Parashat Bo (5761)

With God's help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath, Parashat Bo, 5761

Who Is the 'I': a meta-psychological inquiry

At the opening of the portion, the Holy One, blessed be He, reveals to Moses our teacher that He hardened Pharaoh's heart, and therefore he will refuse

to release the children of Israel from his yoke. It seems that choice was taken from Pharaoh, and the refusal was forced upon him by

the Holy One, blessed be He. Most commentators maintain that choice was not taken from Pharaoh, for the gates of

repentance and choice are never closed; rather, the hardening of the heart means that choosing the good became more difficult for Pharaoh. Such a situation

requires explanation. What does it mean to make choice in a certain direction more difficult? Did Pharaoh have

choice, or did he not?

The concept of choice is complex and incomprehensible in many respects, yet precisely in it there is something essential

to human existence. It is accepted that no other creature, whether higher than the human being or lower than him,

possesses choice. Choice also constitutes the basis for the moral responsibility that rests upon a person. If he

chose a certain path, he must bear the consequences. A creature without choice should not bear the consequences of

its actions, since they are forced upon it.

If one thinks a bit about this subject, it seems that explanations, psychological or otherwise, for the actions

and decisions of a person contradict the concept of choice. Seemingly, if a person chooses to do something because of

childhood experiences he underwent, or because of some other influence, then there is no room to regard

his choice as free. Even if we say that psychology is incapable of producing a complete explanation for every

human action because of the complexity of the human soul, that does not solve the problem. If indeed

human activity has an explanation, however complex it may be, even if psychology cannot

(at least for the present) find it, the very existence of such an explanation means that a person has no choice.

Those complex constraints that psychology cannot describe are what caused him to decide or

to act in this way, even if we cannot identify them precisely.

It seems that there is only one way out of this difficulty. We must understand that psychology does not

describe the human being. It describes the environment within which he acts, but not he himself. The human being

himself is the entity that the psychological characteristics characterize, but it is not the sum

of all the characteristics.

What is this comparable to? To someone who says that the State of Israel is the sum of

Judaism+democracy+location in the Middle East+an area of such-and-such square kilometers. Clearly these are

the characteristics of the state, but it itself is not the aggregate of those characteristics. The State of Israel

is the entity that they characterize. The thing itself is not the sum of all its characteristics, but the entity

that bears them. So too, the human being himself is not the aggregate of his motives and his psychological environment,

but the entity that bears them, or is characterized by them.

I once saw a learned article dealing with the question of which of the parts of the soul is the 'I', and presenting

various approaches on the matter. The common denominator of all these approaches was that some part of the psychological components of

the soul is the 'I'. Here there is a mistake common to all of these approaches alike. All the 'parts of

the soul' that psychology describes are characteristics, attributes, of the soul, but not its 'parts'

in the usual sense. The soul itself is the entity that bears all these 'parts'/characteristics, and not

the aggregate composed of them.

When a person chooses, he performs an entirely free act, with no prior explanation or cause.

As stated above, if this act had a cause, there would be no free choice here. Choice is an act

without a cause, and perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is an act for the sake of an end, and not an act caused by a prior cause. We have seen

that psychology, like any other scientific description, does not describe the soul in itself. If so,

we must understand what psychology does describe, and how this relates to that entity called the 'human

soul' (or 'human spirit').

When some psychological theory describes a human influence, something like a childhood experience,

for example, it is dealing with influences on free choice, and not with causes of it. When a person exhibits

a tendency toward violence because of one or another psychological cause, this means that it will be

more difficult for him to choose nonviolent behavior. It certainly does not mean that this is beyond his power.

The psychological tendency describes external influences that pile up difficulties before a person's directions of choice,

but it does not deal with choice itself.

Let us offer an analogy for this. If a person is charged with crossing a high wall, then raising the wall does not

affect the person's powers, and it is clearly incorrect to say that his powers were diminished as a result of

this. His powers remain as they were, but the obstacles he must cross are more difficult. Psychological

tendencies are in the nature of obstacles standing before a person; that is, they are the environment within which

he acts, and not the person himself. Psychological treatment as well is not a change in the person, but a change in

the environment in which he acts, in a way that lowers the obstacles he must overcome. Thus

it will be easier for him to do so.

When the Holy One, blessed be He, hardens Pharaoh's heart, this means that He raised the obstacles around him,

that is, He changed the environment within which he acts so that it would be more difficult for him to choose the good. He

would need to exert more positive inner energy for this. There is no infringement here upon Pharaoh's

spiritual capacities, and therefore his choice remained free. The Holy One, blessed be He, placed Pharaoh in a situation in which

it would be more difficult for him to act.

The conclusion from this description is an optimistic one. In contrast to psychological determinism, we conclude

that in the vast majority of cases, 'the matter depends on no one but me' (as Rabbi Eliezer ben Dordaya said

in tractate Avodah Zarah).

Have a peaceful Sabbath

This may be placed in a repository for sacred texts in any synagogue or religious academy. Comments are welcome.

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