Regarding the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, it seems that the meaning there, as in other places in the Bible, is that because Pharaoh had previously hardened his own heart by choice in such a severe way, it was now decreed that he be punished, and the punishment included an inability to repent, as Maimonides explains in the Laws of Repentance and in the introduction to Eight Chapters. After all, the Torah explicitly says, “And I will strengthen his heart, and he will not let the people go” (Exodus 4), meaning: I will strengthen it in a way that ensures he will not let them go. And it is likewise said about Eli’s sons: “And they did not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord desired to kill them” (I Samuel 2:25), “Make the heart of this people fat, make its ears heavy, and shut its eyes, lest it see with its eyes, hear with its ears, understand with its heart, and return and be healed” (Isaiah 6:10), and more.

Indeed, some interpreted the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart that way, but I did not understand it that way. In all the examples you brought, it is possible to explain that this is not a deterministic action. And the logic is that if it is a deterministic action, there is no point to it. If they want to punish him, let them punish him directly. The fact that he does not let them go because of a deterministic hardening of heart should not add to his punishment. He is not guilty of that.

But none of this changes the issue at hand. Even if in Pharaoh’s case it was deterministic, it follows from this that without the hardening of the heart he certainly has choice. To hang this on a “narrow” state in which the value and the impulse are exactly equal is ridiculous. The chance that this is the situation is zero (you can’t reduce things that precisely).
Beyond that, the very discussion of what was with Pharaoh cannot be conducted according to Tuvia, who holds that in a state of hardening of the heart there is no possibility of choice.

I didn’t understand: according to your view, how can one choose the weaker impulse when the stronger value indicates not to act that way?
And a person who operates on autopilot is not choosing not to choose. Because when there is an impulse <<< value, or an impulse without any value, one cannot choose it. Because there will never be a purpose in doing so. An analogy would be the empirical proof from Libet’s experiments.

Tuvia, I’ll explain one more time, and with this I’m ending this futile discussion that is repeating the previous thread exactly (which is why I don’t understand what the point was of opening a new thread).
There are two models standing against each other:
1. The deterministic model: there is a system of pressures and impulses and values in a person, and what he does is the result of weighing all of them. The bottom line compels the person’s action. He cannot deviate from it.
2. The libertarian model: there is a system of pressures and impulses and values in a person, and the weighing of all of them creates a bottom line that tries to push him in a certain direction. But the person can decide whether to go in that direction or not. Of course, the stronger the pressure, the harder it is to act against it, and vice versa.
You keep assuming model A over and over and over and over, and I keep telling you over and over that I hold model B. And you again and again and again and again repeat model A and even open a new thread and do the same thing in it, and I again and again say to you that you are begging the question—that is, if you assume determinism, you will get determinism. What is the point of this futile discussion? If you don’t accept it—fine.
As for Libet’s experiments, I explained both in my article and in my book The Science of Freedom that they have nothing whatsoever to do with the issue at hand.
That’s it. I’m done. I won’t answer anymore.

I agree on the basic issue of free choice in the sense of a real ability to do otherwise. I only made a side comment that from the plain meaning of the verses it appears that there are extreme situations in which a person’s capacity to choose is taken away. If we are able to say this about situations such as temporary insanity, there is no reason not to think there are situations where this is the result of providential action, as recompense for earlier sins.

Where is the point in this kind of punitive action? The fact that Pharaoh does not let them go because of the hardening of the heart is not the *cause* of the continued punishment. The essence and scope of the punishment were already determined earlier, in accordance with his earlier sins, and not because of God’s intervention in hardening his heart. But there is something fitting in having part of the punishment include a hardening of the heart. Pharaoh becomes the instrument through which God’s name is made known in the world. “And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and I will multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt”—because I will punish him by hardening his heart, therefore My signs and wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt. And again: “But Pharaoh will not listen to you, and I will lay My hand upon Egypt and bring out My hosts, My people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And Egypt shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them” (Exodus 7)—because he will not listen, therefore all this can happen. The sanctification of God’s name happens through him in the negative sense—through his punishment—and that is precisely the punishment. A normal person prefers that God’s name be sanctified through him by participation in the positive purpose of history.

Eli’s sons did not listen to the voice of their father *because the Lord desired to kill them*. Had the Lord not desired to kill them, they would have listened, because their father spoke good sense and every reasonable person understands that these are vile acts. But the Lord keeps His promise that one who truly repents is not rejected, so repentance was withheld from them so that they could serve as instruments to receive the punishment already decreed earlier.

This biblical theology is important because it shows that one cannot treat the Holy One, blessed be He, lightly, and there is some stage after which a person will no longer be able to repent.

As I wrote, I’m not sure that this is the plain meaning of the verses. It seems to me that all of them can be read in the way I suggested (= a change in the weights among which the choice operates). As for your explanation itself, I think it makes more sense to punish directly when the act that warrants punishment occurs, and not to postpone it and create artificial situations of hardening the heart. As for Pharaoh, right when he hardened his heart the first time, they could have landed a few blows on him that would force him to submit, and that’s it. Wouldn’t there have been the same sanctification of God’s name? Why create another artificial situation? It is much more reasonable that the situation that arose was not artificial. Indeed, Pharaoh too has a path to repent, and if he had done so he would have been saved. But one who sins and repeats it, it becomes to him as if permitted; since he had already hardened his heart, it became harder for him to act properly. In that sense the current act constitutes part of the punishment for the previous acts. But yes, if he repents he can be saved. And that is our tradition: the door of repentance is never locked; it can only become harder to carry out. My claim is that usually, even when a person serves as the rod of the Holy One, blessed be He, he and his decisions still have a role in the matter. And this takes us to what the author of Leshem calls the mode of governance of “awesome plot-maker,” but this is not the place.

The creation of the artificial situation is simply the very purpose of the act: “But for this cause I have raised you up: to show you My power, and that My name may be declared throughout all the earth.” And likewise regarding Sihon: “But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through him, because the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate *in order to deliver him into your hand, as it is this day*.” The refusal to send the people *results from* the artificial act of strengthening the heart: “And I will strengthen his heart, and he will not send the people” (and further citations can be seen in Maimonides, Laws of Repentance 6:3, and in the eighth chapter of Eight Chapters). It should be noted that God’s hardening of the heart always comes in order to freeze it in accordance with the state the person had previously shaped by free choice, not in order to change it.

Why was the blow not brought upon him immediately after the punishment was decreed? The same question applies even if the hardening of the heart still left him the possibility of choosing otherwise. Even such a “choice-preserving” hardening creates an artificial state: instead of the chance of choosing the sensible course being almost certain, the chance is now almost certainly the opposite. In a normal situation, only a small number of such impressive signs would have been enough that even a wicked man like Pharaoh would with almost total certainty prefer his own obvious self-interest rather than knowingly walk to destruction. But the Holy One, blessed be He, desired the creation of the artificial situation in order that His name be told throughout all the earth.

In general, we all agree that there is some point at which the choice to repent is prevented, and what is the essential difference whether this is only at the moment of death, at the time of judgment, or some time before a person’s death? The idea that the door of repentance is never locked does not refer to the time after the sentence has already been decreed.

And unrelated to all this: the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart could prove that the plagues might have been interpreted by someone who wanted to do so as merely unusual natural phenomena, nothing more. As is sometimes explained in scholarship. The director of the film Gods and Kings about the Exodus epic, starring the immortal actor Christian Bale, showed this nicely.

I wasn’t convinced. A hardening of the heart that still leaves him choice allows him to repent if he tries hard enough.

With God's help, 2 Shevat 5779

According to Maimonides, the hardening of the heart removed Pharaoh’s choice. According to this, Pharaoh was punished not for his refusal during the plagues, but for all the sins he committed beforehand—the enslavement, abuse, and murder of innocents for more than eighty years, apart from his transgressions of the Noahide commandments regarding idolatry, sexual immorality, theft, and bloodshed.

Some commentators—I believe Rabbi Joseph Albo, author of Sefer Ha-Ikkarim—explained that the hardening of the heart did not prevent Pharaoh’s choice. On the contrary, it enabled him to choose evil despite seeing open miracles that confirmed the power of God and the mission of His messenger. By hardening the heart, Pharaoh found 999 excuses to deny what was plainly evident, and thus the possibility remained for him to choose either side.

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

It may be that one of the factors that intensified Pharaoh’s insistence on not believing was Moses’ statement that the purpose of the departure was to worship God in the wilderness, from which it could be inferred that he did not have the power to take the people out completely, and that he himself doubted the truth of his mission; or that he was using deceit—requesting to leave under the pretext of a religious purpose in order to flee—and to such a trickster, Pharaoh thought, God would not give His support.

This direction is supported by the cantillation in the verse “So be the Lord with you,” where the disjunctive accent, tipcha, is between “the Lord” and “with you,” and the sense of the words is: “May the Lord deal with you in that way”—just as you wish to wrong me and flee, so may the Lord deal with you and punish you.

Paragraph 2, line 1:
Some commentators (Rabbi Joseph Albo, Sefer Ha-Ikkarim, article 4 chapter 25; Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno, commentary on the Torah, Exodus 7:3) explained…

Paragraph 4, lines 1–2:
…is found between “the Lord” and “with you.” And the sense…

Rabbi Levinger,

Those approaches are more apologetic than they emerge from the actual verses themselves. The interpretation according to which the hardening of the heart is “nothing but” giving the option to choose evil despite the signs is creative, but it would almost be ridiculous to say that it is well reflected in the plain meaning. The biblical motif of the Creator hardening the heart as punishment is not a one-time thing limited to the Exodus, but is embedded multiple times throughout the Bible, already in the book of Samuel, which is certainly considered early, and of course in Jeremiah and Isaiah and elsewhere. In my opinion, Maimonides describes the main plain meaning of Scripture without evasiveness. Notice that when the Torah speaks of the hardening of heart in Pharaoh and Sihon, it is phrased as “this is how the Holy One, blessed be He, will make sure” that the wonders happen, “this is how I will ensure” that Sihon is defeated, etc., and this is not consistent with the possibility of choosing otherwise.

Emphasizing those approaches contributes to a conception of the Holy One, blessed be He, as though He were some imaginary, indulgent friend in the style of Santa Claus, in contrast to the Bible’s own conception of the unimaginably severe gravity of sin: “Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.”

With God's help, 2 Shevat 5779

The Bible is full of calls to repentance based on the understanding that the Lord is slow to anger, relents from evil, and accepts those who return to Him—including the people of Nineveh, whose fate had already been decreed to be overturned like Sodom, and including Manasseh, who filled Jerusalem with blood, and nevertheless when they repented, the Lord accepted their repentance.

Even according to Maimonides, who says that Pharaoh was deprived of the possibility of repentance, this is an exceptional case and does not teach the general rule. After all, even where the Mishnah says, “They do not give him the opportunity to repent,” Maimonides explains that they do not assist him in repenting, but they do not lock the gates of repentance before him.

The author of Sefer Ha-Ikkarim and Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno hold that even before Pharaoh the ways of repentance were not locked. The hardening of the heart, in its biblical meaning, is strengthening the heart so that it will not fear, just as in Proverbs “Happy is the man who always fears” is the opposite of “one who hardens his heart.”

