God and the World – Lesson 5

Table of Contents

• Tzimtzum and active versus passive providence
• Maimonides in the Laws of Repentance: a person’s actions are in human hands
• Two planes: deterministic nature and human choice
• Law, force, and nature as a cover for the action of the Holy One, blessed be He
• The difficulty of free choice: everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven
• The question of “why” regarding the Holocaust, terror attacks, and accidents
• Chagigah 5 and the Arukh (Rabbeinu Chananel): “there are those who perish without justice”
• Or HaChayim on Judah, the pit, and snakes and scorpions
• Maimonides’ Eight Chapters: rejecting determinism and grounding responsibility
• Marriage matches, sin, and money according to Maimonides
• Makkot 10 and the inadvertent killer: coordination from above without canceling free choice
• Nachmanides on conspiring witnesses: “if they killed, they are not killed” as inadvertent judges
• Maimonides’ interpretation of “by the will of God”: laws of nature that were set in place, not a real-time decision
• Miracles as a condition built into creation
• Maimonides in the Laws of Fasts and a proposed psychological interpretation
• Criticism of “parallel explanations”: psychology versus philosophy versus physics and theology
• A concluding debate about gravitational force, the law of gravity, and gravitons

Summary

General overview

The text presents the issue of active providence as a central expression of the debate over tzimtzum, and distinguishes between an “imperialist” view according to which everything that happens in the world is the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He, and views that leave room for nature and human choice. It places the question on two planes, nature and choice, and argues that the motivation to say “everything is from Allah” is connected to tzimtzum not being taken literally and to the Hasidic idea that there is no place devoid of Him, whereas taking the Holy One, blessed be He, out of part of what happens reflects tzimtzum taken literally. It relies on Maimonides in the Laws of Repentance and in Eight Chapters to establish that human actions are entrusted to the human being, and that even in nature there is no necessity to see the Holy One, blessed be He, as causing things in real time, but at most as the one who set the laws of nature. It criticizes the theological search for “why” in events of human evil such as the Holocaust and terror attacks, and tries to reconcile sources that seem to imply direction from above by distinguishing between intentional and unintentional acts. In the end, it presents a logical argument against “two parallel explanations” for the same event when one of them is a deterministic physical explanation, and raises a possible reading of Maimonides’ Laws of Fasts as psychological guidance toward repentance even if the distress came about through “the way of the world.”

Tzimtzum and active versus passive providence

The text defines a common starting point according to which nothing happens down here unless the Holy One, blessed be He, decided it and carried it out, to the point that “over every blade of grass stands an angel telling it: grow,” and it describes this as an “imperialist” conception of providence. It distinguishes between passive providence, in which the Holy One, blessed be He, knows and follows what happens and may reward good and punish evil, and active providence, meaning causative involvement by the Holy One, blessed be He, in what happens, and it frames the entire discussion around active providence. It connects the motivation to attribute everything to the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He, to the view of tzimtzum not taken literally, in which “there is none besides Him” and all events are an expression of Him, and in contrast presents conceptions of nature and choice as connected to tzimtzum taken literally, as a real withdrawal from the world.

Maimonides in the Laws of Repentance: a person’s actions are in human hands

The text quotes Maimonides in chapter 5 of the Laws of Repentance, halakhah 4, as claiming that the actions of a person are not the actions of the Holy One, blessed be He, and that the actions are in our hands. It describes halakhah 5 as taking the position that with regard to the question of knowledge and free choice, there is even a kind of tzimtzum regarding foreknowledge, so that concerning free choice there is not even providence in the passive sense of prior knowledge. It uses this starting point to move into a systematic discussion of the two planes on which the involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, is examined: nature and human choice.

Two planes: deterministic nature and human choice

The text states that creation is made up of deterministic laws of nature with relations of cause and effect, and of human actions that begin with a free decision and not with a law of nature. It says that even when a decision is realized through a physical body subject to the laws of nature, the starting point is human choice. It raises the question of how involved the Holy One, blessed be He, is on each of these planes, and shows that bringing the Holy One, blessed be He, into the sphere of choice empties Jewish law, morality, reward and punishment of their meaning and raises theological and practical problems.

Law, force, and nature as a cover for the action of the Holy One, blessed be He

The text argues that laws do not cause anything, because a law is not an entity, and therefore a formulation like “the stone falls because of the law of gravity” is not precise; rather, what causes the fall is “the force of gravity,” while the law merely describes the phenomenon. It presents a position according to which one can say that there are no physical forces at all, only regular patterns described as laws of nature, and the Holy One, blessed be He, is the only true cause, to the point of claiming that forces such as gravity and electricity were “invented” to replace the Holy One, blessed be He, as the causative agent. It defines the disagreement here as metaphysical rather than physical, because the laws of physics remain true even if one attributes causation to the Holy One, blessed be He, and sees the laws only as a description of the way He acts.

The difficulty of free choice: everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven

The text says that in a world of human actions, bringing the Holy One, blessed be He, in as the one who performs human acts removes the human being from the picture and cancels the meaning of obligations, Jewish law, morality, and reward and punishment. It interprets “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven” as excluding actions with a value-laden dimension from active providence, and adds “everything is in the hands of Heaven except colds and hazards” as an example that even in nature there are exceptions in the language of the Sages. It argues that people keep reciting “everything is in the hands of Heaven” even about human actions, although that is “unreasonable,” and presents this as an entrenched myth that has become something like a principle of faith without basis when applied to free choice.

The question of “why” regarding the Holocaust, terror attacks, and accidents

The text argues that questions such as “Why did the Holocaust happen?” or “Why did so-and-so die in a car accident?” assume in the subtext that these events are the handiwork of the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore search for theological justification. It states that the Holocaust happened because Hitler and the Germans and their helpers chose evil, and therefore the very search for a theological explanation is the problem, not the choice of one explanation over another. It describes a common tendency to look for a theological reason for every event because of the assumption that “the Holy One, blessed be He, does not execute judgment without justice,” and argues that if one understands the event as the result of human evil, there is no need for such a search.

Chagigah 5 and the Arukh (Rabbeinu Chananel): “there are those who perish without justice”

The text brings the Talmud in Chagigah 5 on the verse “there are those who perish without justice,” and quotes the Arukh in the name of Rabbeinu Chananel, who explains it as “for example, a person who killed his fellow.” It explains that the example teaches that when death is caused by human choice, a person may die even though he did not deserve it “in justice,” unlike a natural event, which is perceived as “in the hands of Heaven.” It presents this as another reflection of “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven,” which divides between evil that results from choice and evil that results from nature.

Or HaChayim on Judah, the pit, and snakes and scorpions

The text brings Or HaChayim on the passage of Joseph and his brothers, where he interprets Judah’s proposal, “let us cast Joseph into the pit, but let our hand not be upon him,” as a test of “and we shall see what becomes of his dreams.” It explains that according to Or HaChayim, if the brothers kill Joseph, that proves nothing, because through human choice one can kill even if “he did not deserve to die,” whereas death by snakes and scorpions is taken as an indication that “he deserved to die,” and therefore his dreams are false. It presents this as support for the distinction that evil caused by choice can happen even against the divine accounting, whereas natural evil is perceived as fitted to justice.

