Freedom and Liberty
With God’s help
2011
Engraved on the Tablets
Michael Abraham
Between Passover and Shavuot we move from the liberty we received on Passover to the writing of God engraved on the tablets given to us at Sinai. From freedom to something rigid, engraved in stone. From freedom to servitude. Yet the Sages expound, do not read “engraved” but “liberty” (“do not read ‘engraved’ but ‘liberty’”). They see liberty precisely in that which is engraved on the tablets. What is the connection between the two?
It is common in our world to think that freedom is a supreme value. On the other hand, there is an intuition that in the religious world freedom is not a value but at most a means. One who is free can do more things (including serving God), but freedom in itself is not a value. Yet we celebrate Passover as the festival of liberty, and to a certain extent it occupies a more central place in our tradition than Shavuot—the giving of the Torah.
The definition of freedom is the absence of constraints. Yet as such it is difficult to see it as a value. It is simply a given condition: either constraints are imposed on me or they are not. Why should that be seen as a value? It seems that the reason for this mistake is the fact that depriving someone of freedom is an immoral act. From this one might seemingly conclude that freedom is a value. But that is a mistake. Depriving someone of money that belongs to him is also an immoral act. That does not mean that possession of money is a value. Money is an asset, and as such taking it away from its owner is immoral. Freedom too is an asset, not a value, and therefore depriving a person of it is immoral. Note well: an asset, not a value.
Set against freedom is liberty. Liberty means autonomous action within given constraints. When a person acts in accordance with what he believes, he possesses liberty. But such action has value only if constraints are indeed imposed on him. In the absence of constraints there is no liberty, and liberty has no meaning.
Thus liberty is the opposite of freedom. Freedom is a condition without constraints. The fewer constraints imposed on a person, the freer he is, and vice versa. Liberty, by contrast, becomes more attainable the more constraints a person has; the path to inner liberty then lies more open before him. It is no accident that Rabbi Yehuda Halevi teaches us, The servants of time are servants of servants; only the servant of God is truly free (“The servants of time are servants of servants; only the servant of God is truly free”). When a person accepts upon himself the ‘constraint’ of commitment to Torah and commandments, this opens before him the possibility of becoming truly liberated. One who lives outside all constraints can never attain liberty. A person who decides for himself what is good and what is bad may perhaps be free, but certainly not truly liberated. There is no autonomous action here, since the standard by which his deeds are evaluated is defined by himself. Such an evaluation has no meaning whatsoever (he will always come out right, successful, and moral).
There is another aspect that shows us that liberty is the opposite of freedom. As we have seen, depriving someone of freedom is forbidden, but depriving him of liberty is impossible. At most one can impose constraints upon him, but one can never take away his inner liberty. Therefore liberty is a value, whereas freedom is at most an asset.
As we have seen, liberty is autonomous action within constraints. But is there value to liberty even in a religious world, or even in the world of Jewish law? Is autonomy not a foreign idea that has no place in the world of Jewish law? Seemingly we are committed to divine truth and to the determinations of canonical sources (the Mishnah, Talmud, and halakhic decisors). What place, then, is there for autonomy in the religious world?
On this the Sages expounded, do not read “engraved on the tablets” but “liberty on the tablets” (“do not read ‘engraved on the tablets’ but ‘liberty on the tablets’”). Liberty is precisely on the tablets. In the absence of tablets, how would we recognize the form of the engraved letters? A person cannot create a form of his own except within a framework of context given in advance. When there are tablets, we can engrave our letters upon them; but in midair the differences between one form of engraving and another, or between different messages, have no meaning whatsoever. Let us now see halakhic expressions of this idea.
First, we find the following dictum in tractate Eruvin 13b:
Rabbi Aha bar Hanina said: It is revealed and known before Him who spoke and the world came into being that there was none in Rabbi Meir’s generation equal to him. So why was Jewish law not established in accordance with his view? Because his colleagues could not fully grasp the depths of his reasoning. He could argue that the impure was pure and give supporting reasons, and that the pure was impure and give supporting reasons. Rabbi Aha bar Hanina said: It is revealed and known before Him who spoke and the world came into being that there was none in Rabbi Meir’s generation equal to him. So why was Jewish law not established in accordance with his view? Because his colleagues could not fully grasp the depths of his reasoning. He could argue that the impure was pure and give supporting reasons, and that the pure was impure and give supporting reasons.
If Rabbi Meir was indeed so great, then whoever disagreed with him was presumably mistaken. If so, why was Jewish law not established in accordance with his opinion? Does the fact that he was so wise lead to the conclusion that the Jewish law does not follow him? It seems that there is an obligation to decide Jewish law in accordance with what appears persuasive and intelligible to us, even if this comes at the expense of the highest halakhic truth. Jewish law obligates us to autonomy no less than to truth.
Maharal writes similarly in Netiv HaTorah, at the end of chapter 15:
For it is more fitting and more correct that one issue rulings from the Talmud; and although there is reason to fear that he may not follow the path of truth and may not decide the law as it truly is, so that the ruling accord with the truth, nevertheless the sage has only what his own intellect yields and understands from the Talmud. And when his understanding and wisdom mislead him, even so he is beloved to the Blessed God when he rules in accordance with what follows from his intellect, for a judge has only what his eyes see. And this is better than one who rules from a single code and does not know the reason for the matter at all, for he walks like a blind man on the road. For it is more fitting and more correct that one issue rulings from the Talmud; and although there is reason to fear that he may not follow the path of truth and may not decide the law as it truly is, so that the ruling accord with the truth, nevertheless the sage has only what his own intellect yields and understands from the Talmud. And when his understanding and wisdom mislead him, even so he is beloved to the Blessed God when he rules in accordance with what follows from his intellect, for a judge has only what his eyes see. And this is better than one who rules from a single code and does not know the reason for the matter at all, for he walks like a blind man on the road.
In the eyes of the Holy One, it is preferable for a person to decide on the basis of his own understanding even if he errs, rather than to rule merely from the sources even if he is correct. Autonomy is no less important than truth. Does this mean that there is no truth? Certainly not. On the contrary, it is precisely because there is truth that autonomous ruling matters. Were there no higher halakhic truth, the autonomy of halakhic ruling would have no meaning at all. Without tablets, liberty has no meaning. Without obligations and constraints that do not depend on us (such as higher truth), there is no significance to my doing what I think. Where I myself am the standard, what meaning is there in the fact that I act as I understand?
Thus, on Passover we leave slavery to Pharaoh in order to become servants of God. They are My servants, and not servants to servants (“They are My servants, and not servants to servants”). Freedom is nothing but an illusion. What we have here is liberty, not freedom—liberty on the tablets. Thus we arrive from Passover directly at the revelation at Mount Sinai.