Strengthening the heart and removing fear of punishment can indeed lead to refraining from repentance and receiving a harsher punishment, but it also gives an opportunity for true repentance arising from inner will, and clearly the Lord would prefer that scenario, “for He does not desire the death of the dying, but rather that he return from his way and live.”

And contrary to your understanding that the Lord promises to ensure that Sihon will harden his heart in order to be defeated—Moses understands the Lord’s words, “See, I have begun to give Sihon king of the Amorites and his land into your hand; begin, take possession, and contend with him in battle” (Deuteronomy 2:24), as a “default option,” which does not prevent attempting to avoid confrontation by means of “words of peace.” The Lord removed Sihon’s fear by strengthening his heart, but the responsibility for refusing to heed the “words of peace” rests on Sihon alone.

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

To everyone who thinks that the Holy One, blessed be He, never cancels a person’s choice:

Even aside from the plain meaning of the verses, is there some moral or theological reason that compels you to think so? If so, what is it? I do not find one. If the Holy One, blessed be He, gives a person enough opportunities to repent, and in each of them the person decides to thumb his nose at it, and one day that person suddenly has a stroke and dies in his sin—is there any contradiction here to the statement that “clearly the Lord would prefer the scenario of his returning from his way and living”? After all, from his death onward, his ability to repent has been canceled. And plainly there is no contradiction: in that same prophet where the principle “I do not desire the death of the dying” is brought, it speaks several times about death penalties as recompense for sinners.

That means that either way there is some moment from which onward there is no more opportunity to return, so what difference does it make whether we are speaking about sudden death or about the cancellation of choice? Now there remains only the question whether the verses seem to speak about the possibility of canceling choice before death. If it seems so, there is no reason not to accept it. One may ask: why not punish the sinner with death immediately instead of canceling choice? There are many reasons in providence, and this is not the place to get into them. But certainly there can be reasons for this, as was said for example regarding Pharaoh: “But for this cause I have raised you up, to show you My power, and that My name may be declared throughout all the earth.”

To Levinger, hardening the heart means just what it sounds like: when you harden something, you preserve it in its state so that it will not change (despite rebukes, signs, or indications), in contrast to “And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

Regarding Sihon, the Torah says explicitly that the Holy One, blessed be He, made sure he would not choose otherwise: “But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through him, because the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate *in order to deliver him into your hand, as it is this day*.” Notice the goal of the action: *in order to* deliver him into your hand this day. When the Holy One, blessed be He, performs an action for the sake of a certain goal (preserving the heart in its previous state), the goal must achieve its purpose, and that is equivalent to canceling choice. If there was no possibility for Sihon except to harden his heart and go out to war, then his choice was canceled, because the meaning of the words free choice is the ability to choose otherwise.

The question of why Moses nevertheless addressed Sihon is an interesting question, but it does not touch the Torah’s basic statement about the cancellation of choice. Perhaps Moses initially thought the prophecy was conditional, and that its purpose was only to make him unafraid of Sihon, knowing that if Sihon refused to help Israel he would be defeated, and only later did God clarify to him that this had been the purpose from the outset, “in order to deliver him into your hand.” Perhaps Moses’ action was only to convey a message for future generations about first seeking peace and not war, and not for its own sake. And perhaps a person on his own part must seek peace in any case, even though refusal is known with certainty through prophecy. However you interpret it, Sihon certainly could not choose otherwise.

“And they did not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord desired to kill them” (I Samuel 2). Rashi: “For the sentence had already been sealed; but before the sentence was sealed, it says, ‘For I do not desire the death of the dying.’”

I did not claim that the Holy One, blessed be He, never cancels a person’s choice, though that too could be. What I claimed is that the burden of proof is on the person who says that this happened in a particular case, because usually it does not happen. When a person no longer functions as a person (choice is taken away from him), there is no point to his existence. He can already die. As long as he lives, the assumption is that he is supposed to function as a person, meaning to choose. As stated, a different situation is possible, but the burden of proof is on the one who claims it. In Pharaoh’s case it does not seem to me that this was the situation, and there is no necessity to say so.

With God's help, 2 Shevat 5779

To Copenhagen—greetings,

Without getting into the moral-theological question (on which the author of Sefer Ha-Ikkarim and Sforno whom I mentioned elaborated)—I already showed that “he who hardens his heart will fall into evil” is contrasted with “happy is the man who always fears.” This implies that hardening the heart is the removal of fear. Likewise with Sihon: “for the Lord hardened his spirit” parallels “and made his heart obstinate”—He strengthened his heart so that he would not fear. Where is there a total negation of choice here?

In Sihon’s case, where it says “in order to deliver him into your hand,” it could be that at this stage the option preferred by the Lord is that Sihon choose evil so that he will be defeated (in contrast to an ordinary sinner, where the Lord desires his repentance more), but the appeal to him for peace indicates that the possibility of a peaceful resolution was not locked.

Likewise, Moses’ repeated appeals and rebukes to Pharaoh indicate that the possibility of repentance was not locked. And if Moses thinks there is no possibility that Pharaoh will go back, then why does he cry out to the Lord to remove the plagues from him—is Moses praying a futile prayer?

Also regarding Eli’s sons there is a complaint against Eli for “not rebuking them sharply” after they did not heed his gentle rebuke. Perhaps if he had rebuked them forcefully, they would have listened, even though the Lord had hardened their hearts.

As long as “the lamp is still burning,” a person’s capacity to choose exists, and even if Heaven no longer assists him in returning, the door is not locked completely.

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

To the Rabbi,

Of course, one should assume this happens only in rare cases, both because of “I do not desire the death of the dying” and because it involves intervention in human nature, and the very fact that a thought of repentance passes through a person’s mind is decisive proof that he is not one of these. But I find no reason to think that today this would happen less than in the past, and it may be that precisely in an era of divine hiddenness it should happen more, because merely freezing the human heart in a state of refusal to repent is a miracle not visible to the eye, unlike punishment through unexplained death.

That doesn’t mean it involves a total cancellation of choice in all areas; it may focus on hardening the heart only regarding a certain matter, or only for a certain period, as in Isaiah, after he beholds the seraphim crying out “holy,” when he is told: “Go and say to this people: Hear indeed, but understand not; and see indeed, but know not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and return and be healed.”

Then Isaiah asks how long the punishment will last: “And I said: Lord, how long? And He answered: Until cities are laid waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land becomes utterly desolate.” That is, until the exile is completed. Here it is speaking of canceling the possibility of repentance for an entire people. Why? Because after prophets were sent early and often and the people persisted in their rebellion, a stage arrived at which the sentence was decreed, with no way back.

Levinger,

In my opinion it is appropriate to get into the moral-theological question because it is the engine behind these interpretations. I pointed out that there is no reason to think there is any essential difference between the impossibility of repenting after death and the impossibility of repenting because death is temporarily postponed while choice is canceled in the meantime.

In “he who hardens his heart will fall into evil,” the point is not the removal of fear, but the very hardening of the heart. The person who “always fears” is one who allows his heart to be influenced by the rebuke of conscience or by fear of sin, in contrast to the one who hardens his heart, that is, makes it hard—and a hard substance is not affected by external influence that might shape and change it—therefore he does not always fear. The absence of fear is only the sign, not the cause. The cause is the turning of the heart into something hard.

Regarding Sihon, it cannot be that his choosing evil was only the “preferred option” of the Lord. It does not say merely “in order to deliver him into your hand,” but more than that—that the purpose of the hardening of the heart was meant to bring about a specific result: “because the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate in order to deliver him into your hand.” And as I noted earlier, if the Holy One, blessed be He, performs an action intended to produce some result, that result necessarily occurs—that is, choosing the good was impossible for him. Again, the question of the appeal for peace is secondary here. The plain meaning of the text is that choice was canceled, and now you have a question why Moses still appealed to him for peace. That question can be answered in various ways, as I suggested earlier and presumably others too, but you cannot assume from the outset a particular and certainly not self-evident interpretation as the answer to an interpretive question and on that basis contradict the plain meaning of Scripture.

Regarding Pharaoh, there is no hint in the text that Moses prayed in order that Pharaoh repent, but only: “And he said, as you say, so that you may know that there is none like the Lord our God” (Exodus 8:6).

Regarding Eli, this is exactly the meaning of the juxtaposition “And they did not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord desired to kill them,” and as Rashi notes there. Since the reason they did not listen is the Lord’s desire to kill them, it follows that no matter what their father might have done, the Lord’s desire would have been fulfilled and they would not have repented (of course, the Lord keeps His promise, and when there is real repentance He does not reject it, and that is why He did not allow it to happen).

Hello Rabbi,
I accept that the approach you present is indeed coherent and explains the libertarian approach.
But why hold it, when we have an approach that is much better—the deterministic model.
This model explains very well why we act one way and not another. It fits very well with the reality around us, in which we see that every event has a cause. It feels much more reasonable and possible than creation ex nihilo. And it is also much more reasonable to continue holding a materialist approach rather than a mystical dualist one…
And if you say that the only reason for it is because we feel choice? That is really not convincing, because the deterministic model also explains that feeling very plausibly, namely that it is a cognitive-experiential illusion.

Second, I’d be glad to know whether according to the libertarian view a person can choose evil. I mean, when he has no impulse at all to do the evil act. And he does not see in it any positive value, only a negative one.
After all, the Rabbi argues in the context of Libet’s experiments that the reason the experiments succeeded is that there is no act of choice here but only the arousal of an impulse, and as long as the person chose not to impose a veto on the impulse, he followed his impulse.
So it follows from your words that a person cannot choose randomly. Is it the same with choosing evil?

Third, the Rabbi wrote in one of the replies here that Libet’s experiments showed that there is a possibility of veto. I’d be glad to know whether the findings today still fit with the possibility of imposing a veto that does not have an RP before it.

With God's help, 3 Shevat 5779

To Copenhagen—greetings,

According to your words (following Ibn Ezra, Radak in his first interpretation, and Maimonides in Laws of Repentance 6:3), Isaiah’s words in chapter 6—“Hear indeed but understand not, and see indeed but know not. Make the heart of this people fat…” — are a divine decree that repentance will be prevented from Israel until destruction comes.

But this requires examination, for Isaiah already in chapter 1 calls the people to repentance: “Wash yourselves, purify yourselves, remove your evil deeds from before My eyes, cease to do evil…,” and promises the people that repentance will be accepted: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

Isaiah’s prophecies are full of hope, and he is the one who encourages the people not to fear Rezin king of Aram and Sennacherib king of Assyria—who threaten the existence and freedom of the kingdom of Judah.

Indeed, many commentators understood Isaiah’s words in chapter 6, “Hear indeed but understand not… make the heart of this people fat…,” not as a promise that there will be no repentance until the destruction, but as a complaint against the people who refuse to hear and understand lest they return and be healed (for example Targum Jonathan, Rashi, and Radak in his second interpretation). In Da’at Mikra, Isaiah’s words “Hear indeed but understand not…” are explained as sarcastic mockery.

The role of a prophet is to awaken repentance that will bring correction, not, God forbid, to produce despair!

