Free Will and Choice – Lesson 20

Table of Contents

• Free choice versus determinism and materialism
• Why there is no commandment to choose
• The contradiction in Maimonides about the commandment of repentance, and the dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides
• Maimonides’ criterion for counting the commandments, and rabbinic teachings
• Resolving the contradiction: Sefer HaMitzvot versus the Mishneh Torah, and the foundation of repentance
• Choice as the foundation in the laws of repentance, and the difficulty posed by the commandment of faith
• A response to the religious determinist and the claim that this empties everything of content
• Rabbi Kook: the perfection of becoming, and why a penitent is preferable to a completely righteous person
• The secret of divine service as a higher need, the Ari, and “Give strength to God”
• The Book of Jonah, the kikayon plant, and the debate about repentance
• The significance of choice for the existence of the world and its metaphysical implications
• Religious education: success, failure, and the need to choose to keep the Sabbath
• Consistency in choice, the figures of Esau and Jacob, and “How long will you keep limping between the two sides?”
• Coercion in education, habit, and presenting importance versus the ultimate goal

Summary

General Overview

The speaker sums up the series on free choice and repentance in Judaism, and argues that giving up free will empties foundational Torah and halakhic elements of their meaning, to the point of turning the whole system of commandments and religious life into something “hollow,” almost like programming. He wants to move from the question of whether one can be a committed Jew without choice to the question of what the status of choice itself is, and he shows how choice and repentance are the foundation for the fulfillment of commandments, not just another commandment within the count. From there he presents a view in which the value of growth and the process of repentance are the very heart of human existence and of the world, and he ends with educational implications: the main goal of education is to create a person who chooses, not just a person who observes.

Free choice versus determinism and materialism

The speaker argues that anyone who gives up free will in the Jewish context is forced to reinterpret basic assumptions and present broad parts of the tradition as excuses or fictions, and he sees that as an indication that there is no reason to adopt determinism unless one is compelled to. He adds that materialism makes belief in the Holy One, blessed be He, difficult in the first place, and even if one makes an exception for Him, it is still hard to explain why one should not also make an exception for a non-material dimension in the human being. He lists many halakhic components that depend on decision and intention, such as intent, acting without awareness, inadvertent sin, and intent in legal acquisitions, and concludes that determinism leaves us with a hollow system of commandments that does not really address the person.

Why there is no commandment to choose

The speaker mentions the verse “and you shall choose life,” and argues that Maimonides and the other enumerators of the commandments do not count this as a positive commandment, because choice is a precondition for the very possibility of command and commandment observance. He brings Rabbi Chaim Vital’s question about why we were not commanded to improve our character traits, and explains that work on one’s character is the foundation of your being a commanded person, so there is no point in commanding it to someone who does not see himself as someone who is supposed to perfect himself. He distinguishes between things that do not enter Jewish law because they are a “bonus,” beyond the strict line of the law, and things that do not enter because they are too fundamental—and among them is the obligation to choose, just as the obligation to observe commandments is itself not inserted into the system of commandments.

The contradiction in Maimonides about the commandment of repentance, and the dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides

The speaker presents a contradiction in Maimonides between Sefer HaMitzvot, where the wording of the commandment is that when the sinner repents of his sin he should confess, and the opening of the laws of repentance in the Mishneh Torah, where Maimonides formulates one positive commandment: “that the sinner should repent of his sin and confess.” He brings the question of the Minchat Chinukh: is there a commandment to repent, or only a commandment governing the way repentance is to be done once it happens? He connects this to the dispute about the verse “and you shall return unto the Lord your God,” which according to Maimonides is a promise that the Jewish people will in the future repent, and according to Nachmanides is an instruction and a commandment.

Maimonides’ criterion for counting the commandments, and rabbinic teachings

The speaker explains that according to Maimonides, no commandment is counted among the commandments unless there is an explicit command in the Torah, and even a commandment derived through the thirteen hermeneutic principles is not considered Torah-level in the sense relevant to counting the commandments, according to the Second Principle. He describes Maimonides’ position that a law given to Moses at Sinai is classed as “rabbinic teachings” because it is not written in the Torah, and he presents the dispute among Maimonides’ commentators as to whether he means it is not Torah-level, or whether it is merely called that because it is not explicit. He argues that according to his own understanding, and according to Nachmanides’ understanding of Maimonides, things derived from exposition are not considered a prohibition for the purpose of lashes, and from this it follows that the issue has halakhic implications, not merely technical ones relating to the counting of the commandments.

Resolving the contradiction: Sefer HaMitzvot versus the Mishneh Torah, and the foundation of repentance

The speaker argues that Maimonides cannot count the commandment of repentance in Sefer HaMitzvot because according to his interpretation there is no verse commanding it, whereas in the Mishneh Torah Maimonides includes everything one must actually do, even if its source is not an explicit verse, just as he includes the laws of Hanukkah and Purim, which are rabbinic. He explains that in the Mishneh Torah Maimonides teaches that there is an obligation to return and confess, but in Sefer HaMitzvot he counts only confession, which is derived from the verse “and they shall confess their sin.” He answers the question of why the Torah does not command repentance by saying that repentance is a condition for your being commanded, like choice and character development, and therefore it is not counted as one commandment among the 613.