Maimonides’ Eight Chapters: rejecting determinism and grounding responsibility

The text quotes Maimonides in the eighth chapter of Eight Chapters against the “delusions” of those who believe in astrological decree, and states that all of a person’s actions are entrusted to him and there is nothing that compels or pulls him from outside, whether upward or downward, apart from “temperamental predisposition,” which may make things easier or harder. It cites Maimonides’ argument that if a person is compelled in his actions, then command and prohibition are nullified, education and training and professions are nullified, and reward and punishment become complete injustice both on the part of human beings and on the part of the Holy One, blessed be He. It quotes Maimonides explaining “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven” as true regarding natural matters in which a person has no choice, and emphasizes that many people make a mistake and apply this to acts of human choice such as marriage matches and money.

Marriage matches, sin, and money according to Maimonides

The text quotes Maimonides as stating that if the marriage match involves a commandment, “God does not decree the performance of a commandment,” and if there is something flawed in the marriage and it is a sin, “God does not decree a sin.” It brings examples from Maimonides such as a priest marrying a divorcee, as well as robbery and theft, in order to say that attributing divine decree to such events would mean divine decree of a sin. It sums up with Maimonides’ formulation that “all these are acts of human free choice,” and that by “everything is in the hands of Heaven” the Sages meant natural things such as height, rain and drought, and health, “except for a person’s movements and his resting.”

Makkot 10 and the inadvertent killer: coordination from above without canceling free choice

The text brings the Talmud in Makkot 10 about two killers for whom there were no witnesses, where the Holy One, blessed be He, “brings them to the same inn” so that one will kill unintentionally and become liable to exile, while the other will be killed and receive his punishment. It argues that this does not contradict Rabbeinu Chananel and the principle of “there are those who perish without justice,” because the Talmud is dealing specifically with an inadvertent killer and not with an intentional murderer. It explains that an inadvertent killer “did not decide to kill,” and therefore the death can be considered directed from above within a framework of justice, whereas intentional murder is a human decision in which there can indeed be “those who perish without justice.”

Nachmanides on conspiring witnesses: “if they killed, they are not killed” as inadvertent judges

The text brings Nachmanides’ interpretation of the passage of conspiring witnesses, explaining “if they killed, they are not killed” to mean that if the religious court has already executed the defendant, then apparently “he deserved to die,” and the Holy One, blessed be He, would not have allowed the judges to put him to death otherwise. It reconciles this with a distinction between judges acting innocently on the basis of testimony and wicked judges who choose to execute an innocent person. It presents the act of an innocent court as parallel to an inadvertent killer and not to an intentional murderer, and therefore as not creating a case of “perishing without justice” according to the framework it has laid out.

Maimonides’ interpretation of “by the will of God”: laws of nature that were set in place, not a real-time decision

The text quotes Maimonides’ distinction that a statement like “a stone fell by the will of God” is true in the sense that God willed the earth to be at the center and the world to function this way, and not in the sense that God “now willed” the motion of this specific stone. It uses this to argue that the Holy One, blessed be He, created general laws of nature, but that does not mean He drops every stone “in real time.” From this it draws the conclusion that Maimonides removes active involvement not only from human choice but also from nature, so that the connection to divinity lies mainly in creation and the establishment of laws, not in ongoing causation of individual events.

Miracles as a condition built into creation

The text brings Maimonides in his Commentary on the Mishnah, cited in the introduction to Gevurot Hashem by the Maharal, on the midrash of the Sages that the Holy One, blessed be He, “made a condition with creation” that the sea would split for Israel. It presents this as an intensification of Maimonides’ position, according to which even a miracle is not a momentary decision of intervention but something embedded in advance within creation. It formulates this as an extreme literal tzimtzum, in which the Holy One, blessed be He, “is not playing on the field here” — not in choice, not in nature, and not even in miracles as real-time intervention.

Maimonides in the Laws of Fasts and a proposed psychological interpretation

The text brings Maimonides in Laws of Fasts, chapter 1, halakhah 3, that the commandment to cry out and sound the trumpets over a calamity is meant so that everyone should know that “because of their evil deeds, evil befell them,” and whoever says, “this is merely the way of the world… it just happened,” this is “a path of cruelty” that adds further troubles. It presents a difficulty here, because the wording sounds like responsive providence, and brings an interpretation in the name of Rabbi Shmuel Ariel according to which it is not necessary that the calamity was caused from above; rather, the calamity is a psychological opportunity for repentance, and if one attributes it to chance, one will not examine one’s deeds and will cling to evil. It describes this interpretation as leaving the Laws of Fasts intact even within a deistic conception according to which the world runs in its ordinary way, while using psychological tendencies as a spur toward spiritual repair.

Criticism of “parallel explanations”: psychology versus philosophy versus physics and theology

The text presents examples of supposedly parallel explanations, such as repentance or going off the religious path, for which psychological explanations and philosophical explanations are given depending on one’s camp, and argues that the two explanations can be complementary parts of one full explanation. It brings Newton and the apple as an example to show that alongside a physical explanation people sometimes claim a theological explanation of punishment, and then states that it is impossible to view both as “explanations” in the full causal sense. It relies on a philosophical distinction brought by Steinitz in the book Etz HaDa’at, according to which a cause is a sufficient condition for its effect, and concludes that if the physical explanation is a sufficient condition, then there is no room for a theological explanation as a real-time cause, and vice versa. It ends with the claim that logical consistency requires choosing between “the Holy One, blessed be He, or nature” with respect to the causation of natural events, and it adopts the option that nature causes them and the Holy One, blessed be He, at most sets the framework and the laws.

