New on the site: Michi-bot. An intelligent assistant based on the writings of Rabbi Michael Avraham.

Freedom and liberty

שו”תCategory: faithFreedom and liberty
asked 5 months ago

Hello Rabbi,
I read your article on the difference between freedom and liberty, and I couldn’t get to the bottom of your point.
You say that freedom is the state of being without limitations, while liberty is not the absence of limitations,
Because it is an autonomous action within limitations.
I haven’t quite understood why you make this distinction, and what kind of limitations you mean. Are you referring to physical limitations? Values? Commandments? Or perhaps both.
Why does freedom only take on meaning and become liberty if there are limitations?


Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Reply

0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 5 months ago
I have nothing to add to what I explained there. And of course, any limitation is a limitation in this matter.

Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

אהרן replied 5 months ago

Sorry to ask anyway, but if the Rabbi could explain briefly it would be very helpful to me.
Why does only limitation allow freedom? And why is it that the more limited I am, the more freedom I have?

מיכי Staff replied 5 months ago

I explained there. I don't understand what I should do. If there is an unclear point, say what it is. But here you are asking me to subtract from what I wrote there.
Freedom is a factual state, and therefore conceptually it cannot be a value.

אהרן replied 5 months ago

Why is our ability to choose not freedom unless it is a value dilemma? Why, for example, is it not freedom if I decide to eat vanilla ice cream instead of strawberry ice cream but only freedom, while if I help an old woman on the street and because of that I miss my bus, it is freedom?

מיכי Staff replied 5 months ago

Because a dilemma that is not a value is the result of a deterministic calculation and not a choice. Everything is in the hands of God except for the fear of God. See my article on choice: https://mikyab.net/%d7%9e%d7%90%d7%9e%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%9e%d7%91%d7%98-%d7%a9%d7%99%d7%98%d7%aa%d7%99-%d7%a2%d7%9c-%d7%97%d7%95%d7%a4%d7%a9-%d7%94%d7%a8%d7%a6%d7%95%d7%9f/

אהרן replied 5 months ago

Thanks, and another question:
You claim that freedom is not a value because it is a fact, but a person's wisdom is also a fact and we still tend to see it as a value in itself.
The attainment of enlightenment and the like.
What is the difference?

מיכי Staff replied 5 months ago

It's strange to me that you ask, when you yourself write the answer in the body of the question. Intelligence is not a value. It is a fact. Improving abilities and acquiring education (achieving enlightenment, in your language) is a value, and this is of course a choice and not a fact.

אהרן replied 5 months ago

Don't we see value in wisdom for its own sake? Isn't the rank of a wise person greater than that of a fool (as Maimonides writes in The Guide to the Perplexed)?
My intuition says that there is value in this, and not that it is just a neutral fact.

מיכי Staff replied 5 months ago

I don't know who "we" is. I wrote my own opinion.

Leave a Reply

Back to top button