Choice as the foundation in the laws of repentance, and the difficulty posed by the commandment of faith

The speaker notes that Maimonides devotes two chapters in the laws of repentance to the details of choice, chapters 5–6, and writes that this is “a fundamental principle on which the entire Torah depends,” and he sees this as strengthening the claim that choice is too foundational to be counted as a commandment. He comments on the difficulty in Maimonides’ counting faith as a commandment, since faith too seems like a precondition for command, and he notes that Maimonides’ commentators already raised this question; he also points out that Maimonides counts it among the six constant commandments, which shows that it is not just a declaration.

A response to the religious determinist and the claim that this empties everything of content

In conversation with participants, the speaker says that a determinist can observe commandments because, in the speaker’s view, in practice he does have choice even if he is unaware of it. But the determinist would claim that the Holy One, blessed be He, “uses” a person as a machine, and that what is perceived as command is really programming and influence, not an appeal to decision. The speaker emphasizes that this is a conception that empties the whole system of meaning, and that if one disagrees with Maimonides because of new scientific information that can be understood—but the price is a fundamental change in the entire system of meaning.

Rabbi Kook: the perfection of becoming, and why a penitent is preferable to a completely righteous person

The speaker cites Rabbi Kook in Orot HaKodesh, part two, on perfection and becoming, according to which the process of improvement is not just a means of reaching a more corrected state, but is itself a value and a kind of perfection. Based on that, he explains the saying of the Sages that a penitent is preferable to a completely righteous person, because the penitent possesses the perfection of progress and process that the completely righteous person lacks. He addresses the claim that in any case even a completely righteous person undergoes a process, and explains that one can speak about typological figures even if they are not fully realized in practice, in order to clarify the meaning of repentance and becoming.

The secret of divine service as a higher need, the Ari, and “Give strength to God”

The speaker presents Rabbi Kook’s question: how can the Holy One, blessed be He, be perfect if He does not contain within Himself the perfection of becoming? He answers that this is why human beings were created as deficient creatures who can perfect themselves, and in doing so they bring into actuality something that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not bring into actuality by Himself. He connects this to “the secret of divine service as a higher need,” meaning that human service is for the need of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the sense that there are functions whose realization depends on creation. He cites from the Ari, of blessed memory, the verse “Give strength to God” as expressing the giving of strength to the Holy One, blessed be He, and also brings the idea that “there is no king without a people” as an illustration that without a world there is no realization of kingship.

The Book of Jonah, the kikayon plant, and the debate about repentance

The speaker analyzes the a fortiori argument at the end of the Book of Jonah about the kikayon plant and Nineveh, and suggests two possibilities: either Jonah really did have pity on the kikayon even though he had an interest in it, or Jonah acts out of self-interest and the Holy One, blessed be He, also acts out of “interest,” in the sense that He “needs” Nineveh. He presents the Book of Jonah as a principled debate in which Jonah does not accept the approach of bringing sinners back through repentance, and thinks that one who sinned deserves destruction. The a fortiori argument at the end comes to show that Jonah does not understand why human beings were created. He argues that the Holy One, blessed be He, “needs” precisely flawed creatures who sin and improve, and that penitents are at the center of the purpose—to the point of saying that a completely righteous person who does not grow is superfluous in relation to that goal, and that “repentance preceded the world” expresses the idea that the world was created for the sake of the possibility of repentance.

The significance of choice for the existence of the world and its metaphysical implications

The speaker concludes that the question of free will is not some side debate, but the question of whether human beings exist at all, or only sophisticated animals. It is also the key to understanding what the world was created for. He says that in a deterministic world, everything that happens is divine programming, so it is not clear why the creation of creatures and a system of commandments is needed at all, and this undermines the very possibility of meaning and repentance. He argues that choice is the foundation that explains both the existence of the world and the existence of Jewish law, and therefore it is more fundamental than any other discussion.

Religious education: success, failure, and the need to choose to keep the Sabbath

The speaker argues that the common educational assumption—according to which going secular is failure and remaining religious is success—is not sufficient, because there is a fundamental value in a person choosing his path. He says that a person who chooses a path that is not the accepted one still embodies a partial educational success in that he realizes the image of God within him, whereas a person who remains on the right path by inertia and without decision embodies a different kind of failure. He formulates the goal of education as creating a person who chooses to keep the Sabbath, not just a person who keeps the Sabbath, and argues that education is not training or programming but helping a person take shape as a choosing creature.

Consistency in choice, the figures of Esau and Jacob, and “How long will you keep limping between the two sides?”