A concluding debate about gravitational force, the law of gravity, and gravitons

The text ends with a dialogue in which someone asks what the difference is between saying that the laws operate and saying that they are “an expression of Him,” so long as there is no miraculous intervention, and the answer given is that the difference is metaphysical, and one can empty “involvement” of content as mere semantics if there is no real-time causation. It sharpens the point by saying that someone who claims active involvement in nature is committed to saying that there is no “force of gravity,” only a “law of gravity” as a description of patterns of action of the Holy One, blessed be He, whereas recognizing force as causative means that the event is not caused directly by the Holy One, blessed be He. It mentions the search for gravitons as an example of a practical difference within a world that assumes a physical causal mechanism, and presents the opposing view as one that eliminates the very need for a mechanism because “the Holy One, blessed be He, does it” without any causative force in the world. It concludes by stating that for now the issue is a metaphysical question, and that its implications will be discussed later.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, after we learned a bit about the idea of tzimtzum, last time I started examining what I think is a pretty clear application of the debates surrounding tzimtzum. The question is about God’s providence in the world, or more precisely, His involvement in the world. The starting point of my discussion was that same view which says that nothing down here happens unless God Himself basically decided it and carried it out. And yes, over every blade of grass stands an angel telling it, “Grow,” and in short, everything is from Allah, so to speak. It’s a fairly widespread view, I think, in the public, and what it basically means is that everything that happens in the world is the work of God’s hands to this very day. Meaning, He did not leave the world after the six days of creation. This is the imperialistic conception of providence. I said there is a difference between active providence and passive providence. Passive providence means that God follows what is happening, He knows what is happening. Active providence means God’s active involvement, that He brings about what happens, not merely knows it passively. Our concern here is active providence, not passive providence. Passive providence just means He follows along, records it before Him, maybe also gives reward and punishment according to our deeds—that’s a separate topic. The subject of this series is the relationship between God and the world. The relationship between God and the world means His interaction with what happens here, meaning involvement or active providence. That is really our discussion. And the reason I say this is an expression of the controversies in the topic of providence is because the motivation for saying that everything happening here is really the work of God’s hands comes from the same place as the conception of tzimtzum not in its plain sense. Tzimtzum not in its plain sense means that there is nothing besides Him, there is nothing outside God, and everything else—call it illusions, fantasies, I don’t know exactly what, parables, whatever you want—but really they are all Him; the events here are all His handiwork. So this seems to me to be a very clear expression of this conception of tzimtzum as not in its plain sense, a Hasidic conception. I think that among Hasidim you will indeed hear these statements more: that everything that happens is really the work of God’s hands, that no place is devoid of Him. And the conceptions that remove God, at least partially, from what happens here—that there is nature, or that human beings have choice, meaning there are other factors that cause what happens here—basically hide behind them some kind of withdrawal of God from the world, or in other words a conception of tzimtzum in its plain sense, that He really is not here, and not merely as some metaphor or educational statement or something like that. Therefore I think the issue of providence is perhaps the clearest expression of one of the controversies around the issue of tzimtzum.

So as I said, our topic is active providence. Last time I ended with two laws in Maimonides, in chapter 5 of the Laws of Repentance, law 4 and law 5. In law 4, Maimonides essentially argues that a person’s deeds are in his own hands and are not the work of God’s hands. There he discusses God’s active involvement and says there is no such thing; the things we do are in our hands. And in law 5 he discusses the question of knowledge and choice, where basically he says that with regard to choice there is not even providence in the passive sense. Meaning, there is not even knowledge by God—at least not in advance. After it happened, He knows, but not prior knowledge of what is going to happen. So here I now want to start dealing with this in a somewhat more ordered, systematic way.

When we want to talk about active providence or God’s involvement in the world, we really have to work on two fronts or two planes. Opposite God, our creation is made up of two kinds of things. One thing is nature, the laws of nature, which are usually deterministic; they have cause-and-effect relations and the rules we more or less know. Those are the laws of nature. In addition to the laws of nature there is human choice. Meaning, a person can decide to do things, and then those things occur not by some law of nature but by the decision of human beings. Of course, when that decision is carried out, it is carried out naturally: when a person does something, he does it with his hands and feet and body, all of which are material things subject to the laws of nature. But the whole thing begins at the point where the person decided—not from a law of nature or from some cause that brought about that thing, but from the fact that the person decided. So there can be two sources—two kinds of sources—for events that occur, for what happens in the world: either human will, free choice—I am assuming for now that only human beings have choice; I’m not sure animals have none at all, but that’s the accepted assumption for some reason—but let’s say free will, and the laws of nature. In each of these two planes we need to discuss to what extent, and whether at all, God is involved. Is He involved in our choice? Does He also bring that about? Which is a bit more far-reaching to say. Or not. But maybe in natural processes this is indeed His handiwork and not blind nature, some mechanical deterministic process. Every single thing that happens naturally is a decision of God—which of course somewhat drains the word “natural” of content. Because when you say “naturally,” you are basically saying this is probably some mechanical mechanism built into reality; it is not the handiwork of God at every moment. In effect, nature becomes some kind of cover for God’s actions, somewhat like what Nachmanides writes at the end of Parashat Bo, that a person has no share in the Torah of Moses unless he understands that all our deeds are nothing but miracles, that everything is really done by God. Many times this Nachmanides is brought as a source for that conception.

So I’ll start perhaps with one sentence about the difference between these two planes. Why is there really a difference between them? Because the laws of nature are basically mechanical actions or the results of mechanical cause and effect. In such a situation, in principle you can say that God acts everywhere, and we describe His modes of action by means of the laws of nature. But really everything is the work of God’s hands. Let’s say, if I want to say that objects are attracted to the earth—a body that I release falls to the earth, it is drawn by the law of gravity—then I say: who caused it to fall to the earth? God. The law of gravity does not cause the fall. The law of gravity describes God’s mode of action. Or in other words, to sharpen this more, I’d put it this way: laws cannot cause things. Anyone who thinks that an object falls to the earth because of the law of gravity is speaking imprecisely. The law of gravity cannot be the cause of anything, because the law of gravity is not a kind of entity. Something that is not an entity causes nothing in the world—something that does not exist in the world. The law of gravity is a law. A law is not a thing; it is not an object, not a force or something like that. Rather, it describes—the law establishes relations of cause and effect or describes relations of cause and effect. When I ask who caused the object to fall to the earth, the answer is the force of gravity, not the law of gravity. The force of gravity is that physical phenomenon existing in the world that draws objects with mass toward one another. That phenomenon can cause the object to fall to the earth. The law of gravity only describes that phenomenon. It causes nothing; it is the cause of nothing. Okay?

Now, within the conception of God as causing what happens in the natural world, the natural processes, it is relatively easy to describe this. I am basically saying there is no such thing as the force of gravity. The force of gravity does not exist. It is all the work of God’s hands. God sees an object suspended in the air and immediately drops it to the ground. But He always does this in fixed patterns, and those patterns I describe through laws that we call the laws of nature. But really there is no nature, there is nothing, there is no force of gravity—there is only the law of gravity. The force of gravity was invented by atheists according to this conception, because basically you need to explain who causes the object to fall to the earth. As a thoroughgoing heretic, you think it is not God, so you have to invent some other real factor that causes this phenomenon, because the law cannot cause it. So you invent the force of gravity. But the true believer—yes, I say this in quotation marks, but the true believer—says, what are you talking about? No force of gravity and nothing else; there is none besides Him, God does everything. God brings objects downward, and God draws electrons to one another, and the electric force and all physical forces, all natural motions, are really the work of God’s hands, while the laws merely describe them. But there are no objects in reality that cause the events. There is no electric force and no gravitational force. There are laws of electricity and the law of gravity, but not forces. Forces are the kind of entities whose role is to cause the phenomena. There are no such entities. God does everything—according to this conception, I mean. Okay?

So here one can insert God into the picture relatively easily in a way that does not really disturb anything, because the laws of nature remain true. We can still continue to know, given a certain state of affairs, what will happen from here on according to the laws of nature. What then? On the philosophical level we say that what causes this is not the force of gravity but God. What describes what is happening is the law of gravity. The law of gravity exists even according to these religious folks, even according to those who say everything is the work of God’s hands. It’s just that He operates in fixed patterns described by the laws of nature. That’s all. In other words, the dispute here is a metaphysical dispute; there is no dispute here about physics or the laws of physics, and in that sense it is relatively easy. Because all you are saying is that in reality itself the only one acting is God; there are no physical forces. The physical laws of course exist and describe God’s ways of acting. Okay? So it is relatively easy to put God there.