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

1. I can also assume that my eyesight deceives me and I have an excellent explanation for that. Simply: because my eyesight deceives me. I can also assume that your arguments are not really what you think, and I have an excellent explanation for that too: because your mind deceives you (you yourself admit this). I don’t deal with skepticism.
2. The answer is yes (a person can choose evil even without an impulse), but apparently in practice he won’t do so unless he is a consummate villain. Regarding Libet, I did not mention impulses even by hint. I said there are no arguments for or against (it’s picking, not choosing), and pay close attention.
3. They did not necessarily show it, but they do not rule it out. As far as I know, there are new experiments in which they already showed the veto itself. That’s what I heard in a lecture by a brain researcher a few months ago. But you can read my article and the book for the details of my arguments.

1. It’s not exactly the same thing, but I don’t really have what to argue… These are two interpretations.

2. If Libet is picking, then it’s an impulse on which no veto was imposed. Otherwise how did you choose what to do, since you have no tools to decide? And likewise, how did they see RP beforehand?
3. When you write that they showed the veto itself, do you mean they showed the creation of the veto, meaning that there was an RP before that too?
As I recall, less than a year ago you mentioned that experiments were still being done on this, so I asked what you know from the recent period, because the book is old relative to that.

2. It is picking, and there is no impulse. The RP arises at some point as a deterministic result of the circumstances and the brain state, and I have no reason (= consideration) to impose a veto on it. So I obey it. If it were choosing, there would be considerations this way and that way, and then I would decide (freely) whether to impose a veto or not.

3. As far as I understood—no. By the way, in my opinion there is no principled possibility of detecting an RP before a veto, but this is not the place.
In the book I discussed the Libet experiment in a situation of choosing. I don’t know where that stands. But I explained there why even if they succeed, it won’t settle the discussion.

2. If it comes from the brain state, then it is an impulse. Maybe not the evil inclination, but an impulse…
3. Why can’t one distinguish RP before the veto?

You wrote that it may be a value-vs.-value dilemma that occurred much earlier than the choice in the impulse-vs.-value dilemma.
But where is there judgment in a value-vs.-value dilemma? After all, it is a deterministic process of thinking what the proper act is. There is no room there for judgment. Especially since it is possible that moral perception is an ideal perception…

Levinger,

This is not a serious interpretive disagreement about the plain meaning. There are certain forms and contexts in which it is reasonable to assume that the verses are speaking sarcastically, but both the general atmosphere and the forms of expression in chapter 6 are not of that kind. Why does Isaiah ask “Until when?” And why does the Lord answer as He did? Strange question—after all, it is their free choice and does not depend on the Holy One, blessed be He, so I should just go and fulfill my mission in the best possible way and hope that they listen. Both the question and the answer plainly deal with the question of how long the punishment will apply.

Shadal nicely demonstrates the linguistic analogy to verses dealing with prophetic decree:

“Make the heart of this people fat — the prophet by his utterance is as though giving reality to the things, just as we find in Jeremiah (1:10), ‘See, I have this day appointed you over nations and over kingdoms, to uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant,’ whose meaning is: after I have put My words in your mouth, whatever you speak will be fulfilled, whether for good or for evil, and it is as though I have made you ruler over nations and kingdoms to do with them as you wish. And likewise in Ezekiel (21:24), ‘And you, son of man, set two ways for the sword of the king of Babylon to come’; the meaning is: prophesy that the sword of the king of Babylon will have two ways. Then it says, ‘clear the way’—remove the thorns and stones. ‘At the head of the way to the city clear it’—the place that you make clear for the troops of the king of Babylon shall be at the fork in the road, where the roads divide, and one of them leads to the city. Now Ezekiel had no power to do any of this, but he was commanded to prophesy that so it would be. So too here, God commands Isaiah to make the heart of the people fat, that is, to prophesy and decree upon them that they will not incline their ear to his words. And all this is to inform him that such will be—that his words will not be heard.”

The fact that Isaiah promises that repentance will be accepted is irrelevant to our issue. One who truly repents will certainly be accepted. But the Israel described in chapter 6 is not going to repent even when it sees the decree of exile begin to be fulfilled, because the Holy One, blessed be He, will make its heart fat and blind the eyes of its understanding—and that was the purpose of the prophecy to say. At the times of the threats of Rezin and Sennacherib, no such decree had been issued upon Judah, so that is different.

As for the matter of hope, there is a misunderstanding here: there is no person in the world for whom this principle could cause hopelessness. One who hopes to see the goodness of the Lord and one who entertains thoughts of repentance cannot be among those whose heart the Lord has hardened, by definition. For him the promise of repentance still stands, and therefore it is rational for him to be full of hope. But one whose heart the Lord has hardened does not contemplate repentance at all, and therefore he also cannot despair of it. And even before the hardening of the heart, he was not interested in it, and providence merely leaves his heart in that previous state with regard to that matter.

I should note that what I argued is consistent with the verses, but does not exactly reflect Maimonides’ position (the more extreme one) in Eight Chapters:

“There are cases where God punishes a person by withholding from him the choice of a certain action. He knows this and cannot draw his soul away and bring it back to that choice. In exactly this way was the punishment of Sihon king of Heshbon: for because of his former rebellion, in which there was no coercion, God punished him by preventing him from doing Israel’s will, until they killed him.” (Eight Chapters, chapter 8.)

From the wording “He knows this and cannot draw his soul away and bring it back to that choice,” it follows that hardening the heart may cause a person hopelessness. After Israel came out of Egypt, Sihon understands that he has no chance against the God of Israel, and would like to choose the good, but the hardening of the heart prevents it.

With God's help, 4 Shevat 5779

After clarifying the view of the author of Sefer Ha-Ikkarim (4:25) and Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno (Exodus 7:3), that the hardening of a sinner’s heart is, in the biblical sense, the strengthening and stiffening of it against fear, but does not negate the possibility of choosing the good ((support for this understanding comes from the fact that in all the cases where hardening of heart is mentioned, the Lord continues through His prophet-messengers to rebuke the sinners and call them to repentance))—let us say a few words about Maimonides’ view that there are situations in which the gravity of the sin requires that the possibility of repentance be locked before the sinner (Laws of Repentance ch. 6, halakhah 3).

There Maimonides lists a series of sinners from whom the possibility of repentance was withheld: Pharaoh, Sihon, the Canaanites in Joshua’s time, and the people of the generations of Elijah and Isaiah. It appears that these situations are more severe than the twenty-four things that hinder repentance listed in chapter 4 of Laws of Repentance, concerning which it says there (halakhah 6): “All these things and the like, although they hinder repentance, they do not prevent repentance. Rather, if a person repented from them, he is a penitent and has a share in the World to Come.”

And one must ask why Maimonides did not count among those prevented from repentance also Eli’s sons, about whom it says: “And they did not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord desired to kill them” (I Samuel 2:25), which seems to indicate that their failure to heed the rebuke was the result of the Lord’s will that they not repent. And this is explained in the Sifrei (brought in Yalkut Shimoni there) that after the sentence has been decreed, the situation changes from “For I do not desire the death of the dying… return and live” (Ezekiel 18:32) to a state of “for the Lord desired to kill them.”

Perhaps Maimonides did not hold that Eli’s sons were prevented from repentance. For in the Talmud (Niddah 70b), Rabbi Yehoshua distinguished not between before and after the decree, but rather that “For I do not desire the death of the dying” refers to those who repented, whereas “for the Lord desired to kill them” refers to “they did not repent.” According to this, it follows that even in the case of Eli’s sons repentance was possible. It seems that Maimonides understood that Eli’s sons reached a state where the Lord did not assist them in awakening to repentance through their father’s rebuke, but did not completely lock the possibility of repentance from them (in line with his words in his commentary on the Mishnah at the end of Yoma, that even one about whom it is said “they do not give him the opportunity to repent,” this means that they do not assist him, but also do not prevent him, as he says in Laws of Repentance 4:6).

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

Maharsha in his novellae to the aggadah on Niddah 70b explains that the Talmud did not distinguish, like the Sifrei, between before and after the decree, because it says “For I do not desire the death of the dying,” meaning that even one who is already a “dead man walking,” whose judgment has been finalized for guilt, God desires his repentance, which will bring him to life in the World to Come.

Tosafot there (s.v. “here where he repented”) explained that “the sugya of our passage follows Rabbi Yitzhak, who said: Crying out is beneficial for a person both before the decree and after the decree.”

Rabbi Levinger,

I see a lot of theology here driven by wishful thinking and not serious arguments, and as people like to quote: Facts don't care about your feelings. You did not present a real explanation of the view of the author of Sefer Ha-Ikkarim and Sforno, because I already explained simply why those views are impossible in the text, and until now I have not seen a substantive response. Besides, there are more and more verses teaching this same point that I did not even bother to cite here. The Holy One, blessed be He, conveyed prophecy for future generations, and first of all we must understand what it says before we start reciting “positions.”

Maimonides did not list Eli’s sons simply because he already remarked there at the beginning of the chapter that he is bringing only a few examples, so that from them we can infer the rest of the verses: “There are many verses in the Torah and in the words of the prophets that seem to contradict this principle… and I am now explaining a great principle from which you will know the interpretation of all those verses.”

Could it be that “Maimonides held that Eli’s sons were not prevented from repentance”? He explicitly says that “when the Holy One, blessed be He, withholds repentance from a sinner, *he cannot repent and will die in his wickedness* that he committed initially of his own will,” meaning a total locking of the possibility of repentance. With all due respect, Maimonides does not build a worldview on an ambiguous aggadic statement of Rabbi Yehoshua, which is of course not the plain meaning. The whole purpose of the verse was to say that the reason they did not repent was that the Lord desired to kill them, so you cannot turn the whole thing upside down and say that the reason the Lord desired to kill them was that they did not repent.

The Maharsha passage you cited is nice as aggadic interpretation but plainly impossible. The reason Eli’s sons did not repent is that the Lord desired to kill them, and if they had repented, that would have contradicted that divine desire. Again, there is nothing in Tosafot’s words relevant to our issue. If a person has been decreed that he can no longer repent, there is no possibility that he will even think to cry out to the Lord, because his heart has been frozen in a state of rebellion against God with no way back.

With God's help, 4 Shevat 5779

To Copenhagen—greetings,

When I read in the text before me that X urges Y, and repeatedly urges him, and even warns and threatens him to do something—I have a strong indication to think that X really wants Y to respond to the urging and not remain frozen in his position.

On the other hand, when X explicitly declares that he is strengthening Y’s heart in its refusal, I have a strong indication to assume that X does not want Y to change his position.

Your neighbor in the kingdom of Denmark, may it flourish, Prince Hamlet of blessed memory, would say in such a case: “To want or not to want—that is the question” 🙂 Does X suffer from a conflict of contradictory desires and is not “settled within himself”?

Even the people of Alexandria sense the inner contradiction in X’s desires—is it his will that Y change his way and be saved, or does he want Y to insist and remain in his way and sink into the mud with no escape?

The text itself, in its holy way, leaves us in this dilemma.

To this dilemma Maimonides and Rabbi Joseph Albo offer different solutions, both built on the assumption that “there is logic and method” in the conduct of X.

Maimonides’ proposal is that X’s will is unambiguous: to throw Y completely into ruin. Intensifying Y’s refusal is only a game meant to torment him, drag him down into the abyss while tortured and humiliated. He deserves it after all he did.

Rabbi Joseph Albo’s proposal, by contrast, is more optimistic. X does not despair even of a terrible refuser like Y. He will urge him, threaten him, and shake him up because he really wants Y to improve. But X’s will is that Y should not be a “robot” doing good under compulsion, but a choosing human being who determines where he inclines himself. And he is the one who will decide between the opposing desires that X implanted in him with force.