The speaker brings a midrash about Rebecca, who thought she had one fetus that was at one moment drawn to a house of idol worship and at another to a study hall, and was reassured when she understood that there were two. He explains this to mean that it is preferable to have one righteous and one wicked than one person who never decides. He interprets Elijah’s words at Mount Carmel, “How long will you keep limping between the two sides?” in their plain sense, as a call to decide consistently, even if the decision is wrong, because the absence of decision is worse. He distinguishes between partial religiosity that is lived with awareness and decision, and “light religious” in the sense of just drifting along after comfort and habit without any actual decision.

Coercion in education, habit, and presenting importance versus the ultimate goal

The speaker agrees that there is a place for coercion at certain ages and within the educational process for the sake of habit and instilling a sense of importance, but he insists that the ultimate goal is to build the capacity for decision, not mechanical observance. He warns against using the idea of choice as a way to legitimize non-choice or just following convenience under the heading of “I chose,” and demands real, conscious choice. He concludes by saying that the series ends here and that the next topic will be announced on WhatsApp, and in the middle of the lecture he dedicates the words to the elevation of the soul of Reut Dayan, who passed away last night.

Last time I spoke about the meaning of repentance in the halakhic, Jewish, Torah context, and I tried to show that someone who… not repentance, choice, sorry. Someone who gives up the phase of free will in the Jewish context has to throw out several very, very fundamental aspects of our tradition, of our worldview. And I’m saying that this is always possible—meaning, if a person reaches that conclusion, then that’s his conclusion, and he has to start giving interpretations to all kinds of things—but I showed that, just as we saw over the course of the year in the general discussion about the issue of choice, here too the determinist has to squeeze himself into a very problematic corner. Meaning, he has to present a great many things that are basic givens as some kind of fiction, as something that isn’t really so, as lots of things that are a kind of excuse. And that itself, as I said at the end of the series, is itself an indication that if there’s no necessity, then there’s no reason to adopt such a view. So we saw the same thing in the context of the Jewish worldview. If you’re a materialist, then in principle you can’t even believe in the Holy One, blessed be He, so it’s absurd from the outset. But even if, say, for some reason you make an exception for Him, then I don’t know—why not make exceptions for other things too? If you already understand that there are things beyond matter, then why not assume that within the human being too there is a non-material element? But let’s say yes. Even so, there are many, many elements in Jewish law, there are many elements that you have to give up: all the matters of mental requirements regarding sin or commandment—intention, unintentional involvement, error, labor not needed for its own sake—no, labor not needed for its own sake maybe not—even intention in acquisitions, all kinds of things of that sort. And so in the end this leaves you with a very hollow system, just as happens with your relation to the world, not only to Judaism, if you’re a materialist. Basically the whole game is rigged. Nothing is really happening here. You tell yourself stories, but that’s not really what’s happening. And it’s a little strange that people choose this as though it’s the rational and basic view, and the burden of proof is on whoever thinks otherwise. There are many people for whom that’s the feeling. Anyway, that’s what we’ve seen so far. I want to finish this whole long series with a discussion about the meaning of choice in the Jewish context—but the meaning of choice, not whether it’s compatible to deny choice and still be a believing or committed Jew, but what it means. What is this power to choose? What is its status? So here I want to note a few things, some of which I’ve already dealt with on previous occasions. These classes are in principle the Ra’anana classes, but the participants here are not all from the group that was in Ra’anana, so each person either heard this or didn’t hear it, and in what context. So I’ll go over a few points here that, as I said, I’ve already touched on in part on earlier occasions. The first point I want to deal with is a contradiction in Maimonides regarding the commandment of repentance, and maybe even before that, the commandment to choose. There is a verse in the Torah that says, “And you shall choose life.” Maimonides does not count that as a positive commandment. I don’t think there is anyone—I don’t know anyone among the enumerators of the commandments—who counts it as a positive commandment. The question is why. At first glance it seems there’s nothing to count the act of choosing as a positive commandment, because choice is the basis for the very possibility of being commanded at all, of fulfilling commandments and the like. If you are not a person who chooses, then there’s nothing to discuss with you. So what am I going to command you—grace after meals, or eating pork, or keeping the Sabbath, or whatever? You’re not a person who chooses, and the command is directed at people who choose. Yes, like the well-known question of Rabbi Chaim Vital, who asks why the Holy One, blessed be He… or whatever it may be—you have nothing, you are not a choosing person. And the command is directed at people who choose. Yes, like the well-known difficulty of Rabbi Chaim Vital, who asks why the Holy One, blessed be He, did not command character refinement. So Rabbi Chaim Vital says that the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks to human beings, but if you’re not a human being, there’s nothing to talk to you about. That’s basically his claim. In other words, what he means is that character refinement, or the fact that a person understands that he has to become a more complete person, that he has to correct himself—that is the infrastructure of your being commanded. If you don’t understand that without a command, then that command too can’t help; there’s nothing to command you, since all these commandments are meant in one way or another