In the world of human actions, which are the result of free choice, of free will, the situation is harder. Because to insert God there is basically to remove me from the picture. It means saying that He does my actions and not that I do them. Now, there is no principled problem with that—except that if so, then what is the meaning of all our obligations, of Jewish law, of morality, of everything we are required to do? At the end of the day, everything happening here is done by God. What meaning is there to reward and punishment, if it was not I who did it but God who did it? In other words, this already raises difficult theological problems, to say the least. Okay? On the practical level it of course contradicts our free choice. But fine, then a person can be a determinist. We do not literally see with our eyes that a person has free choice; that does not contradict the laws of nature. In that sense it is like divine involvement in nature. There too it does not contradict the laws of nature, and here as well. I just have to be a determinist. It contradicts the conception of free will, of a will that is not deterministic, that a person has the power to decide and do things by his own choice, to do this or to do the opposite. And that is why, for example, the Sages say, “Everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven.” So this expression—“Everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven”—basically means that God does everything, at least that is the simple way to understand it, God does everything, but not what pertains to human choice, to actions that have a value dimension. Right? What pertains to fear of Heaven means actions with a value dimension, actions that are moral or anti-moral, and actions in accordance with Jewish law or against Jewish law. Right? Things that touch on value issues. In such a case it is not in the hands of Heaven. Why? Because if it were in the hands of Heaven, then we are not even playing on this field. There is no point in demanding things from us, no point in punishing us, no point in giving us reward. In other words, we basically become just ordinary natural objects, like all the other objects in the world.

And therefore I think that to say that God also does the things human beings decided to do is much, much, much more novel, and for some reason this mantra that “everything is in the hands of Heaven” keeps being recited also about human actions and not only about natural actions. As I’ll say later, I do not accept it even in the natural context. But in the natural context there is much more room for it. In the context of human choice it is strange; it is unreasonable. “Everything is in the hands of Heaven except colds and traps,” for example, speaks even about natural things that are not in the hands of Heaven. But “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven” says at least that human choices touching on value matters—certainly you cannot say those are in the hands of Heaven, otherwise what is the meaning of the whole thing?

So understand why this sounds so simple when you hear it—I think at least—that as I said I am a little embarrassed to deal with it. But “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven” means at least that human choices touching on value matters—certainly you cannot say those are in the hands of Heaven. Otherwise what is the meaning of the whole thing? So understand that this sounds so simple when you hear it, it seems to me at least, that as I said I’m a little embarrassed even to deal with these things because of how obvious they are. But since there are a great many people who for some reason live with a different consciousness, a different opposite worldview, I think it really is appropriate to deal with this matter.

The examples, I think, I already brought—I don’t remember anymore, because this merges in my head with classes from another series on similar topics, so I no longer remember exactly what I said here and what there. But these statements, for example: why did the Holocaust happen? Or these statements of why did so-and-so die in a car accident? Or why was he harmed? Or why all kinds of things—illnesses? tsunami? no, tsunami too—sorry, and also not illnesses. Why was he hurt in a car accident? Why did they kill him? Why a terror attack? Why the Holocaust? All kinds of things of this sort. All these things are actions of human beings who made decisions to kill or harm another person. To ask why this happened basically assumes in the subtext that these actions too are the work of God’s hands. Because otherwise, what kind of question is “why did it happen”? It happened because so-and-so decided to murder him, therefore he died. What exactly is the question, why did it happen? You’re looking for what the theological reasons were? Maybe he sinned? Maybe his family needed to suffer? All kinds of explanations, I don’t know exactly what. I’m not even arguing with the explanations; I’m arguing with the need for explanations. In other words, the need for explanations, the very search for an explanation, basically assumes that this thing is the work of God’s hands and we are asking why. After all, is it just, is it unjust, do we find an explanation, do we not find one—but the very search or the assumption that there ought to be some explanation, whether we understand it or not, basically assumes that these things are the work of God’s hands. But if I understand that no—the Holocaust was perpetrated by Nazis, and the Nazis chose evil and were punished for it in international tribunals and so on, and anyone who judged them I assume would convict them and punish them for it—what does that mean? It means that the actions done there were the result of human choice. That is what human beings decided to do. So what place is there to ask why the Holocaust happened? The Holocaust happened because Hitler decided to murder Jews, and the Germans also decided to join him—Germans and their helpers, if you like—decided to join him. That is why it happened. So all the terrible dilemmas of whether it was because of Zionism, or because people opposed Zionism, or because of I don’t know exactly what—all these kinds of explanations, I’m not even entering the debate over which of them is right; I disagree with all of them because I do not see why one should seek explanations at all. Why are explanations needed? What are you trying to explain? If this thing is the result of a wicked action by a human being, then the person did it because he was wicked. Why do you need theological explanations—whether this is the righteous person who suffers and the wicked one who prospers, whether he deserved it or did not deserve it, and all kinds of things of that sort? You do not need to look for explanations. You need to understand the meaning of the matter and to what extent—even though when I present it simply like this it seems to me everyone will agree—but if you examine yourselves or your surroundings, how we react to things happening around us, you will see that we do not live this way. Most of us do not live this way. Every time something happens we look for why it happened, and our assumption, again, is that God did it and therefore there ought to be some explanation, even if we cannot always understand it. But the assumption is still that there ought to be some explanation, because God does not act without justice. He does not do things unless they need to be as they are. But that is on the assumption that He is indeed the one who did them. But if He did not do them, then there is no need to look for explanations.

Let me perhaps bring an example of this. The Talmud in Chagigah 5 says there, “There are those swept away without judgment.” Meaning, there can be a situation where a person dies even though he did not deserve to die; according to justice he did not deserve to die, and nevertheless he perishes. The Arukh, Rabbeinu Chananel, there in Chagigah says: “There are those swept away without judgment”—for example, a person who killed his fellow. Something like that; that’s more or less the quote. What does that mean? If Reuven decided to kill Shimon, it can happen that Shimon dies even though according to judgment he did not deserve to die. Right? That is what the Arukh says. Why indeed? Because this act is a human act. The murderer decided to kill Shimon. In such a situation, it is entirely possible that Shimon dies even though according to judgment he did not deserve to die. By contrast, why does he bother to bring this example? He is apparently trying to exclude another possibility. What happens if Shimon dies not because Reuven decided to murder him but because he caught a deadly bacterium, or a tsunami, or I don’t know what—some natural event, something natural. Okay, in such a case it is in the hands of Heaven, and if he perished, then it was according to judgment. That at least is what Rabbeinu Chananel assumes. I will challenge even that, but that is what he assumes. And the example he brings—“for example, a person who killed his fellow”—comes to say that when the evil done here is the result of human choice, then it really can happen without judgment, unlike natural events.