These are the approaches that have been offered. Let the chooser choose!

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

And to your claim that when the Lord desires to kill a person there is no way to be saved, that the Lord’s will will be fulfilled and “none can deliver from His hand”—Zipporah did not agree. When she saw that the angel of the Lord sought to kill Moses, Zipporah did not accept the judgment submissively. She rose and acted and circumcised her son, and lo and behold she changed his fate from death to life.

Perhaps Moses learned from her that even when he heard explicitly from on High, “Leave Me alone, that I may destroy them,” he did not accept the decree but pleaded for mercy and was answered. And likewise when the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment,” Moses took the exact opposite path, sending Aaron with incense in his hand into the midst of the plague, and the plague was stopped…

For the Lord does not seek a person in order to kill him, but in order to verify him as true!

This is indeed the doctrine of wishful thinking that Moses our teacher taught us in his Torah, and his Creator endorsed it!

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

And regarding what you asked about Rabbi Yehoshua’s statement (Niddah 70b), who explained “And they did not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord desired to kill them” as referring to a state of “they are not repenting,” and on that you objected: but their failure to repent was the result of the Lord’s desire to kill them, not the cause of that desire.

To this Radak already answered that even if they had listened to their father and stopped committing the severe acts for which he rebuked them, it would not have been due to true repentance born of recognition that those acts were improper.

And this seems reasonable, for the verse describes Eli’s sons as “worthless men who did not know the Lord,” trampling arrogantly both the people and the laws of the Torah. In such a miserable state, it stands to reason that the rebuke of the old father, a man of the old generation—old-fashioned, in the vernacular, a kind of outdated sucker who is not familiar with the “laws of the priesthood” accepted among the surrounding peoples, where the priest knows how to stand up for his rights and make clear to his subjects “who’s boss here”—

It may be that they would obey their father out of minimal politeness toward him, but not in his presence, and certainly after his death, they would return proudly and resolutely to their path. God is not interested in temporary obedience for appearances’ sake without real change in understanding, and therefore this is considered a state of “not repenting,” which God is unwilling to accept.

It may be that when they were killed Eli’s sons came to genuine repentance “out of crushing despair of soul,” for as Rav noted in tractate Shabbat 55, Chronicles identifies Ahijah son of Ahitub as “son of Ichabod son of Phinehas son of Eli,” and does not regard Phinehas son of Eli as a stain on the lineage to be ashamed of.

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

And it may be that “for” here is not in the sense of “because,” but in the sense of “that,” so the meaning of the verse is: “And they did not listen to the voice of their father, that the Lord desired to kill them.” Eli warns his sons that in sinning against the Lord they are “in His sights,” and “who will pray for them” to save them from the Lord’s wrath against them. And the verse says that Eli’s sons did not heed their father, who was warning them that the Lord desired to punish them.

The text does not leave us in a dilemma. It teaches clearly that in principle the Lord is compassionate and gracious, but also a righteous judge. There is a moral demand for just recompense for crimes, and it must be satisfied. He does not desire the death of the dying but that he return from his way; but the text consistently shows that in severe and persistent cases of sin, the rule stops applying and the Lord does desire their death. This is a normal and simple reading of the text. The Bible is full of descriptions of God as a punishing judge without offering a way back, and this is part of His goodness, holiness, and justice. A judge who does not punish rapists, enslavers, and murderers who intentionally harm others and nevertheless persisted in their sin despite repeated warnings is surely a bad judge: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God He made man.” And the Judge of all the earth must do justice.

The prophets teach: “Though the wicked spring up like grass and all the workers of iniquity flourish.” Why?—“that they may be destroyed forever.” And some understood “He repays those who hate Him to their face.” Why?—“to destroy them.” Likewise: “And they shall go out and look upon the corpses of the men who rebelled against Me; for their worm shall not die, nor shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” “And at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book”—only those written in the book. “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake—these to everlasting life, and these to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence,” and so on and so on.

In other words, the text itself makes clear to you how to resolve the “dilemma,” and nowhere does it offer the ridiculous solution according to which everyone has an infinite, unconditional opportunity to repent. Sooner or later the sentence is decreed, and the sinner does not know when that will happen. Maybe with the next sin. The principle is supposed to produce in a person a healthy measure of fear of Heaven, and if it does not, perhaps he is one of those whose end is to be a horror to all flesh.

You claim: “Maimonides’ proposal is that X’s will is unambiguous: to throw Y completely into ruin. Intensifying Y’s refusal is only a game meant to torment him, drag him down into the abyss while tortured and humiliated. He deserves it after all he did.”

And by that you make a mockery of the justice of punishment. It is as if you would say about someone like Eichmann: “Maimonides’ proposal is to throw Eichmann completely into ruin. Intensifying Eichmann’s refusal to recognize his sin is only a game meant to torment him, drag him down into the abyss while tortured and humiliated. He deserves it after all he did.”

Appropriate recompense for sinners is just. A judge who does not punish is a bad judge. God is not bad—and therefore He punishes.

The cases of Zipporah and Israel (fortunately) did not reach such a level as to force the righteous Judge to consume them totally. “And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them nor abhor them to destroy them utterly, to break My covenant with them.” And yet an exile of 1900 years is no trivial matter. In biblical theology this cannot be an exile connected to the sins of the fathers, which could end no later than after four generations, but must come as punishment for the sins of the exiled generations themselves.

Radak’s strained answer is not the plain meaning. It is not the way of Scripture that you should derive this kind of pilpul from it. The simple meaning is that had they repented, it would have contradicted the Lord’s desire to kill them—not that if they had repented, the repentance would not have been genuine.

With God's help, 5 Shevat 5779

To Copenhagen—greetings,

Clearly there are situations in which the judgment must be cut decisively, and then there is no room for repentance to exempt from punishment in this world. And yet, the condemned person is encouraged to confess and repent for his crime so that at least he may arrive in the World to Come as clean as possible.

Therefore I do not understand why one should prevent a person whose punishment has already been decreed from repenting. On the contrary—let him repent before his death, and thereby sanctify Heaven’s name and make atonement, at least in part, for what he sinned?

Another question that arises is this: someone sentenced to death is put to death immediately in order to prevent “protracted execution of judgment.” Why then all the urging and warnings, which create in him the illusion that he still has some chance? Let the prophet tell him, “Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live,” and immediately the angel of death should come and collect the debt.

Therefore the view of the author of Sefer Ha-Ikkarim makes more sense to me: the opening for repentance was not locked, and therefore there are urgings and warnings that spur the sinner to repent; on the other hand, the pressure applied to the sinner also leaves room for refusal, so that there can be internal repentance and not merely robotic behavior.

I suggested resolving Maimonides’ view by saying that he deserves torment measure-for-measure—he abused and tormented his slaves for more than eighty years, and so he too deserves some abuse. But this consideration does not fit the other cases of preventing repentance. Perhaps one should say that one who sinned by spiritually corrupting the many and causing them to be punished in the World to Come will be punished measure-for-measure such that he too will not be able to repent and improve his situation in the World to Come.

In any case, nowhere that hardening of heart is mentioned in the Bible is there mention of a decisive prevention of repentance, and certainly not prevention of repentance even with regard to the World to Come. Hardening of heart is the strengthening of refusal, and in the plain meaning there is no necessity that this strengthening be airtight.

Regarding Eli’s sons, it says that “they did not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord desired to kill them,” and as I explained, “listening” to their father could mean temporary obedience out of respect for him, which is not repentance involving abandonment of sin and resolve for the future, and that does not qualify as repentance at all.

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

One has to distinguish,

If the condemned person is not refusing repentance, he is not one of those whose hearts were hardened by Heaven, and therefore there is always hope for atonement. By contrast, when we are speaking of one of those whom the Holy One, blessed be He, designates “to destroy forever,” then the desire to repent does not even arise in him at all (or according to Maimonides’ more extreme position in Eight Chapters—the sinner would in principle be willing to repent but is incapable in practice—which is a much more frightening possibility for someone “addicted” to some sin or another and unable to free himself from it). Therefore there is certainly sense in encouraging people condemned by human courts to repent, especially when they are not firmly refusing (and even when they do firmly refuse, you do not know whether this is a metaphysical hardening after sentence has been decreed or merely self-hardening that can be softened naturally).

As for “protracted execution of judgment,” again, the plain meaning of the verse is that the reason for “Though the wicked spring up like grass…” is “to destroy them forever.” That is, the Holy One, blessed be He, gives them their reward in this world so that they will be lost forever in the next world (as in the additional citations above). There is no protracted judgment here, because in any case they have no hope of repenting and it does not interest them; and if it did interest them, that would be proof that they are not among those whom providence has destined at this stage for destruction.

True, in principle one should assume that urgings and warnings have some purpose. But there are cases, as in Isaiah and Ezekiel, and apparently in later stages of Jeremiah’s prophecies of destruction, where the Holy One, blessed be He, sends warnings with the knowledge that the sentence has already been decreed. Why? Perhaps to serve as a lesson for future generations, or as Ezekiel describes, so that the nations to which the exiles go, about whom the rebuke was said, will recognize divine providence.

I did not understand what exactly you wanted to resolve in Maimonides. Does the punishment not seem just to you?

I already explained above why the plain meaning regarding Sihon is an airtight hardening intended to cause him to die in his sin (as Maimonides emphasized). The Torah explicitly says that the purpose of the hardening was to cause him to go out to war and be defeated. That means he could not choose otherwise. The same applies to Eli’s sons—the explanation you brought from Radak is not the plain meaning. If the reason for not listening is that it contradicts the Lord’s desire to kill them, that plainly means that had they listened, the Lord would not have killed them. That is, “listening” means repentance, not mere politeness-based obedience (which would not obligate the Holy One, blessed be He, not to kill them). In other words, the Lord prevented from them the very possibility of choosing repentance.

With God's help, eve of the holy Sabbath, “Draw and take for yourselves,” 5779

And on further reflection on chapter 6 of Laws of Repentance, where Maimonides speaks of those whose sins require that repentance be prevented from them, it seems that even in such situations there is hope for one who comes to purify himself, for Maimonides concludes there in halakhot 9–10:

“And in this matter the prophets and the righteous ask in their prayers from the Lord to help them on the path of truth, as David said, ‘Teach me, O Lord, Your way’ (Psalms 86:11), meaning: let not my sins prevent me from the path of truth by which I may know Your ways and the unity of Your name. And likewise when he said, ‘And let a willing spirit uphold me’ (Psalms 51:14), meaning: let my spirit remain free to do Your will, and let not my sins cause me to be prevented from repentance, but let permission remain in my hand until I understand and return and know the path of truth…

And what is this that David said: ‘Good and upright is the Lord; therefore He instructs sinners in the way. He guides the humble in justice, and teaches the humble His way’ (Psalms 25:8–9)? This refers to His sending them prophets who inform them of the ways of the Lord and return them to repentance. In addition, He gave them the power to learn and understand, for this trait is in every person: so long as he is drawn along the paths of wisdom and righteousness, he comes to desire them and pursue them. And this is what the Sages said: ‘One who comes to purify himself is assisted’ (Yoma 38b), meaning: he will find himself helped in the matter.”