to perfect us, to perfect the world. Someone who doesn’t start from the point of view that his role is to perfect himself—what’s the point of commanding him? So this is actually a fairly similar principle to what I said earlier about choice. There are things we are not commanded in because they are the foundation of the very possibility of being commanded. There are two—I’d say two types of things that do not enter the system of commandments, into Jewish law. One type is things that are not fundamental enough. They’re some kind of bonus—if someone wants to be especially righteous or something like that, beyond the letter of the law, then he does it, but it’s not obligatory. It’s not some standard that everyone has to meet. That’s one side. The second type is things that do not enter the system of commandments because they are too fundamental. Not because they are not fundamental enough—they are too fundamental. There are things you can’t put into the system of commandments, because to turn the obligation to choose into one of the commandments is to diminish it. In other words, that would basically say: you can do without it, you can keep the other 613 commandments, but then you have neglected the positive commandment of “and you shall choose life.” That’s not how it works. If you don’t choose, then the whole system of commandments is irrelevant to you. Therefore there are certain things that are a condition of your being commanded at all and obligated in commandments and able to fulfill commandments, and there is no point in putting them into the system of commandments—just as we would not put into the system of commandments the obligation to keep commandments. The obligation to keep commandments is not itself inside the system of commandments. Why? Again, the same principle. Or even belief, which according to Maimonides does enter—there too it really requires serious analysis, and many have pointed out: why put that in? If you don’t believe, then there’s nothing to command you. Belief too is a foundational condition in order to begin commanding you, so why include belief itself in the count of commandments? So there is a whole series of things that do not enter the system of commandments because they are too foundational, and not because they are insufficiently basic or insufficiently foundational. In this context there is a contradiction that I’ve also pointed out in the past in Maimonides’ rulings regarding repentance. On the one hand, Maimonides writes in Sefer HaMitzvot, positive commandment 73, that when the sinner repents of his sin, he should confess. That when you repent, when you return, then you should confess. This was part of the commandments dealing with bringing an offering: before you bring an offering you need basically to repent, to confess—an offering for a sin. That’s how Maimonides counts it in his enumeration of the commandments. In the Mishneh Torah, at the beginning of the Laws of Repentance, Maimonides writes that there is one positive commandment—because as always, at the beginning of such a collection of laws, he lists the commandments discussed in that collection—so in the collection dealing with the Laws of Repentance Maimonides writes at the start: “It contains one positive commandment, and it is that the sinner should return from his sin and confess.” Meaning, there is a commandment to return and confess. It’s one commandment with two details. There are many commandments like that, such as the four species, which is one commandment with four details. So here too there is one commandment with two details: to return and to confess. But in Sefer HaMitzvot it isn’t mentioned that way. In Sefer HaMitzvot it says that when the sinner returns from his sin, he should confess. So there it seems that there is no commandment to return; rather, if you return, you must do it in this way. Call it an existential positive commandment, or a definition of the concept of repentance, but there is no commandment—maybe a conditional commandment—there is no commandment to repent. That is in fact the difficulty raised by the Minchat Chinukh. The Minchat Chinukh claims that there is a contradiction in Maimonides: in Sefer HaMitzvot it seems there is no commandment to repent—that if you repent, you should confess, but there is no commandment to repent—and in the Mishneh Torah Maimonides writes that he should return and confess, not that when he returns he should confess, but that he should return and confess, meaning that he should return. Two things. So what is it? Is there a commandment to repent, or is there not a commandment to repent? The truth is that this is probably disputed between Maimonides and Nachmanides, because Maimonides in chapter 7 of the Laws of Repentance brings the verse “And you shall return to the Lord your God,” and he says, “The Torah has already promised that Israel will eventually repent, as it says, ‘And you shall return to the Lord your God,’” and so on. Meaning, Maimonides sees the verse “And you shall return to the Lord your God” as a promise of the Torah. The Torah promised that we would repent. Nachmanides on that verse says that it is a commandment. “And you shall return to the Lord your God” is a command. You must repent; there is a commandment to repent. In other words, he disagrees with Maimonides on the question of whether that verse commands us or not. And I think this is the basis for understanding the contradiction in Maimonides. Because when Maimonides counts in his enumeration of the commandments, when he counts a commandment, you can see in several places that he explains that into his enumeration of the commandments he will not include any commandment unless there is a command for it in the Torah. Meaning, there has to be a command in the Torah in order for a commandment to be counted in the enumeration. And more than that, Maimonides even says in the second root principle, that if there is a commandment learned from one of the thirteen hermeneutic principles, and it is not written explicitly but derived by interpretation, even that is not enough to make it a Torah-level commandment, to put it into the enumeration of the commandments, because it is not written in the Torah—it is only expounded from the Torah. In other words, Maimonides is even more extreme than what I described before: not only does he require that there be a source in the Torah, but that there be a source in the plain meaning of the Torah. If it is derived from the Torah, then it is not