Here again is another expression of the conception that everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven. Meaning, things that pertain to human decisions, touching on good and evil, are not in the hands of Heaven; they are in the hands of man. But all the rest, the natural events, are in the hands of Heaven. That is basically what Rabbeinu Chananel is reflecting. When people hear this Rabbeinu Chananel, at first glance it looks to them like some shocking novelty, that a person can die even though he did not deserve to die. Think of all the—people always come to comfort someone who lost a loved one, and immediately—I’m not talking about someone who died, say, of old age, but someone who died before his time, a soldier, I don’t know—they come to comfort him that God did it this way and He has His reasons and He does things, and everyone’s assumption is always the same—no matter what he says in the end, “You don’t understand”—the assumption is that God did it. And so now the question is why He did it, and whether one can understand, and what the explanation is, and so on. But who said that assumption is correct? Rabbeinu Chananel says no. But this is not Rabbeinu Chananel’s innovation. It is “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven.” If a person decided to kill someone, then that person will die because the one who killed him has choice and can choose evil and not only good.

The Or HaChaim, on the portion about Joseph and his brothers, says something similar. There he says that when Judah suggests to the brothers to throw Joseph into the pit—“but do not lay a hand on him”—he explains what the reasoning was. The reasoning was this: if we kill him, they wanted to test whether Joseph’s dreams—“and we shall see what becomes of his dreams,” that’s the continuation—if we kill him, that will not test whether his dreams were true or not. Because if we kill him, we might succeed in killing him even though in fact he did not deserve to die, even though his dreams may have been true and in the end we really were supposed to come and bow before him and so forth. But we chose to kill him, and if we choose, we can succeed even though God did not decide that he should die. Therefore Judah proposes: if you really want to test whether his dreams will come true—“and we shall see what becomes of his dreams”—throw him into the pit. The pit was empty, there was no water in it. The Sages expound: there was no water, but there were snakes and scorpions in it. What does that mean? That when he is thrown into the pit, the snakes and scorpions can kill him. But snakes and scorpions are natural creatures, not the result of choice. If they kill him, then it means he really did deserve to die, and then it means his dreams were nonsense. He was just trying to lord it over us or something like that, but he was really just talking nonsense. But if we ourselves kill him, that will indicate nothing. That is how the Or HaChaim explains it. Because if we kill him, it is a human action. A person can kill someone else even if God did not decide that he should die. But snakes and scorpions cannot. If they kill him, then apparently he deserved to die and apparently that dream—that we were supposed to bow before him and so on—was a false dream, simply untrue. He sold us a bill of goods. Okay? So this is the same principle as Rabbeinu Chananel. It basically says that when evil is done as a result—when an action is done by human decision, by human free choice—it can be done not according to the divine accounting. Even when God did not decide it, perhaps even does not want it. Still, that is indeed what can happen. By contrast, if it is snakes and scorpions, or if a person dies—as Rabbeinu Chananel says—from some natural cause, then that is in the hands of Heaven. Only when it is done by human beings, which pertains to fear of Heaven, then it can be without judgment. But what happens naturally is according to judgment. So once again we see in all these places the same distinction saying that nature really consists of God’s decisions, what happens in nature. But human decisions are certainly done completely autonomously, and people can decide to do things against God’s will. Not only that God does not do it; He does not even want it. He wants it not to happen, and it happens nevertheless, because a person has free choice and decided to do it.

Just think about it. If someone desecrates the Sabbath, can one say that God really did that Sabbath desecration or caused him to desecrate the Sabbath? God told him not to desecrate the Sabbath. So what logic is there in assuming that if he desecrated the Sabbath, then apparently God decreed that he should desecrate the Sabbath or caused the desecration Himself? How can one say such a thing? It is so strange, so implausible, that I simply cannot understand this widespread myth. It does not stand up to any test; no one can derive it from anywhere. It is just nonsense. But this nonsense has become so entrenched that it has turned into some sort of principle of faith with no basis whatsoever. None. Again, I’m saying this with regard to choice, not with regard to nature. Regarding nature there certainly is some basis to say that God does everything in nature, but regarding choice it is a bizarre thing.

Let’s look for a moment at a few passages from Maimonides, from the Eight Chapters, chapter 8. Maimonides writes as follows—I’ll read only selected passages. He says this: “I have explained this to you so that you should not accept as true those delusions fabricated by the astrologers”—that is, the determinists who attribute everything to decrees of the stars—“who claim that a person’s birth causes him to be virtuous or base, and that a person is compelled to those actions necessarily,” that is, determinism. “But know that it is agreed upon by our Torah and by Greek philosophy, as confirmed by true proofs, that all a person’s actions are entrusted to him. There is nothing that compels him in them or draws him from outside in any way and inclines him to virtue or vice, unless there is merely a bodily predisposition, as we explained, by reason of which something may be easier or harder.” Meaning, our nature obviously affects what we do. Sometimes because of our nature it is harder for us to do one action and easier for someone else—good or bad or whatever. But that it should obligate or prevent—not just make easier or harder, but compel us, determine what we do—“in no way.”

And now Maimonides says: “If man were compelled in his actions, the Torah’s commands and prohibitions would be nullified.” What is the point of commanding and warning us? “All this would be complete vanity, since man would have no choice in what he does. Likewise, instruction and education and the learning of all crafts would necessarily be nullified.” All our efforts would be pointless, because whatever happens will happen anyway, regardless of what we do. “All this would be futile, since man would have no escape, by necessity due to something external drawing him—according to the view of those who hold this—from some act that he does, and from some knowledge that he knows, and from some trait that he acquires. Reward and punishment too would then be complete injustice, both from some of us toward others and from God toward us.” Yes, both punishment we give human beings and punishment that God gives. “For if this Shimon who killed Reuven was forced and compelled to kill, and that one was forced and compelled to be killed, why should we punish Shimon? And how could it be appropriate that He, may He be exalted, who is righteous and upright, should punish him for an act from which he had no escape, and even had he tried not to do it, he could not?”

In this context I’ll perhaps mention a passage in tractate Makkot. The Talmud there discusses an accidental killer, on page 10. It says there: what is a case of an accidental killer? Reuven murdered intentionally without witnesses and was liable to death, and Shimon killed accidentally without witnesses and was liable to exile. This one did not receive the death sentence and that one did not receive exile because there were no witnesses. God brings them to one inn. The one liable to death is below, the one liable to exile is above, and then the iron slips from the one above—from the axe handle he is holding—and falls on the one below and kills him. So the one below got what he deserved—he died—and the one above now goes into exile because he killed accidentally and also got what he deserved, because exile was what he deserved. At first glance, in this Talmudic passage we seem to see the opposite of what we have said until now: that acts of killing by human beings are directed from above. God basically decides who will murder and who will be murdered and what will happen here; we are all just marionettes on the board operated by God. So apparently this contradicts what Rabbeinu Chananel wrote, what the Or HaChaim says, and everything I said until now. But it does not contradict it. It does not contradict it because this Talmudic passage, not by accident, speaks about an accidental killer. It does not give this example about an intentional murderer. What is a case of an intentional murderer? Reuven and Shimon were both liable to death, so God causes Shimon to kill Reuven intentionally, then Reuven dies because he deserved to die, and Shimon is executed as a murderer because he also deserved to die. There is no such Talmudic passage. The Talmud deals with an accidental killer, not an intentional killer. Why? Because an accidental killer did not decide to kill the other; it was not his deliberate free choice to kill the other. At most it was negligence. In such a case, says the Talmud, this is directed from above. Meaning, if Reuven dies through an act of Shimon’s that was done accidentally—not that Shimon decided to kill Reuven—then in such a case Reuven apparently deserved to die. There, nobody is swept away without judgment. Because this is an act of God, not an act of Shimon. But if Shimon decides to kill Reuven, that is an intentional murderer, not an accidental one, and about that Rabbeinu Chananel says there are those swept away without judgment. Shimon can succeed in killing Reuven even though Reuven does not deserve to die, because this is not an act of God, it is his own act. Therefore this Talmudic passage actually completes the picture Rabbeinu Chananel describes rather than contradicting it.