It appears that a person has the power to pull himself out of the forty-nine gates of impurity into which he has sunk, and when he comes to purify himself and cleaves to the ways of truth and righteousness and prays to the Lord to save him from the pit of his sin—he has hope of returning and meriting divine assistance toward repentance.

With the blessing of Shabbat Shalom,
Shatz Levinger

The citation speaks of ‘prophets and righteous people’ who ask, and of ‘the humble’ who are guided, because it is not the way of the wicked who have hardened their hearts or whom the Lord fixed in their hardness. But in order for a person to pray about this, he has to understand that such a risk exists—something that those who uproot the plain meaning of Scripture miss.

Blessings and Shabbat Shalom

Copenhagen and Shatz Levinger, why do you believe there is free choice?
After all, the world around us is so deterministic. And it seems that we are just a lump of matter. We behave like matter; we have no reason to assume that we act differently.
Moreover, this interpretation fits our experience well, because almost after every act we perform, when we think, “Was it done by choice?”, almost always it seems that it was tightly connected, and probably also causally connected, to the previous thought / previous act / previous speech, etc. If so, doesn’t the fact that almost always in retrospect we find a very plausible causal interpretation for what we did mean that it is better to choose that hypothesis?

With God's help, eve of the holy Sabbath, “Come to Pharaoh,” 5779

To Copenhagen—greetings,

You were right that one must be aware of the risk of reaching a state where judgment already requires locking the door of repentance before a person—a risk that even prophets and righteous people tremble before and pray that the Lord save them from.

But in order to pray and strive so that we not fall into the abyss, one must also be aware that along with the risk there is also a chance. Otherwise every fall and crisis (especially a recurring crisis) will bring us to despair, and we will say to ourselves: “We are already lost beyond repair, and it’s a waste of effort to get out of the mud.” And since we despair of the chance of repair, we will sink into the mud and at least enjoy life here and now.

Therefore Maimonides continues that the Lord sends the prophets to rebuke us and guide us how to get out of the mud. But this is also the trait of every person: when he is “drawn,” that is, pulls himself along the paths of truth and righteousness, he ultimately “desires” to walk in the path of truth and righteousness (notice that “drawing” in biblical and rabbinic language is the opposite of “desiring,” unlike in modern Hebrew where “drawing” means attraction).

Indeed, the key with which a person breaks through the locked door is, as you pointed out—humility. The lock that shut the door of repentance before Pharaoh and Sihon and before those who mocked the messengers of God is pride and contempt. Pride in one’s wisdom and power, and contempt for every other thought. Pride and contempt are the airtight lock against repentance.

But this lock has a key, and its name is “humility,” from the root meaning “to answer” or “respond”—the ability to respond to another thought, a deeper thought. When one looks superficially, one sees only “an eye for an eye” literally; but when one follows the path of the sages of Israel, the Sages, and our great medieval and later authorities, one finds ransom and pardon, in a way that rehabilitates both victim and offender together.

The Written Torah presents the values in all their force: both the immense gravity of sin, such that there are situations in which “the Lord desires to kill him,” and also the chance to emerge from sin even for a man who set an idol in the Sanctuary and filled Jerusalem with blood from end to end. And the Oral Torah teaches how to coordinate and apply all these values together into a life of repair.

With the blessing of Shabbat Shalom,
Shatz Levinger

And

Tuvia,

The world does not seem so deterministic. That seems to me like a nice delusion of Spinoza and a few rationalists that managed to hold on for some time, stemming mainly from the fact that they took the principle of causality in a way not demanded by common sense. True, every contingent thing has a cause, but the cause need not *compel* the result; it only has to be a cause *capable* of bringing it about. It could have failed to bring about that result, or brought about a different result, and there is no violation of the principle in that.

I’m not even sure that when a predator feels the courage to attack some animal, and that is weighed against its feeling of despair in light of the fact that it is failing to catch it, the matter is decided deterministically. And what about quantum physics, the fundamental physics of particles in nature?

Notice that when you deliberate between two alternatives, you are able to take them seriously only because you think it depends on you which of them will be realized. As people say, It's up to YOU, and that “up to YOU” is a very strong perception—but it stands in complete contradiction to determinism, because under determinism it is not *you* who determines what will happen. The fact that every choice has some cause does not contradict this, because there was always also some cause to choose otherwise, and what decided was the chooser.

You wrote that although every contingent thing has a cause, the cause need not compel the result, but only has to be a cause capable of bringing it about. But if it does not bring about the result, then how can it be called a cause?
And in general, why assume that a cause does not compel the result?!? The whole idea of the concept of cause is that it necessarily produces the result. The world is not so irrational that we should assume things can happen and stop happening suddenly for no reason.

With God's help, 8 Shevat 5779

To Tuvia—greetings,

What is evident cannot be denied. A person (unlike matter) has thought and has will. He deliberates between different sides, and not infrequently chooses contrary to what the society in which he lives and grew up chose. Apparently the human being is something beyond matter. Matter does not think and does not love. A person has will, and his will is the cause of his choices.

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger,

Lines 2–3:
……that the human being is something beyond matter. …

What is evident is denied every moment—go out and see, for every moment the result is caused by the cause. And so apparently the “decision” too, which is nothing but an illusion. Of course the environment influences, but besides the living conditions it also influences the feeling and experience the person undergoes; usually the “outsider” changes his views because he does not feel he belongs where he lives.
And regarding the material donkey of matter, the question has already been asked how one can infer the cause of the creation of experience from a single case. Spinoza already addressed this with monism, explaining that behind body and soul there is only one cause.

Tuvia,

You did not respond to the question of how it is possible that we are capable of seriously weighing alternatives—a capacity that assumes that what happens depends on us (It's up to YOU to decide).

As for your question, “How can it be called a cause if it does not bring about the result?”—if it does not bring about the result, then indeed it is not the cause of the result. But it does not follow that if it does bring about the result, it *must* bring about the result.

For example, you insert a measuring device into a quantum system and say that for this reason the wave function collapsed and we received some value. Now, the value we received does not necessarily follow from placing the measuring device there, because it is completely consistent with quantum physics that we might have received a different value, and according to the standard interpretation (the more plausible one) there are no hidden variables responsible for why we got the value we got rather than another.

You ask: “Why not assume that the cause compels the result?!? The whole idea of the concept of cause is that it necessarily produces the result.” Not necessarily. The idea of a cause is something that, under certain conditions, is capable of producing a certain result, together with the fact that the conditions were met and it actualized that capacity. For example, you ask why so-and-so decided to buy the expensive bottle of wine, and point to his fondness for boutique wine, together with the fact that he passed by the store and thought of buying it for kiddush for the coming Sabbath. Still, it is entirely consistent in our minds that all those conditions would hold (his fondness for wine, his proximity to the store, etc.) and he still would not decide to buy it. All that is needed is that the conditions exist that enable the cause to produce the result, not necessarily that they compel it.

If we are dealing with contingent matters, I entirely agree with the statement: “The world is not so irrational that we should assume things can happen and stop happening suddenly for no reason.” Every contingent thing that happens or ceases to happen occurs through some cause or through the cessation of the action of some cause.

With God's help, 8 Shevat 5779

To Tuvia—greetings,

You mentioned Spinoza as a supporting authority for the view that a person is controlled absolutely by his environment and experiences.

And here the son asks: Dear Spinoza, do you really believe that you are just a chimpanzee chasing bananas because of the instincts ruling him?

Can a chimpanzee grind lenses in order to see better than its natural vision? Can a chimpanzee weave together a theological-political doctrine that reorganizes in a new and revolutionary way the entire worldview accepted in its environment? Can a chimpanzee struggle for his view and, for its sake, be rejected from his Jewish community and not be accepted in Christian society either?

Of course I do not agree with your view, but the very ability of a person to “think outside the box” and defend his opinion “against the whole world and his wife” is decisive proof that there is in man something beyond matter acted upon by natural forces, and beyond an animal ruled only by its natural drives.

The human being is “dual-deterministic.” He is indeed matter subject to natural drives, but there is also embedded in him a drive to break through the “glass ceiling,” to seek explanations for reality beyond what is simply perceived, and to pave for himself paths of thought and action beyond what he is accustomed to.

In the tension between these two aspirations, and in the constant need to choose between them, the superiority of the human being finds expression.

Best regards,
Simpan Zevi Lvingang-Utang

With God's help, 9 Shevat 5779

Indeed, Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler noted (in “Kuntres HaBechirah” in Michtav Me’Eliyahu) that not everything lies within choice. Every person has a lower threshold beneath which there is no possibility that he will choose evil—levels of good embedded in him through his upbringing, which would never occur to him to violate. And on the other hand, each person has an upper threshold of demands of goodness that are beyond his power in the state in which he currently stands.

In the middle lies the “point of choice,” the range in which there is inner running back and forth and deliberation over what to choose. If he chooses the good and persists in it, that level becomes his full possession, and the “space of choice” rises a level, and the person’s struggles will be on higher levels (and Heaven forbid, vice versa).

Thus, for example, someone whose struggle is between attending the 8:00 prayer quorum or the 9:00 one—if he strengthens himself and locks in the 8:00 quorum, his good inclination will begin urging him to advance to the 7:00 quorum; and when he reaches that too, he will start “eyeing” higher holiness—the 6:00 quorum or the sunrise prayer. And so the “point of choice” grows step by step.

When one aspires to rise to levels that are too high, one can easily fall, Heaven forbid. But when one knows how to identify the point of choice, each person according to his own condition, one grows slowly and gradually and raises the threshold of choice more and more.

***

This insight leads a person, on the one hand, to make a firm demand of himself to rise and not be satisfied with his present state, because it is clear to him that he is capable of more. And on the other hand, to judge others favorably and with patience, from understanding that according to the other person’s background and point of departure, it may very well be that what is obvious for me is, for him, “below the point of choice.”

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

With God's help, 9 Shevat 5779

We mentioned Maimonides’ opinion that the Lord strengthened Pharaoh’s heart in order to prevent him from repenting so that he would be punished for abusing and tormenting the children of Israel, and the opinion of Rabbi Joseph Albo and Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno that strengthening Pharaoh’s heart was intended to enable him to return out of inner choice and not merely external pressure.

The Torah mentions several reasons for strengthening Pharaoh’s heart. In the portion of Va’era (7:4–5) it says: “And Pharaoh will not listen to you, and I will bring out My people the children of Israel from the land of Egypt by great judgments; and Egypt shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out My hand upon Egypt and bring the children of Israel out from among them.”

Besides taking Israel out of Egypt through “great judgments” upon Egypt, another purpose is mentioned here: “And Egypt shall know that I am the Lord.” It is important to the Lord that the Egyptians too know Him!

This purpose—to show Pharaoh and Egypt the power of the Lord—is also mentioned later: “But for this cause I have raised you up, to show you My power and so that My name may be declared in all the earth” (9:16), and in the portion of Bo: “For I have made his heart heavy and the heart of his servants, that I may place these signs of Mine in his midst” (10:1); “Pharaoh will not listen to you, in order that My wonders be multiplied in the land of Egypt” (11:9).

Besides internalizing faith in the hearts of Pharaoh and Egypt, the Lord also desires that His power be publicized throughout the whole world—“that My name may be declared in all the earth” (9:16), and especially among Israel for generations: “And so that you may tell in the ears of your son and your son’s son what I wrought in Egypt and My signs that I placed among them, and you shall know that I am the Lord” (10:2).