Torah-level, at least not in the full sense. Meaning, according to Maimonides there cannot be a commandment in the count of commandments unless there is a command for it in the Torah. A law given to Moses at Sinai? No, it won’t enter the count of commandments. A law given to Moses at Sinai, according to Maimonides, is “from the words of the scribes.” In several places he writes this independently of the second root principle; in the second root principle he only hints at it, but there are several places where he writes it explicitly. Now, “from the words of the scribes” of course does not mean that the Sages invented it—it is a law given to Moses at Sinai—but rather that it is not written in the Torah; instead, the scribes told us that there is such a commandment. But it isn’t written in the Torah. According to Maimonides, the criterion is what is written in the Torah. What is not written in the Torah is “from the words of the scribes.” But are these commandments—does that make them rabbinic, or can they still have Torah-level significance? That is a major dispute among the commentators on Maimonides. I understand Maimonides the way Nachmanides understood him: that he really meant it is not Torah-level. There are those—the Tashbetz, and after him almost everyone, almost all the commentators on Maimonides after the Tashbetz followed him—that Maimonides didn’t mean it literally. Meaning, of course it’s Torah-level; they only call it “from the words of the scribes” because it isn’t written in the Torah, but it’s not a halakhic statement. From a halakhic standpoint the legal status of these commandments is Torah-level. But Nachmanides understands it as a rabbinic commandment and therefore attacks Maimonides in his glosses to the second root principle, attacks Maimonides on this point. He says: what do you mean? The Talmud is full of the fact that it is Torah-level—that a doubt is treated stringently, and all sorts of things like that. In this sense, I understand Maimonides as meaning—there are many proofs for this, I once wrote half a book about it—that Maimonides really meant that it is not Torah-level. Now the term “from the words of the scribes” includes under it several different shades and also several different levels of stringency. There is ordinary rabbinic law—ordinances, decrees, and things like that—and here there is some sort of intermediate status, but it is not Torah-level. We won’t go into that right now. For example, according to Maimonides you do not receive lashes for it. Maimonides writes explicitly: something derived by interpretation is not a prohibition in the sense that one receives lashes for it. Meaning, this is not only a question of whether to include it in the count of commandments or not; it has legal ramifications. In any event, that is Maimonides’ criterion, or requirement, for what must exist in order for something to enter the count of commandments. Now according to this criterion it is clear that Maimonides cannot include the commandment of repentance in the count of commandments, because there is no verse commanding it. The verse “And you shall return to the Lord your God,” we saw that Maimonides interprets as a promise, not a command. If there is no verse commanding repentance, then according to Maimonides there cannot be a commandment to repent. So that explains why in Sefer HaMitzvot Maimonides writes that there is no commandment to repent. I claim that in the Mishneh Torah Maimonides includes—not that I claim it, it’s obvious—in the Mishneh Torah he includes all legal obligations: Torah-level, rabbinic, whether they have a verse or don’t have a verse, everything that needs to be done. Everything that needs to be done is supposed to appear in the Mishneh Torah, whether or not there is a verse. In the Mishneh Torah there are the laws of Hanukkah and Purim, an entire collection of laws—the laws of Hanukkah and Purim in Sefer Zemanim. Okay? How did that get in there? There’s no verse; it’s all rabbinic. Right, of course, because there are also rabbinic laws in the Mishneh Torah. In the Mishneh Torah Maimonides does not include only Torah laws; he includes everything that has to be done. My claim is that Maimonides certainly says one has to repent. That is completely clear from the Torah, from reason, from whatever you want—it is obvious that one must repent—but in the count of commandments it cannot enter because there is no verse for it. So in Sefer HaMitzvot Maimonides does not bring a commandment to repent, because there it cannot be included, but in the Mishneh Torah, when he lists everything that has to be done, then he says that the sinner should return from his sin and confess. Meaning, obviously, one must both return and confess. If you ask me in a law book what needs to be done—the answer is: one must both return and confess. It cannot be counted as a Torah commandment because there is no command for it. These are two entirely different things. That is why, true, he counts the commandments at the beginning of collections of laws, but in Hanukkah and Purim too he says there is one commandment from the words of the scribes, two commandments from the words of the scribes—Hanukkah and Purim—and then he counts them. So here he says there is one commandment, which is that he should return—that comes from reason or from the spirit of Scripture—and confess, which comes from the verse “and they shall confess their sin.” All right? So this contradiction between the Mishneh Torah and Sefer HaMitzvot stems simply from the difference in genre, from the difference in purpose. Sefer HaMitzvot counts all the Torah-level commandments that the Torah commands. There you cannot include the commandment to repent. In the Mishneh Torah Maimonides includes everything that has to be done, whatever its source, so there obviously he writes that there is also a commandment to return. One must return and confess because there is an obligation to return. Now the question that really arises from this is: why doesn’t the Torah command repentance? Fine, so the Torah doesn’t command it—but why not? Something so basic, so fundamental—why doesn’t the Torah command it? And the answer is like what I said earlier: there are things that don’t enter the count of commandments because they are too fundamental, too basic. The commandment to repent is, of course, part of my view of myself as someone who has to correct himself, right? Like character refinement, what we saw earlier. And if I don’t start from the point