 97-98; in “Sanctification of the Name, Practice” in Iggeret HaShmad (letters on resisting forced conversion) Rambam writes, “heresy is graver than idolatry, for the heretics – may the Almighty cut them off – scoff at religion, saying: ‘those who practice it are fools; those who study it, deranged.” See Sefer HaMitzvoth, translation S. Silverstein (Moznaim 1993). In Hilchot Avodat Kokhavim 2:4 Rambam states that those who transgress the prohibition on worshipping false gods, materialism, the planets, fate, the great powers and their ‘royalty’ etc “denies the entire Torah”; thus, this cuts off such worshippers from the Divine Presence. Ramchal says they are “very few” but in our days they monopolize teaching and their dogma is omnipresent, corrupting speech, thought and deeds. They put stumbling blocks before children who then stumble as adults; these stumbling blocks include refusing to destroy aggression against Israel.
3. Derekh HaShem 2.2.7 passim
4. ibid. 2.2.5; 1.5.4-5; HaChakhma HaElyonah, “the Highest Wisdom” is one term Ramchal uses for the Eternal One and Creator.
5. Pirke Avot 3:19
6. Rambam, Hilchot Teshuvah 5:1-2 translated and annotated by Rav Eliahu Touger (Moznaim, Jerusalem / NY, 1990). Rambam is the acronym of Maimonides, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1135-1204.
7. Rambam, Yesodei HaTorah 4:8-9 and notes; Derekh Hashem 2.2.4. It is this immaterial knowledge that “forms the soul….that knows and comprehends knowledge which is above matter, knows the Creator of all things and is eternal” Rambam, ibid. It is this “form of knowledge,” this arrangement of DNA, if you will, that “returns as ruach (“spirit”) to God Who gave it” and is “made in the image [literally, “shadow”] and likeness,” Rambam, ibid. on Genesis 1:26 and Kohelet 12:7 of what is aptly termed in our inadequate speech, “the Lamp of Darkness.” Ramchal 2.2.5, by “annihilated” he means returns to dust and is remote from the Creator and all awareness, what materialists and humanists conceive as “rest in peace.” Their envy must be why they obsessively work to see that Jews have no peace.
8. Sanhedrin 98a1, Rav Abba on Ezekiel 36:6
9. Sanhedrin 98a2 – 3 on Zephaniah 3:10-11, and see the comment by Maharsha (Mesorah, Talmud Bavli, Daf Yomi, Sanhedrin III, 2002)
10. Rav Shmuel on the era of Mashiach in Sanhedrin 98a2 who also emphasized that this balance, in every sense would mean the liberation of Israel from subjugation to foreign nations, as Rambam emphasizes in Hilchot Melachim 11-12. Here, on “just weights, balances and measures” see Rambam mitzvah 208 on Leviticus 19:35-6 and related Talmudic discussions on Torah portion Kedoshim (“holy ones,”, the Perfected Community as Ramchal writes). This portion also emphasizes the mitzvot of charity and kindness, Mitzvot 195-204 including concern for one who must leave goods in pledge. Note that taxes, the sign of a corrupt and tyrannical government take what we are required and encouraged to give as charity adding to the economic decay of a culture based on false weights and measures, i.e. debased coinage. See Sefer HaMitzvoth, op. cit.
11. Pirke Avot 1:2
12. Ramchal op. cit. 2.3.4
13. ibid. 2.4.9
14. Sefer HaMitzvoth, op. cit. positive mitzvoth 188-9; cf. Hilchot Melachim 1:1, Zechariah 12-14; Ovadiah, etc.
Opposed are the methods of Esau and Ishmael as seen in the carnage they combine to wreak on the Jewish people returned by their heroism and the Creator’s laws, wisdom and providence to their Land. Live in hope that we “will see retribution on the wicked.”