There is also Nachmanides—I mentioned this too—Nachmanides on plotting witnesses. Nachmanides says there that the Talmud says: if they caused him to be killed, they are not killed; if they did not kill him, they are killed. If the plotting witnesses sought to kill the accused and they are exposed as plotting witnesses, then we do to them as they intended—we kill them as they sought to do to the accused. But what if they already killed the accused and only afterward the witnesses were exposed? Then if they caused him to be killed, they are not killed. Meaning, if the accused has already been executed, they do not kill the witnesses, which is of course astonishing. Because if he was killed, that only makes it more severe. They not only plotted—they even succeeded. So why not kill them? Nachmanides says, one of the explanations—there are two explanations there—Nachmanides on the Torah says on the section of plotting witnesses that once the court killed him, then apparently he really did deserve to die. For otherwise God would not have let the judges kill the accused, and therefore we do not do to the plotting witnesses “as they intended,” because they really caused the death of someone who truly deserved to die. And maybe they are not even plotting witnesses—but that is another discussion. By contrast, if he has not yet died and they are exposed, then the Torah’s law applies: “you shall do to him as he intended.” Why? Because precisely there God saved him from dying because he did not deserve to die, and that is exactly the proof that they lied. So Nachmanides, once again, basically says that the court’s decisions whether to kill or not are indeed guided by God. In effect, He is the one making those decisions; they come from Him. And then of course again one has to ask: so how does this fit with everything I have described until now? And again I say, it fits very well. Because when the court kills the accused based on the testimony of those witnesses, the court did not choose evil and decide to murder an innocent person. The court was simply persuaded by the testimony, and therefore it sentenced that person to death. In such a case this is essentially parallel to accidental murder, not intentional murder. And an accidental murderer cannot do something that truly ought not happen according to divine justice. Therefore in the case of a court, says Nachmanides, if the judges decided this, then apparently it was also correct, because God will not let them kill a person unless that person really deserves to die. But this is all because the judges did not decide wickedly. If the judges were wicked and decided to execute him even though he was not liable to death, then of course this would not apply. Then they can kill him even though he really does not deserve to die. Nachmanides is speaking about judges acting in innocence. They received the testimony, judged the case, concluded that he was liable to death, and sentenced him to death. That is like accidental murder, not intentional murder. With accidental murder, it really happens only if it accords with justice—that is, only if God basically decided it; only then will it happen.

Okay, I return here to Maimonides. He then says: “But the truth, about which there is no doubt, is that all human actions are entrusted to him: if he wishes he does, and if he wishes he does not, without compulsion and without necessity in this matter. Therefore commandment is binding, and thus He said, ‘See, I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil… therefore choose life.’” He gave us choice in this. Why am I setting before you today good? Why do I command you commandments and forbid prohibitions? Because you have the ability to choose life. If you have no ability to choose, there would be no point in commanding. “And He gave us the choice in this, and punishment is due to one who transgresses and reward to one who obeys—if you obey and if you do not obey—and study and training are obligatory.” So we now also need to learn what may be done and what may not be done, because everything depends on us. Otherwise why learn? Whatever will happen will happen regardless; God decides what will happen. And so on—he continues with this whole line of thought.

And this is what he says: “The expression found among the Sages, namely, ‘Everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven,’ is true and corresponds to what we have mentioned. However, many people err about it and think that some of man’s free actions are compelled upon him.” Notice his emphasis? This is not about nature. About nature, saying “everything is in the hands of Heaven” is fine. But there are people who think that “everything is in the hands of Heaven” applies also to free human actions, that he is compelled in them, such as being matched with a certain woman. He is obviously alluding to the Talmud in tractate Sotah: forty days before the formation of the embryo, a heavenly voice goes forth and says, “The daughter of so-and-so for so-and-so,” so apparently it is deterministic, fixed in advance. Or whether this property will come into his possession—the continuation of that Talmudic passage. This is of course based on the Talmud there. The continuation of that passage is: the house of so-and-so for so-and-so, the field of so-and-so for so-and-so, the daughter of so-and-so for so-and-so, and so on. So he says there are some people who err and think that even these things are in the hands of Heaven—the field for so-and-so, the match, and so forth. “And this is not true,” says Maimonides. “For this woman, if taking her is by ketubah and kiddushin and she is permitted, and he married her for procreation, then this is a commandment, and God does not decree the performance of a commandment. And if there is something defective in the marriage”—that is, a forbidden marriage—“then it is a transgression, and God does not decree a transgression.” Likewise, if God decrees matches, then how can there be a sinful match? How can a priest marry a divorcee? Did God decree that they should marry? A priest marrying a divorcee is a transgression; God commanded not to do it. Therefore, says Maimonides, clearly there is no such thing. A proper match is a commandment, and defective matches are a transgression, and since so, it is in our hands; God decrees nothing about it.

“Likewise, one who robbed another person’s money, or stole it, or denied it falsely and swore concerning his money—if we say that God decreed that this money should come into this person’s hand and leave the other’s hand, then He has already decreed a transgression. And it is not so. Rather, all these are man’s free actions, in which obedience and rebellion are unquestionably found.” Therefore there are commandments; one can heed the commandment and one can disobey it. We have free choice; only because of that do our commandments have meaning.

Now just one more sentence, or a little more, later on. “Thus, by the phrase ‘everything is in the hands of Heaven,’ they mean natural things over which man has no choice, such as his being tall or short, or rain falling or drought, or some other damage to the air or to his health, and the like of everything in the world—except for man’s movements and his rest.” “Everything is in the hands of Heaven” refers only to natural matters, but matters of choice are of course in the hands of man, including one’s match, including everything.