of view that this is in fact my goal—that my goal is to fulfill commandments—then there’s no point in commanding me anything. In other words, it is a condition of my being commanded. So in that sense, the commandment to repent is also a condition of my being commanded, and therefore it does not appear in the Torah as a commandment. The Torah does not command us this for exactly the same reason that it does not command us to refine our character. In this context it is worth noting that Maimonides does include this principle of choice—it definitely appears in the Mishneh Torah. Not in Sefer HaMitzvot, but in the Mishneh Torah yes. Two chapters in the Laws of Repentance are devoted to it, chapters 5 and 6. He says that it is a principle on which the entire Torah depends; that’s what Maimonides writes there. Which makes the question even stronger: so why don’t you count the commandment to choose if it is such a fundamental principle? And the answer is: because it is such a fundamental principle. Meaning, Maimonides brings this in the Laws of Repentance, the obligation to choose—or the obligation of choosing, not the commandment to choose—but not in Sefer HaMitzvot, exactly as we saw regarding repentance; the same is true of choice. And for the same reason, because basically to repent means to choose, or to return to being a chooser, if you like. That is the idea of repentance, and therefore such a thing cannot be commanded to us. It is something so fundamental that it cannot—and also need not—be commanded to us, because whoever doesn’t understand it on his own, a command won’t help him here either. So this shows us that… and why commandments like “And you shall love the Lord your God,” all sorts of things that are also super, super fundamental in faith—so not everything is supposed to be the same? No. First of all, I don’t know how fundamental in faith “And you shall love the Lord your God” is—that’s one thing. And second, I’m not talking about things that are fundamental in faith; I’m talking about things that cannot be commanded because they are the infrastructure of your being commanded. It’s fundamental in Jewish law, not fundamental in… and it is the thing without which Jewish law cannot exist, so you cannot put into Jewish law the obligation to keep Jewish law, or the requirements of your being a person who can be commanded at all. Yes, would there be in Jewish law that the laws do not address cats but only humans? There is no need to include that, because cats in any case can’t read it, and they also can’t keep it—they have no choice, and it’s irrelevant. The same here. To insert the obligation to choose into Jewish law is self-contradictory. If I don’t choose, then I will also choose not to keep that obligation. It’s like not believing, or believing. I gave earlier the example of the commandment to believe, except that here Maimonides really does count it—positive commandment 1—but that is already a major question. Many of his commentators already raised against him: how does he include that there? I once suspected that maybe it is only a declaration, not really a commandment, some kind of heading for Sefer HaMitzvot—positive commandment 1, to believe that there is a First Being and so on—but someone later showed me that this probably cannot be the explanation, because Maimonides includes this commandment as one of the six commandments that are fulfilled constantly. Which implies that he understands it not as a declaration, but as actually imposing some obligation on us to believe. Okay, fine, but that’s a discussion unrelated to me; in any case people ask this against Maimonides. Sorry, sorry—if the obligation to choose is a condition for fulfilling commandments, then how can the determinist really be a fulfiller of commandments at all? He doesn’t belong to that group in the first place. I think he can be a fulfiller of commandments because he does have choice. The fact that he isn’t aware that he has choice—he isn’t aware of it—but he has it. No, but what does he basically say—when that professor you talk about, I forgot his name, Volbovsky—what does he say about this? He doesn’t say—what does he say about the whole list I brought last time? There’s no… no, but this is really something basic that comes and says, sir, don’t even speak to me about commandments—you never entered that category at all. Right, he won’t accept that. He will claim that we are deterministic machines and the Holy One, blessed be He, uses us, not commands us. What is perceived by us as command, from His point of view is programming or influence, or I don’t know what you’d call it, but it doesn’t address our decision, yes? That’s how he interprets everything. I said—it empties everything of content. Okay, all of this statement, something so fundamental and everything—these are interpretations that I’m suggesting here. You can say: that’s not written in Maimonides. Maimonides saying that choice is the infrastructure of all this, I brought that last time. On this point he probably won’t accept these statements of Maimonides. Fine, it is allowed to disagree with Maimonides if you don’t agree with him, especially if there is scientific information to which Maimonides was not exposed. But I’m saying: this is really to empty the whole system of content, not just to disagree with Maimonides. Why? What does he say about that? What does he say to the argument that it empties it of content? After all, according to him too, what there is is emptied of content. Yes, I understand, but come on—the assumption is that most researchers and philosophers are determinists or… I don’t know, someone already asked me this in the past. I haven’t done statistics. There was such a trend in recent years, though my impression is that maybe it has weakened somewhat, I don’t really know lately, but these are just impressions—I really didn’t do a survey, I don’t know. I think one has to understand: if there are people—the assumption is that they are smart—there must be some reason, even if I disagree with it; it’s worth understanding it. Fine, like HaGashash HaHiver sing, everyone’s smart, everyone. What can I do? There are many smart people who say things I don’t agree with. Right, I tried to think, I tried to understand—I don’t agree. If you want to hear what they say, you need to ask them. I’m sure they’ll defend themselves better than I can defend them, because I did not accept the defenses that I heard. You have to ask them. Okay, so that’s about the