The goal of bringing the Egyptians to know the Lord is repeated also in the portion of Beshalach: “And I will strengthen Pharaoh’s heart and he will pursue them, and I will be glorified through Pharaoh and all his army, and Egypt shall know that I am the Lord” (14:4), and there in verses 17–18: “And I, behold, am strengthening the heart of Egypt and they shall come after them, and I will be glorified through Pharaoh and through all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen in the sea, and Egypt shall know that I am the Lord when I am glorified through Pharaoh, through his chariots, and through his horsemen.”

We thus learn that one of the central purposes of strengthening Pharaoh’s heart is to show Egypt the power of the Lord and to bring Egypt to know the Lord.

It seems that this goal was achieved only partially. After the Lord threw the camp of Egypt into confusion, the Egyptians acknowledged the greatness of the Lord, as it is written: “And Egypt said, Let me flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against Egypt” (14:25). In terms of judgment in this world, this recognition did not help the Egyptians, but at any rate they met their death while acknowledging the greatness of the Lord and His relation to Israel, and there was in this an aspect of repentance.

The importance of Egypt’s recognizing the greatness of the Lord can also be seen from the argument Moses repeats in order to turn away the Lord’s wrath from Israel: “Why should Egypt say, For evil He brought them out… Turn from Your fierce anger and relent from the evil against Your people” (Exodus 32:12).

Certainly the miracles that occurred in Egypt and the downfall of Pharaoh and his army at the sea left a powerful impression on the Egyptian people, but they did not bring about a revolution. Egypt remained for many generations in its idolatrous character. New kings arose in place of the fallen one, and Egypt remained in its idolatrous character.

But the hope of “And Egypt shall know that I am the Lord” did not lapse. Many generations after the Exodus, Isaiah prophesies: “In that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt speaking the language of Canaan and swearing to the Lord of Hosts… In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt and a pillar at its border to the Lord, and it shall be for a sign and for a witness to the Lord of Hosts in the land of Egypt; for they shall cry to the Lord because of oppressors, and He shall send them a savior and champion, and he shall save them. And the Lord shall be known to Egypt, and Egypt shall know the Lord in that day… and they shall return to the Lord, and He shall respond to them and heal them” (Isaiah 19:18–22).

The two great empires—Egypt and Assyria—will be united in accepting the kingdom of the Lord under the leadership of Assyria, and Israel too will be counted with them: “In that day there shall be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria shall come into Egypt and Egypt into Assyria, and Egypt shall worship with Assyria. In that day Israel shall be a third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of Hosts has blessed, saying: Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance” (ibid. 23–25).

The acceptance of the yoke of Heaven by Egypt and Assyria may perhaps have come with the Muslim conquest, which brought faith in divine unity to vast areas of the world; but their recognition of Israel as the source of faith and values, as the “firstborn brother” of humanity—this still awaits the future. May it come speedily in our days, amen.

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

Shatz Levinger,

I agree with the analysis of the trend reflected in the Bible toward bringing humanity to knowledge of the Lord, but truth is more important than forcibly preserving mistaken opinions as though they all have equal weight, and one must be amazed at the flimsy excuses whose purpose is the deliberate rejection of the word of God: the Holy One, blessed be He, says x, and I am unwilling to accept that that is what He says, so I will force the verse to claim that He does not say x. Really—“strengthening Pharaoh’s heart was intended to enable him to repent out of inner choice and not only because of external pressure”?

From the verses you yourself cited one can see that the opinion opposing Maimonides does not fit the text: “And Pharaoh will not listen to you, and I will bring out My people the children of Israel from the land of Egypt by great judgments; and Egypt shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out My hand upon Egypt and bring the children of Israel out from among them.” — The Lord says: the reason I will cause him not to listen to you is so that through that failure to listen I may fulfill the purposes I desire: bringing out My people through great judgments, Egypt’s knowing that I am the Lord, the ability to tell “in the ears of your son and your son’s son what I wrought in Egypt and My signs that I placed among them,” and so on.

All these would have been impossible had Pharaoh chosen the good. And that is the reason, the text teaches us, that the Lord acted to harden his heart. Pharaoh’s choosing the good would have frustrated the Lord’s purpose. But one cannot frustrate the Lord’s purpose when He performs some act intended to realize it. Hence, according to the plain meaning of Scripture, Pharaoh’s choosing the good was impossible.

Understanding the Torah requires humility before Heaven on the one hand, and audacity and lack of flattery toward human beings on the other. If this is what the Torah says—it must be accepted, even if the meaning is that we will have to say that Sforno’s interpretation is not the plain meaning. When humility before Heaven is replaced by flattery toward human beings, and conversely audacity toward human beings is replaced by audacity toward Heaven, the result is warped judgment.

“Know that you are obliged to know: anyone who wishes to uphold a known opinion, and to favor its speaker, and to accept his opinion without examination and understanding as to whether that opinion is true or not—this is among the bad dispositions, and it is forbidden both by the way of the Torah and by the way of reason… The Blessed One said, ‘You shall not favor a poor man, nor honor a great man; in righteousness shall you judge,’ etc. And He said, ‘You shall not show partiality in judgment,’ etc. There is no difference between accepting that opinion and maintaining it without proof, and believing its speaker and showing him favor and arguing for him, saying that surely the truth is with him because he is a great man such as Heman, Calcol, and Darda. All that is not proof, but forbidden.” — Rabbi Abraham’s essay on rabbinic homilies

http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/mahshevt/agadot/hagada1-2.htm

With God's help, 9 Shevat 5779

To the honorable plain-sense student, whose seat is firmly established in Copenhagen right beside “I stood” — greetings and abundant salvation,

Please look again at my comment, and take to heart the small question: does the analysis of the verses that I presented support the explanation of Maimonides or that of the author of Sefer Ha-Ikkarim and Sforno, or does the analysis invite a different line of thought than either of them?

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

With God's help, 9 Shevat 5779

To Copenhagen—greetings,

Since I already sent you back to look again at my comment in order to understand it, I’ll give you a few “tips” for understanding my way of searching for the plain sense of a text.

First of all, I go to the “fair,” the fair of commentators, each one offering his “wares.” I consider the various suggestions, their advantages and their points of difficulty. After such a “brainstorming session” I have in hand a broad variety of ideas and lines of thought that may be useful to me in the next stage.

In the next stage I return to the text itself, trying to stand on the true meaning of every word and expression, from awareness that their meaning in the language of the author of the text is not identical to the meaning and connotation those same words and expressions have in our modern language.

I will also seek parallels in Scripture relating to the same personality or topic, and ask myself: do those parallels shed a different light on the understanding of the text under discussion?

And in the present matter: in my last response I briefly summarized the first stage, and I began, but did not finish, the second stage. More on that in due time.

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

Copenhagen,
Regarding quantum theory, I’m not familiar with it, so I can’t respond.

Second, if a cause can bring about a result and can also fail to bring about a result, then of course there must be some additional cause explaining why one time it brought about the result and another time it didn’t (for example, the required conditions didn’t occur).
In the example of the wine store, I agree that it is possible that so-and-so will pass by a wine store and not buy wine, even though he is an avid wine lover. But there will be a reason for that—for example, the illusion of wanting to buy wine did not arise in him. Or he remembered that he does not have enough money now to buy especially fine wine, and so he refrained from entering the store.
We would not think that if so-and-so stood by the wine store and the same conditions occurred around him and the same thoughts ran through his head, he would act in two different ways, so that one time he buys the wine and another time he does not buy the wine. Unless there was some cause that produced that, but then the mental processes in his head were different. So the picture you are presenting is not correct.

If you accept that every contingent thing that happens or ceases to happen occurs through some cause or through the cessation of the action of some cause, then you need to accept that a change in an entity cannot happen without a cause.
And if so, then even for the wine-buyer “deciding” once to buy wine and another time not to buy wine there is a cause. I think this is a simple idea to understand.

The fact that a person has no choice does not mean he is incapable of grinding lenses to see better or that he cannot weave a theological-political doctrine. Why assume that?!? It sounds like an argument that doesn’t help at all. After all, if you accept that a person without choice can do all this, then what is the argument here? And if you don’t accept it, then prove it. There is nothing incoherent on my side—if anything, the opposite. Especially nowadays, when we know the idea of artificial intelligence.

Also, it is important to remember what I started the discussion with—we have very, very serious and strong reasons to assume that choice cannot exist. And we barely feel the feeling of choice. (After all, usually if we think back we will discover that what we thought we chose was really because of some cause that made us act that way.)
Taken together, all this makes it especially reasonable to assume that we are dealing with an illusion.

With God's help, 10 Shevat 5779

To Copenhagen—greetings,

In my humble opinion there is not one single answer, in all the cases in the Bible where hardening the heart or making it heavy or strong is mentioned, to the question of the goal—punishment or correction? Rather, each case must be examined on its own.

Regarding the Canaanites, the goal is clearly defined: “in order to utterly destroy them, so that they would have no favor, but in order to destroy them as the Lord commanded Moses” (Joshua 11:20). Regarding Eli’s sons too it is said explicitly: “for the Lord desired to kill them.” Regarding Sihon the goal is defined as “in order to deliver him into your hand.” Sihon will be defeated and delivered into Israel’s hand, and they will determine his fate, for punishment or mercy.

In these cases, it does indeed seem that the goal is punishment and not correction. Yet even here correction was not hermetically prevented. The proof is that “the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon” succeeded in escaping the rule and saving themselves.

By contrast, regarding Pharaoh and Egypt, the goal of receiving “great judgments” is mentioned, but the goal of correction is also repeatedly mentioned: “And Egypt shall know that I am the Lord.” On the one hand the Lord urges and warns, and on the other hand He makes their hearts heavy; and they themselves are tossed between moments in which they confess their sin and agree to partial obedience, and then retreat from that agreement.

In the end the Lord draws them to pursue Israel to the Red Sea: “And Egypt shall know that I am the Lord when I am glorified through Pharaoh, through his chariots and through his horsemen” (Exodus 14:18). Clearly there is here a goal of punishment—“when I am glorified through Pharaoh and through his chariots and through his horsemen”—and on the other hand clearly there is also a goal of correction—“and Egypt shall know that I am the Lord.”

Does “and I will be glorified through Pharaoh and all his army” mean unavoidable death, which in any case still leaves in their hands the possibility of repentance at the very last moment, at a time of “crushing despair of soul,” which admittedly is not ideal repentance but still counts as repentance?

Or perhaps “and I will be glorified through Pharaoh and all his army” was fulfilled when the Lord threw the camp of Egypt into panic and forced them to flee in terror, saying “Let us flee before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against Egypt”—a terrible humiliation for the proud army that had blasphemed, now fleeing for its life.

And perhaps if they had not settled merely for admitting their defeat and fleeing, and had taken the next step on the path of repentance—turning to the Lord and asking for mercy—they would have merited forgiveness, as will happen in the future according to Isaiah’s prophecy (chapter 19): “For they shall cry to the Lord because of oppressors, and He shall send them a savior and champion and save them, and the Lord shall be known to Egypt, and Egypt shall know the Lord in that day… and they shall return to the Lord, and He shall respond to them and heal them.”