By the way, there is a very interesting article by Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman. There is a letter of Maimonides in which he writes even more sharply about that Talmudic passage. He says the law is not in accordance with that Talmudic passage. Maimonides says that this Talmudic statement—forty days before the formation of the embryo a heavenly voice goes forth and says the daughter of so-and-so for so-and-so—since marriage is a value matter, a matter of commandment, it is impossible that God should decree whom a person marries. So what do you do with the Talmud? Maimonides says the law is not in accordance with that Talmudic statement. So Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman asks: then in accordance with which Talmudic statement is it? Is there another one that says otherwise? So he cites the Talmud in Moed Katan and some parallels. Rabbi Ilai said: if a person sees that his evil inclination is overcoming him, let him wear black, go to a faraway place, and do what his heart desires. Meaning, if a person sees that his evil inclination is about to overcome him and he is going to sin and will not manage to overcome it, then at least let him minimize the damage: let him go to a faraway place, wear black so that there will be no desecration of God’s name, so people won’t recognize him, and let him do what he has to do. There is nothing else to do. I am interpreting this according to one of the two explanations in Rashi there, but this is the simple reading.

Then Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman says: what does Rabbi Ilai hold? On that, the Rosh and the Rif in Moed Katan there on page 16 say, “And the law is not in accordance with Rabbi Ilai, for we hold that everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven.” They say the law is not in accordance with Rabbi Ilai. If a person sees that his evil inclination is overcoming him, let him strengthen himself all the more. There is no license to go to a faraway place and commit sins if you see your inclination overpowering you; struggle harder, you can overcome it. And what do they bring against Rabbi Ilai? The Talmudic saying “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven.” Meaning, they say that what pertains to fear of Heaven—commandments and transgressions—is in your hands, not in Heaven’s. If it is in your hands and you feel your inclination is overpowering you, then overpower it more strongly; you can overcome it.

Now Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman asks: so what did Rabbi Ilai hold? Rabbi Ilai, who said yes, go and do this, apparently held that everything is in the hands of Heaven, including matters of fear of Heaven. He was basically a determinist—so Rabbi Elchanan writes—that Rabbi Ilai was a determinist. And Rabbi Elchanan says that apparently the Talmud in Sotah, which says that forty days before the formation of the embryo a heavenly voice goes forth and says the daughter of so-and-so for so-and-so, the field of so-and-so, the house of so-and-so for so-and-so, follows Rabbi Ilai’s deterministic view. And when Maimonides says the law is not like that, it is because of this ruling of the Rif and the Rosh, who say that everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven, and that contradicts determinism. And according to the Talmudic saying that everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven, that statement about forty days before the formation of the embryo is not correct; it disputes the Talmud there. And Maimonides rules in accordance with the non-deterministic Talmudic passage, that everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven.

This pilpul—Rabbi Elchanan, rather ironically, calls it “explaining aggadah in the straightforward way.” He has there all sorts of analyses, halakhic-style learning applied to aggadic passages. Sometimes these are very sharp and beautiful, but they are usually not correct. In any event, here too it seems a bit too far-reaching to me. I do not think the point is that Rabbi Ilai was a determinist. Rabbi Ilai is only saying: true, you can overcome it—but if you feel that you won’t overcome it, and after all people often feel beforehand that they won’t overcome it, then drop the struggle. Don’t take the risk that you won’t overcome it. Go to a faraway place and do what your heart desires. That does not mean Rabbi Ilai thinks that deterministically you are bound to sin. He only says that since you fear you will not withstand the trial—although in principle you can withstand it—still, since you fear that you will not, you are permitted to go to a faraway place and at least try to minimize the damage, and not continue fighting as the Rif and the Rosh say the law requires: no, fight to the end, there is no permission. And if you fail, you fail, but you have to fight. There are no licenses to make committing the transgression easier. That is the disagreement. The disagreement is a halakhic one, not a metaphysical one, about whether man has choice or whether the world is deterministic, as Rabbi Elchanan presents it. I think the disagreement is normative, and it is indeed not a simple dilemma. A person who feels his inclination is overpowering him, and he knows he is going to fail—he has already been in such situations before. Does that mean he will definitely fail? No. A person can overcome and this time succeed. But the fact is that in my assessment I am going to fail here. May I say: okay, then let’s at least do something that will make the transgression lighter, rather than confronting it and taking the risk that I may fail and commit the more severe transgression? Not a simple dilemma. Rabbi Ilai claims I may make such a calculation; the Rif and the Rosh say no, you may not make such a calculation, I must confront it. That’s all. But it is not a metaphysical argument about whether man has choice or not.

In any case, for our purposes this is basically the claim that everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven. The meaning—returning to Maimonides—is that what man does by his own choice is not in the hands of Heaven. What is in the hands of Heaven is natural events. And that is also what he says later: “This is indeed the matter explained by the Sages, that obedience and rebellion are not by His decree and not by His will, but by man’s will.” And where does this rabbinic statement, “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven,” come from? “They drew this after the language of Jeremiah, who said, ‘Out of the mouth of the Most High there does not come evil and good.’” For “evil” means evil deeds and “good” means good deeds. “He said that God does not decree that a person shall do evil deeds or that he shall do good deeds.” So the statement “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven” is basically a verse in Jeremiah, and the Sages of course formulate it. “And since this is so, it is proper for a person to lament and wail over the sins and guilt he has committed, for he is guilty, since he sinned by his own choice.”

And then he says—here Maimonides comes to reject the thesis with which I began—“The statement well known among people, and found in the words of the Sages and in the language of Scripture, namely, that a person’s standing and sitting and all his movements are by God’s will and desire”—that everything a person does is basically by God’s will—seemingly contradicts what Maimonides said before. “This is a true statement, but in a certain sense.” Now Maimonides explains: “This is like someone who throws a stone into the air and it falls downward. To say of it that by God’s will it fell downward is a true statement. For God willed that the earth be at the center, and therefore whenever an object is thrown upward from it, it moves toward the center,” it falls back to the earth. “And so every part of fire moves upward, by the will according to which fire was made to move upward. Not that God now willed, at the moment of this clod’s movement, that it move downward.” This is the beautiful passage from Maimonides that I want to bring. Notice: Maimonides says, so what does it mean that everything man does is in the hands of Heaven? Maimonides now shifts the discussion not to human choice but to natural events—a stone falling to the ground. We discussed the law of gravity before. Now Maimonides is talking about that, and Maimonides says: what does it mean that when it falls it is by God’s will that it fell? It is by God’s will that it fell because God created the law of gravity, because He wanted all objects to fall to the earth, because it is at the center, and all sorts of Aristotelian theories. But the point is that God created the laws of nature because He wanted them to be this way and not another way. In that sense, everything done here is by His will. But that does not mean that everything happening now—this is what he says—“Not that God now willed, at the moment of this clod’s movement, that it move downward.” It is not that God now decided that this particular stone should fall downward and He made it fall. He did not make it fall. He created the force of gravity—not the law of gravity, the force of gravity—and the stone falls to the earth because of the force of gravity and not because of God, except that God made the force of gravity, because He really wanted objects to fall to the earth. Not this specific stone; rather, He wanted the world to operate in such a way that objects with mass fall to the earth. That is how He wanted the world to function. He did not now make a specific decision at this moment. If the stone fell, then He made it fall—that is not true even of the God of nature.