centrality of the topic of choice. I want to deepen this one more step, and here too this is something I once talked about. Rav Kook in Orot HaKodesh, part two, talks about perfection and self-perfecting, and he says that one of the human perfections is your being in the process of perfecting yourself. Meaning, the fact that you improve is not only—or the process of improvement does not have as its sole purpose reaching a more improved state. It is not merely a means. Rather, the process of improvement has value in itself. It is not only a means to be in a more improved state; the process itself is itself a perfection, itself a value. A person who advances has the advantage of, first, the fact that he is advancing, and second, that after the advance he will also be better. These are two things. In this sense you can understand, for example, what the Sages say—that a penitent is preferable to a completely righteous person. On the face of it, this is a strange thing, because a penitent, at most, say after he has fully repented and corrected all his ways and erased all his sins and everything, then he has reached the level of a completely righteous person. How can it be that a penitent is greater than a completely righteous person? What could possibly be greater than a completely righteous person, greater than the maximum possible, more than a hundred percent? What could there be? So the claim is that a penitent has a certain perfection that the completely righteous person does not have. And that is his being one who improves, one who perfects himself. He is a penitent; he went through a path, he advanced. And this advancement is not only a means to become completely righteous—say that he became completely righteous after finishing his process of repentance—but the advancement itself has value. And that is his advantage over the completely righteous person. He has an advantage in that the completely righteous person did not undergo that improvement, and the penitent did. So Rav Kook asks—it’s a bit of a theological pilpul, but I think it isn’t mere pilpul; it has a lot, a lot of depth—he asks: how can it be that the Holy One, blessed be He, is perfect or complete, but this perfection of being one who perfects Himself cannot possibly apply to Him? Because if He is perfect, then He has no way to improve. After all, He is already perfect. So if He has no way to improve, then He is not improving, and if He is not improving, then one of the perfections is missing from Him—because being one who improves is itself a perfection. So it turns out that He is not actually perfect; He is not complete. That is the question he asks. And what he answers is that this is basically why we were created. We, as lacking creatures who can perfect ourselves, who can improve, rise in spiritual levels or however you want to call it—we were created in order to actualize something that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot. He cannot improve Himself, so He created us as lacking and flawed creatures who can improve. And in effect, this perfection of the Holy One, blessed be He, is achieved through us. That’s what he claims. And this is what he calls there—this is already the language of earlier authorities—“the secret that service is for the need above.” Yes, when people use the phrase “service for the need above,” they often precede it with the word “secret.” Why? Because “service for the need above” means that the service we do is for the sake of the Holy One, blessed be He. The Holy One, blessed be He, needs us. Meaning, we do something that He cannot do Himself; we do it for Him. And in this matter, yes, theologically it is a bit hard to hear such a thing. After all, the Holy One, blessed be He, is all-powerful, able to do everything—how can it be that there is something we can do and He cannot do, that He needs us in order for it to be carried out? That is why they say: this is the secret that service is for the need above. Yes, it is some kind of secret—it exists, but one has to be careful not to say it, because it will confuse people. People think that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not need us in any way, but that is not true. There are things for which He does need us, and that is the secret that service is for the need above. The Ari of blessed memory writes about this—he brings the verse “Ascribe strength to God.” What does “ascribe strength to God” mean? That we give strength to the Holy One, blessed be He. Meaning that without us, there would basically be something lacking for Him, something He could not do or that was lacking for Him, and we complete that for Him. Yes, the Ari of blessed memory at the beginning of Etz Chaim writes: why was the world created? In order to bring from potential to actual the names of the Holy One, blessed be He. In this sense, yes, as the Sages say, there is no king without a people. Meaning, if you have no people, you cannot be a king. So here, for example, is another case where the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot be King of the world when there is no world. Meaning, if we do not exist, then something is missing in the functions of the Holy One, blessed be He, at least in their realization. As it says in Adon Olam: “Master of the world, who reigned before any creature was created.” So He was king before all creatures were created. Is there a king without a people? No—there is the potential of a king. But for that potential to emerge from potential into actuality, He has to have subjects. Without subjects there is no king. And therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, actually created us so that we would complete, or actualize, various functions that He Himself cannot actualize. I want to suggest maybe something else, because what you’re saying now is also indeed a bit hard to grasp. The completely righteous person also undergoes a process of perfection until he reaches being completely righteous; it’s just that maybe there is a gap or difference between the effort invested by a penitent and the effort invested by the completely righteous person. They both undergo a process of perfection. And therefore I’m saying that as far as the Holy One, blessed be He, is concerned, He doesn’t need to undergo a process of perfection. He created us with a certain flaw, in that we are not complete. Now we undergo a process of perfection. It’s not because the Holy One, blessed be He, lacks some trait now; rather, there is a process of