This seems at first glance to depend on a dispute between the Sifrei, which distinguishes between before and after the decree, and Rabbi Yehoshua (Niddah 70b), who states that only when “they do not repent” does “the Lord desire to kill them,” but where people do repent—nothing stands in the way of repentance.

And as we mentioned above, even in chapter 6 of Laws of Repentance, where Maimonides lists those whose sin requires that it prevent them from repenting, Maimonides brings the possibility of correction through prayer and through being drawn along the paths of truth and righteousness, which in the end are done willingly—“one who comes to purify himself is assisted.”

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

Regarding the meaning of “And they did not listen to the voice of their father, for the Lord desired to kill them” said about Eli’s sons, it seems that the Lord’s desire is expressed in the fact that the Lord does not send a prophet or suffering to shake them up and rebuke them. When a person on his own does not feel pangs of conscience over his deeds, and the Lord too does not make an effort to stir him to repentance—his road to the abyss is paved, God forbid. It is not said about Eli’s sons that the Lord had to make their hearts heavy or strong. The Lord simply leaves them in their natural state…

With Sihon, on the one hand there is a prophet’s call to peace, but the very appeal for peace, phrased as a request for passage that he apparently has the power to refuse, invites in Sihon the feeling that Israel is in a state of weakness. And taking advantage of the option to refuse is almost unavoidable.

With the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land’s hearts were strengthened because of Israel’s initial defeat at Ai. The inhabitants of the land reasoned by a fortiori: if Israel was defeated against a small city like Ai, then all the more so fortified and strong cities can defeat them.

And as we saw with Pharaoh, it is not at all clear that the Lord “desired to kill them.” Here the reasoning of Samson’s mother deserves to be said: “If the Lord desired to kill us, He would not have accepted from our hand a burnt offering and meal offering, nor shown us all these things, nor now told us such things” (Judges 13:23). And here with the Egyptians, the Lord sends them a prophet who repeatedly urges them and shows them open miracles. Is all this only to toy with them?

The heavy pressure the Lord applies to them points to a real intention to bring about correction. But the pressure itself and the coercive means stir up the natural resistance of someone who is being humiliated and bent. Also, presenting the demand merely as going out to worship the Lord without openly stating that the goal is to leave forever arouses the suspicion that there is weakness or deceit here. And the Egyptians’ partial thoughts of repentance evaporate when the pressure subsides. This teaches us that intense pressure can itself become a reason for “digging in one’s heels” against it.

And with this insight I will probably conclude the discussion on this issue. I thank “Copenhagen” who, by his insistence, forced me to delve deeper into this topic, in which surely the last word has not yet been said.

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

Tuvia,

Quantum physics governs all the particles in nature. Both its founding fathers and most scientists and philosophers of science today reject the possibility that nature is deterministic. It indicates that a clear-eyed observation of nature does not fit with the hypothesis of determinism.

You say: “If a cause can bring about a result and can also fail to bring about a result, then of course there must be an additional cause explaining why one time it brought about the result and another time it didn’t.”

Not at all. All that the principle of causality requires is that if there is a positive, non-relative contingent phenomenon in reality itself—then it has a cause. The reason for the qualification “positive and non-relative” is that “the absence of a phenomenon” and “a relative phenomenon” are only abstractions existing in consciousness, with no direct ontological counterparts in reality. For example, although the sentence “Unicorns do not exist” is true, there is still no thing in reality that possesses the property of non-existence, and therefore no cause is needed to explain that.

For this reason, one cannot logically derive from the principle of causality the claim that for every fact of the form “A happened in place B” there is a cause from which that fact necessarily follows. “A in place B” is only a sentence in consciousness representing a relation between possible worlds and the actual world, and not some positive, non-relative contingent being concretely in reality. The principle of causality is fundamentally an ontological principle dealing with the causal necessity in contingent phenomena, and only as a result can it be applied to some extent to propositions. Every contingent being must have a cause—and the principle holds perfectly in an indeterministic world and independently of determinism—but not every question of the form “why this result rather than another?” has an answer that logically compels the relation specified in the question.

The example of the wine-lover shows that even if all the causes were present—suppose the desire arose in him, he has enough money, etc.—it still does not necessarily follow that he buys the wine. This is the commonsense conception of things, and it shows that in human consciousness the principle of causality is not deterministic. We certainly do entertain the thought that exactly the same conditions could occur and he could choose either way. This is the standard conception of most human beings, and therefore they place responsibility for a person’s acts on the person himself and not on some causal necessity independent of him.

True, every change in an entity requires a cause, but only in the broadened sense of causality, because it can simply stem from the *cessation of the action* of a cause. As follows from what was said, the question why the wine-taster decided not to buy rather than to buy, or why one time this way and not that way, expresses relations between things and not a non-relative contingent being in reality, and therefore does not itself have a cause. What happened in reality was the act of buying, and that has a cause—the wine-lover’s reasons for buying, together with his desire.

Levinger,

One certainly needs to consult the fair of commentators. But not every interpretation expresses the plain meaning merely because some renowned commentator said it. After all, Rashi admitted to his grandson Rashbam that he had not interpreted according to the plain meaning, and that if he had had the chance he ought to have written a new plain-sense commentary on the whole Torah.

Quite apart from whether there is one answer for all the cases, what is clear is that the outlook reflected in Scripture is that the Holy One, blessed be He, designates certain people for physical and/or spiritual destruction (after they sinned, were warned, and the Lord sent by His messengers again and again, and they thumbed their nose at it). Regarding most of the objections you raised here, reasons were already given earlier why they do not contradict Maimonides’ plain and straightforward insight on the subject, but I will not continue defending the point since you already announced that you want to end it.

In my opinion the problem begins with a tendency found to some degree in Hasidism, and Martin Buber took it to an extreme, preferring to see the Holy One, blessed be He, as a God of love and kindness alone (in their counterfeit sense), and not as the God of justice; and for that purpose they pile up endless homiletics and twist the verses. The Holy One, blessed be He, sends a prophet to say A, but I will interpret it to mean B. At least Buber was honest enough to say explicitly that one must refuse to accept the expression “before the Lord” in the verse “And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord at Gilgal.”

But the spirit that blows through Scripture is the exact opposite. This is precisely the Lord’s goodness and exalted loftiness—“and Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the heights.” The explanation of the inner falsehood probably begins from this tendency. The highest good could not exist without vengeance on the wicked—“the righteous shall rejoice when he sees vengeance”—and without understanding this one also cannot appreciate and give thanks for the power of the kindness involved in the possibility of repentance and the wiping away of sins—for those to whom it is given.

In the comment “The hardening and strengthening of the heart as a natural process,”

Paragraph 5, line 1:
…points to a real intention…

With God's help, 10 Shevat 5779

To Copenhagen—greetings,

It seems that the Master of the Universe also has a Hasidic side, and therefore He “sits on a throne of mercy and conducts Himself with piety… increasing forgiveness for sins and pardon for transgressors” 🙂

Even absolute justice requires that the One who sent beings formed from dust into a terrible war in a world full of impulses and temptations should also care for the rehabilitation of those whose souls did not withstand the pressure of the storm of battle and broke down.

The way one relates to soldiers who are full of life and fit for battle is not the same as the way one relates to those suffering from “battle shock.” When the soldier is fit, one is exacting with him down to the smallest detail and punishes him for every failure, even the slightest. That meticulous strictness is what tempers him and brings him to succeed in battle.

Not so the approach to one who has already been harmed by a battle reaction. Of course he must be removed from the battlefield “lest he melt the heart of his brothers,” but he is not sent home. He is transferred to the field medical station near the battlefield, and there the medics occupy him with work he is capable of doing, and thus little by little his confidence in himself returns. He feels he is not a worthless rag, and that opens the door to the long road of rehabilitation he will still have to go through.

Hasidism came into the Jewish world when it was in terrible “battle shock,” after the catastrophe of the Khmelnytsky massacres, in which tens of thousands of Jews were brutally murdered, and after the dreadful spiritual crisis of Sabbateanism and Frankism, which shattered the spiritual resilience of the Jewish people.

And Hasidism began to bandage the wounds of the broken Jew. It taught him that there is no despair. It taught him to weep over the divine spark within him that had fallen and been captured among the husks, and on the other hand to rejoice in the small breath of life that remained within him and to deepen and develop it.

Hasidism taught him that even in the mud and ugliness in which he finds himself, he is still a prince, that his Father in Heaven cries out to him “My son, My son,” and that he too must seek with all his might to return to the loving Father who awaits him with longing.

And in our generation, which has passed through the horrors of the Holocaust and the spiritual crisis of modernity, these things are all the more true. Let us restore to ourselves the feeling of being loved and confidence in our worth, and from that feeling of love we will once again run to do the will of our Creator with all the fear, caution, and precision.

Best regards,
Sergeant (res.) Shimshon Tzvi Levinger, medic

Rabbi Joseph Albo too stands in a period of crisis for Judaism following the 1391 persecutions and the Christian pressure on the one hand and philosophical pressure on the other, which brought the people to despair of every hope, to the point of mass conversion. It is no accident that he refuses to accept the thought that there is a state in which a person falls in a way from which there is no repair, and he struggles against that thought with all his strength.

Even if there is no ontological meaning to the idea of why “A happened instead of B,” in the end the very reality that A happened requires a cause. And it seems to me that you accept this.
Therefore your claim that “the principle holds perfectly in an indeterministic world and independently of determinism” is not correct. Because the very occurrence of X still requires a cause.

I don’t think the wine-lover analogy is the commonsense view. But that doesn’t seem relevant to me—what other people’s common sense is—when they understand that you mean the same conditions in the two wine cases.

I didn’t understand what you wrote when you mentioned that it can result from the cessation of a cause’s action. But in any case I’m willing to accept that what happened in reality is the act of buying, and that it has a cause—the wine-lover’s reasons for buying together with his desire. I even accept that this is a very good explanation for the act of buying. But then I’ll ask you one step further back regarding the desire itself: does it have a cause or not? If it does have a cause, then this is not free choice. And if it does not have a cause, then how can it be that it requires no cause? After all, you accept the principle of causality, and there is a change here in a non-relative contingent being.

Levinger,

The Hasidic emphasis on yearning and cleaving to the Lord is correct in itself, and indeed the book of Psalms is full of it, but alongside that the Torah emphasizes the transcendence of God and His righteousness and judgment, and in this respect the matter receives a distorted representation. The warped idea of reincarnation and the claim that the Holy One, blessed be He, will absolutely ensure that “none be cast away from Him” (while ignoring the original meaning and context of the verse) effectively erase the biblical outlook regarding the possibility of a final and total sentence, and in its place they glorify the error as though there are endless opportunities and everyone will ultimately reach personal repair (as opposed to the world’s repair through the loss of the wicked).

The focus on the therapeutic side is of course proper, but there is nothing healing in a person merely feeling good about himself without learning to recognize the consequences of his actions. The medic understands that bandaging wounds must come together with destroying the infection—and that is not achieved by emphasizing only God’s love. In the original healthy Torah approach, if a person errs, he deserves to receive clear information about it, and he himself must understand that he is sick and acknowledge the mistake, and only then may healing come (and if he repents, healing is guaranteed to come).