Notice: Maimonides began with statements about human choices and said that human choices are not in God’s hands. Human beings decide them. Natural things are in God’s hands. But now he qualifies even that. He says, what does it mean that natural things are in God’s hands? Natural things are in God’s hands only in the sense that they proceed according to the laws of nature, and God made the laws of nature. Not that God now caused the stone to fall or decided that the stone should fall. He did not decide, and this stone does not interest Him. He also does not exercise providence over this stone according to Maimonides. He only exercises providence over the species and things like that. He does not exercise providence over one specific stone. Therefore, according to Maimonides, this specific stone is not even of interest to God—not only did He not do it. What He did want was that the world function in such a way that objects with mass fall to the earth. So He created the laws of nature that govern the world in the way He wants. But not that some particular natural event is done by God’s hands in real time. This is what He decided to do and this is what He is doing. And Maimonides here is basically reaching the conception I wanted to reach at the end, and he says it explicitly here: nothing is in God’s hands—not what relates to fear of Heaven, and not what does not relate to fear of Heaven. Even when it says “everything is in the hands of Heaven” regarding things that are not fear of Heaven, “everything is in the hands of Heaven” does not mean that God does them, but rather that everything arises from the laws of nature that God made. And why did He make them? Because it really was His will that objects fall to the earth. Otherwise perhaps He would have made the law differently. Fine. But still, in the end all this means is that God created the world. That’s all. There is no meaning here beyond that concerning providence—I mean active providence. There is no involvement of God in the world. Maimonides says here: there is none, no such involvement. Not in human choices and not in nature.

And I think I did not mention this here—though in a similar class I gave I did. There is the well-known Maimonides in his Commentary on the Mishnah, where he brings the rabbinic midrash—it is brought in the introduction to Gur Aryeh? no, in the introduction to Gevurot Hashem of the Maharal. He discusses various theories of what a miracle is, what happens when a miracle occurs. So he brings Maimonides, who essentially relies on the rabbinic midrash, that God stipulated a condition with creation that the sea would split before the people of Israel when they arrived there and Pharaoh pursued them and so forth. Meaning, Maimonides is unwilling to accept God’s involvement—not in human actions, that is obvious, because that is fear of Heaven and not in Heaven’s hands; not in nature, because nature is complete fixed natural law set by God, they only do His will because that is how He made them, He made the laws of nature in the way He wanted the whole thing to operate. Now Maimonides says even miracles are not done by God. He removes God entirely—tzimtzum in its plain sense. Maimonides was the greatest of the Litvaks. Tzimtzum in the plainest possible sense. God is not playing on the field here. He’s just not there. Not in things that are human actions, not in nature, and not even in miracles. Even miracles, the clearest and most striking divine interventions—what are you talking about? This was a stipulation made at creation that if such-and-such happened, then the sea would split. Meaning, even that was not done by a momentary present decision in which God Himself splits the sea with His own hands. It is simply part of the laws of nature; it was embedded within the laws of nature in some way. Let’s say I am not inclined to accept this strange hypothesis, but I bring this Maimonides only to show how far he goes in the conception that God is not involved at all. God is not involved at all.

Now here there is a very interesting question. Maimonides in the Laws of Fasts does write famous and well-known things. Many times people quoted this against what I wrote in the second book of the trilogy, where I discuss these matters. Maimonides says there that we cry out in fasts and so forth, and whoever says that this thing is merely happenstance and the way of the world, that it occurred by natural means, this is cruelty. It may be worth looking at his wording. No, it is not at the end of the Laws of Fasts, it’s somewhere earlier. I no longer remember. Ah yes, here it is. Law 3, chapter 1, law 3. He speaks here about the positive commandment from the Torah to cry out and sound the trumpets. Let me share it.

“It is a positive commandment from the Torah to cry out and to sound trumpets over every trouble that befalls the community, as it says, ‘Against the enemy that oppresses you, you shall sound the trumpets.’ Meaning, every matter that troubles you, such as drought, plague, locusts, and the like—cry out over them and sound the alarm. This is among the ways of repentance, for when trouble comes and they cry out over it and sound the alarm, everyone will know that it is because of their evil deeds that this evil befell them, as it is written, ‘Your iniquities have turned these away,’ and this will cause the trouble to be removed from them. But if they do not cry out and do not sound the alarm, but rather say, ‘This thing is the way of the world, this trouble happened to us by chance’”—that is, it was accidental—“this is a way of cruelty, and causes them to cling to their evil deeds, and the trouble will add other troubles. And this is what is written in the Torah, ‘If you walk with Me casually, I will walk with you in a fury of casualness,’ meaning, when I bring trouble upon you so that you will repent, if you say it is chance, I will add to you the fury of that chance.”

So I saw that Rabbi Shmuel Ariel wrote a long article on this issue—whether everything really comes from Heaven. He brought various sources for it. And he brings from Maimonides that Maimonides says it is basically not true that things always happen by God, if at all. I argue that according to Maimonides nothing happens by God. Then he brings this law and offers an interesting interpretation. I had never thought of it, because this law really bothered me many times. He says this: “If they do not cry out and do not sound the alarm, but rather say, ‘This thing is the way of the world that befell us,’ this is a way of cruelty and causes them to cling to their evil deeds.” What does that mean? Not because it is untrue, but because when trouble comes, we are supposed to repent, because it is an opportunity to repent—not because God causes the trouble. He does not cause it. But it is an opportunity, because when we are in distress, our nature is such that this is an especially fitting time to examine our deeds. Maimonides says, however, that if we decide this is chance, then of course there is no reason to examine our deeds; this is just the way of the world and that is all. So, says Maimonides, not that it is untrue, but that this is a way of cruelty and causes them to cling to their evil deeds, with the result that people simply will never repent. So you may not say, “This thing is the way of the world,” not because it is untrue—it is true, this thing is the way of the world. But when trouble comes to you, do not hang everything on the fact that it is the way of the world, even though that is true, because if you do that and do not repent, then when will you repent? Then you will cling to your evil deeds. Therefore, go with your psychology. Even though philosophically you know this is not true—well, that is, you know it is the way of the world—still, your psychology tells you this is a good time, a propitious time, to repent, to inspect my deeds, to examine my ways. Fine, go with that. Go with it, and then you will repent, and in that way you will be saved from your evil deeds. Because if you say it is the way of the world and do not repent, then you will cling to your evil deeds. Again—not because it is false, but precisely because it is true that this is the way of the world and it really happened to you because of the way of the world, not because of God. It is just forbidden for you to behave in light of that philosophy.

Incidentally, this brings us back to the question of tzimtzum. Because from a kind of—what Maimonides is basically saying is that tzimtzum really is in its plain sense. The things that happen in the world do not happen from God. But you need to live—you can hear here the “from His side” and “from our side” and the question of metaphor and all those things—but reversed. The Hasidim say that tzimtzum is not in its plain sense, but you need to live as if it is in its plain sense. I said that is nonsense. But Maimonides says the opposite here: tzimtzum is in its plain sense, and the things that happen happen on their own, by themselves. But you are not allowed to live that way. You have to live as if this is not merely the way of the world and as if God did it, because that is your opportunity to examine your deeds and repent. Without that, you would not repent. It’s really not so simple.