The terrible crises of Sabbateanism and Frankism are not a “disaster” that we simply happened to fall into (especially Sabbateanism, about which it is said that most of the great rabbinic leaders of Israel erred in it), but a result of the same kind of spiritual decadence that led to preferring falsehood over truth. The solution is not yet another system meant merely to preach pleasantly to listeners, but an uncompromising striving for knowledge. Indeed, despising knowledge brought God’s rejection of us, as the prophet says: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you from serving as priest to Me.”

The Torah’s way in dealing with crises of heresy and conversion is to show that the contradictory worldviews are false, as Maimonides notes in the Epistle to Yemen: “The Holy One, blessed be He, informed us through Isaiah… that every claimant who intends to abolish what is in our hands will emerge condemned by his own argument, and it will be nullified and not endure. As it is said (Isaiah 54:17), ‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me, says the Lord.’” We were promised in prophecy that there will never arise a serious proof capable of refuting the Torah of Israel.

Tuvia,

Correct—the very occurrence of x, assuming x is a positive contingent phenomenon in some entity in reality (and not a comparison between states), requires a cause. How do you infer determinism from that?

There is an ontological difference between the cessation of the action of a cause (which means that the state now is that there is no cause), and the active operation of a cause (which means that the state is that there is a cause). Change can come either as a result of the active operation of a cause, or from the cessation of the operation of a cause. True, a contingent state in some entity requires a cause acting on the entity, but the negation of that contingent state does not require the action of a cause acting on the entity (on the contrary—it requires that the cause not be acting). The question what caused the negation depends on whether the cause that was acting on the entity did so by its own power (because it essentially has the ability to produce the result), or by the power of something else. If by its own power, no further cause is needed, because the principle of causality applies only to contingent states, but we already assumed that the cause’s ability to produce the result is not a contingent state but an essential feature.

The fact that there is will follows from the existence of the human being, because it is part of human nature to have will. Of course there is a cause for the creation of the human being who has will, but one should assume that is not the discussion here. So I understand your question about the cause of the existence of will as coming after you have already seen that the will decided in a certain way, and then asking why that specific choice occurs. There is of course an answer to that—the will is defined as the kind of thing that is capable of deciding between alternatives. This follows from its essence. The capacity to decide is not a contingent aspect but something essential, without which will would not exist. But we said that the principle of causality applies only to contingent states, not to what is essential.

If you understand that will must be the kind of thing that is able by itself to choose between alternatives, there is no question why it is capable of choosing. It is like asking why the human being is capable of thinking. If he were not capable of that, he would not be human. Do we need an external cause to explain the fact that he chose through it? No, because this is an essential capacity and not a contingent one, and the principle of causality does not apply to non-contingent matters. His choosing the specific alternative is explained by the fact that he is the kind of thing capable of choosing that alternative.

So again we return to the fact that what you are really asking here, implicitly, is why he chose x rather than y. And to that I already answered that “x rather than y” is not a positive feature in reality but a comparison in consciousness between possible worlds in which y obtains and the actual world. But the principle of causality is a principle that refers only to concrete states in actual reality, and is not relevant to comparisons of that kind.

Have a good week,
It sounds from the beginning of your words that we are not talking about a causal connection but an emanational one, where the cause persists in the act. If I understood correctly, then notice that human common sense does not attribute such a property to will.
B. Why should we claim that we have will, when the reality around us only demonstrates that no such essential property is embedded in the things around us? (That is certainly part of the question I asked.) Moreover, modern science succeeds in explaining all these conscious phenomena of this kind quite well. And Spinoza already about four hundred years ago spoke about matter as possessing consciousness.
C. It sounds as though you completely reject the principle of sufficient reason: that no fact can be true or exist without a sufficient reason why it is so and not otherwise. But that principle sounds much more natural than the principle of causality as you present it.

Thank you very much,
Tuvia

Have a blessed week,

A. Certainly yes. There must be a continuing state of will that prefers action A over action B in order for A to continue being carried out, and if the preference is canceled—the action is canceled. Assuming all the variables remain as they are, the moment the wine-lover ceases to prefer the wine over the money or the time, the initiative to buy is canceled (entering the store, looking for the wine, etc.).

B. On the contrary. The simple view is that things are directed toward achieving certain natural goals. Bacteria, mosquitoes, bees, trees, flowers, and countless organisms of all sorts, and likewise every cell in your body, are directed toward carrying out certain functions. There is an objective answer to the question whether some person’s digestive system, heart, pancreas, or liver is functioning properly (that is, healthily) or not, and that depends on whether they fulfill the normal functions toward which they are directed. There is no reason not to think the same regarding the human being himself. And beyond that, when it comes to ourselves, in addition to the objective conception there is also the person’s immediate self-awareness of himself as a willing being.

C. Again, the opposite. I pointed out earlier that the principle of causality in its primary and most basic sense deals with the causal necessity that exists in the concrete world of entities and the causal influences buzzing among them. Only after that can one sometimes derive how ontological causal necessity translates into the necessity of intellectual reasons among propositions. But that translation applies only insofar as the principle operates regarding concrete entities, and not beyond that.

In other words, Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason is not the basis from which causal necessity comes. The necessity operating at the most basic level on propositions is a different kind of necessity—logical necessity. And indeed, logic does not require a necessary reason for a proposition such as why A rather than B. There is a possible world in which A obtains and a possible world in which B obtains (and these things are well-defined in modal logic developed mainly in the 20th century), and logic cannot determine which of them obtains in the concrete world. For that one must examine what the entities in the world did, since they are what have the causal capacities to bring about each of the two alternatives.

With God's help, 15 Shevat 5779

To Copenhagen—greetings,

Hasidism did not abolish fear. On the contrary, it called on a person to devote time each day to contemplation of his lowliness and his distance from the Blessed Lord. And this feeling of a “broken heart” is what gives rise in a person to joy in his God, who gave him the Torah and commandments and the grace of repentance in order to bring him out of darkness into light.

The point of innovation of Hasidism (and also in the school of the Vilna Gaon) is the shift of emphasis from self-torment over sin to joy in “doing good.” Thus the hour of brokenheartedness spurs a person during the rest of the day to seek healing through positive action.

As for the “reincarnation of souls” that you rolled into the matter—it is not an innovation of Hasidism. It is explained in Sefer HaBahir and the Zohar and in the books of the kabbalists, from Rabbi Isaac the Blind and Nachmanides to the writings of the Ari. A detailed survey is in the article by Dr. Doron Danino, appearing in the link to the Wikipedia entry “Gilgul Neshamot.”

The turning of a person into an animal for a period of time in order to humble his pride and teach him that “there is a ruler to the palace”—Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon was punished in this way as described in Daniel chapter 4. And at the end of the period in which he was turned into an animal, he returned to being human and returned to royal honor in order to exalt and praise the King of kings.

The Lord “brings down to Sheol and raises up.” In the midrash the punishment of the king’s servants who damaged the vessels entrusted to them is described as the king putting them in prison while the vessels are sent to the wash. The sufferings of the soul launder and purify it in preparation for its renewed revival. Of course it is preferable to keep the vessels clean and clean them ourselves…

One who internalizes, like King David, that he is “a worm and not a man,” that “I was as a beast before You,” and knows his value before his Creator—indeed does not need a “root canal treatment” of the kind Nebuchadnezzar received.

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

Hi

The discussion here is drifting backward, so I’d suggest opening a new question along the lines of “Is it reasonable to believe in reincarnation of souls?” or “Is the belief coherent with the outlook of the prophets of Israel?”

With God's help, 15 Shevat 5779

To Copenhagen—greetings,

The possibility of reincarnation has been empirically proven in this discussion, in which I reincarnated from a bibliographical note that your argument with Rabbi Michael Abraham over whether airtight negation of choice exists had already been debated by Maimonides versus the author of Sefer Ha-Ikkarim and Sforno.

From this trivial note you rolled me into an entire discussion of the places in the Bible where negation of choice seems implied, and I really enjoyed that reincarnation.

A second reincarnation was the discussion of the optimistic path of Hasidism, and from there I rolled a third time into the discussion of reincarnation of souls, where it occurred to me to find a biblical source for it in the transformation of Nebuchadnezzar into an animal described in Daniel chapter 4.

Since even according to the doctrine of reincarnations, if my memory serves me, one does not reincarnate more than three or four times—I think I can make do with that.

Whoever is interested in a deeper study of the issue in Jewish sources can find material in Dr. Doron Danino’s article, “The Belief in Reincarnation of Souls in Judaism” (linked in the Wikipedia entry “Gilgul Neshamot”), and in his book, The Nature and Meanings of the Controversy Surrounding the Belief in Reincarnation in the Jewish Communities of Venice, Amsterdam, and Hamburg during the 17th Century, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 2010.

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

Since Hamburg was under the rule of the king of Denmark, you may perhaps find in the book material also on the holy community of Copenhagen. In the holy community of Loewing in southern China, the matter of reincarnation was trivial 🙂

Best regards,
Qing Chong Chi, man of La-Wing

With God's help, 16 Shevat 5779

And at first glance, what is the problem with reincarnation? After all, even in our lifetime our soul passes through different reincarnations in the same body, as the midrash says:

“Seven vanities Solomon experienced, corresponding to seven worlds that a person sees: at one year old he is like a king, lying in the cradle and everyone hugs and kisses him; at two or three years old, he is like a pig stretching out his hands in the garbage; at ten years old, he jumps like a goat; at twenty, like a horse he neighs, preens himself, and seeks a wife; married—he is like a donkey; he has children—he brazenly becomes like a dog in order to bring them food; he grows old—he is like a monkey [walking bent over]” (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:3)

Why then should there not be a metamorphosis of this kind even after death, where a soul becomes attached to another body, whether as punishment (something like what happened to Nebuchadnezzar) or in order to give of its powers to another person? Just as a person can bequeath material DNA to others, why could there not be a bequeathing of spiritual DNA to another?

And I will conclude with the blessing that the end of the midrash be fulfilled in us: “This applies to the unlearned, but regarding Torah scholars it is written: ‘And King David was old’—even though he grew old, he remained a king.”

Best regards,
Shatz Levinger

Copenhagen,
As I understand it, you wanted to argue: 1. that the only things requiring a cause are those of the type of a positive, non-relative contingent phenomenon.
2. Also, you mentioned that although every contingent thing has a cause, the cause need not *compel* the result, but only has to be a cause *capable* of doing so. It could have failed to bring about the result, or brought about a different result, and there is no violation of the principle in that.
Because of these two points, you wanted to argue that a purposive action done by free will does not require a cause. Because it is not a contingent phenomenon; rather, the action of will is an essential phenomenon of the concept of will.

But I didn’t understand two things about your position. And I didn’t understand your first premise.
A. Why did you also write the second part in order to explain free choice? It seems that according to your method it is unnecessary.
B. How do you claim that will is a non-contingent phenomenon? After all, it is not a necessary being or something like that.
C. The accepted understanding of the principle of causality deals specifically with relative phenomena. For example, when billiard ball A strikes billiard ball B, then the movement of B as a result of the law of conservation of momentum is a relative phenomenon in space. After all, velocity is not an essential property of the object.
Moreover, according to your method there is a possibility of causality in the present: the cause persists in the contingent being. But the usual understanding of causality is that the causing is only momentary (like when ball A hits B and imparts velocity to it).

Bumping this up—if you can answer (Copenhagen), I’d be glad.