getting to perfection, but that does not reduce anything further in Him. After all, we don’t come and say that if the Holy One, blessed be He, doesn’t fulfill this commandment then He isn’t complete. He doesn’t need to fulfill commandments. So He isn’t complete? There is a Midrash of the Sages that the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills everything—that He puts on tefillin and fulfills all the… I don’t see Him in my imagination putting on tefillin. Right, no, obviously that’s Midrash, aggadic Midrash. The claim is that whatever is achieved by putting on tefillin, the Holy One, blessed be He, also has that. No, but I’m saying that improvement… just as the angels fulfilled the Torah before it came down and was given to Moses our teacher. So did the angels put on tefillin, honor parents, and keep the Sabbath—did they not do labor? The claim is only that there are certain spiritual perfections achieved through these commandments that also exist among the angels or in the Holy One, blessed be He. But I’m saying that improvement does not have to be a value in itself in order to solve the problem of the completely righteous person. No, so I’m saying that maybe you disagree with Rav Kook, but first let’s try to understand what Rav Kook is saying. Rav Kook’s claim is that self-perfecting is one of the perfections. Now regarding what you described earlier—the completely righteous person, where you said that he too is self-perfecting—so that basically means that every completely righteous person is also a penitent. There’s no problem. Right, right. So fine—a penitent is still preferable to a completely righteous person. You’re just claiming that this figure of the completely righteous person is an idealized one. It doesn’t really exist. Because every completely righteous person in practice, every person who is completely righteous, is actually someone who underwent a process and became completely righteous. Or in other words: everyone is a penitent. That’s not a problem. You can compare between types that are not realistic types but typological ones. There are many times when we talk about people or figures who are not figures that actually manifest in the world, but are typological figures that we define in order to understand things that happen in the world. Say I want to understand the process of repentance, the meaning of repentance. I say: let’s think about someone who is completely righteous from birth. He is always completely righteous, he has never fallen, never advanced, he is perfect. Suppose there is such a person. There isn’t such a person, but suppose there is. The claim is that the penitent is preferable to him. Okay? So this comparison can be made even if we don’t assume that there are actually completely righteous people in the pure sense in the world. Still, it is a useful comparison to explain the meaning of repentance, to explain the very point that self-perfecting is itself one of the perfections. Excuse me a second. Reut Dayan passed away last night. For the elevation of the soul… maybe the Torah was not given to the ministering angels because they do not have the deficiency. I didn’t understand? The Torah was not given to the ministering angels because they do not have the deficiency. Right, exactly. The whole bringing down of the Torah from the angels to human beings is because they were looking for flawed creatures who could improve. That is exactly Rav Kook’s claim. My wife just came in now—she asked me, Reut Dayan was a good friend of hers in recent years, she passed away last night, so she asked that I dedicate this class to the elevation of her soul. Well, I don’t know what that means or whether it helps, but inshallah. In any case, back to our topic: Rav Kook’s claim is basically that the whole idea of the giving of the Torah, or of our creation, is specifically because we are flawed creatures and can be repaired. And in that sense we can actualize something that the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself cannot actualize, and that is why we were created. I once brought in this context—from the Book of Jonah, at the end of the Book of Jonah—this strange a fortiori argument there about the kikayon, the gourd. The Holy One, blessed be He, provides him with a gourd, and then sends a worm and an east wind and the gourd dries up and withers. Then Jonah asks to die, and the Holy One, blessed be He, asks him, “Are you so deeply grieved over the gourd?” and he says, “I am deeply grieved, even to death.” Then the Holy One, blessed be He, says to him, “You pitied the gourd, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow—and shall I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are myriads of people and much cattle?” So this kind of a fortiori argument: you pitied the gourd, and I should not pity Nineveh? Now what kind of a fortiori argument is that? Cynics immediately ask—and that’s not cynicism, that’s apparently the truth. Jonah did not pity the gourd; he pitied himself. Yes, it’s like the fisherman—if he loves fish, why does he catch them? Once again, HaGashash. If the fisherman loves fish, why does he catch them? He loves himself, not the fish. In other words, Jonah did not pity the gourd. Jonah needed the gourd because it gave him shade, so really he did not pity the gourd, he pitied himself. So what kind of a fortiori argument is this—from Jonah and the gourd to the Holy One, blessed be He, and Nineveh? Now I said that this question can be answered in two ways. One way has practical implications for these days—not in this class, but for these days; maybe for these days too, but to a great extent also for these days—and that is: on what basis do we assume that Jonah did not pity the gourd? Because it is obvious to us that if Jonah has an interest in the gourd giving him shade, then apparently what broke his heart was that he was worried about himself, not about the gourd. But that is a criminal mindset. Who told you that Jonah didn’t also genuinely pity the gourd? Besides the fact that he needed the gourd, he also pitied it—maybe there were two things? Meaning, the fact that a person has an interest—that’s why I said this is relevant to these days—the fact that a person has an interest does not necessarily mean that his actions were done only for the sake of that interest. Practical implications for all sorts of political interpretations. A politician who takes a step that will give him some political bonus, fine, that will fulfill some political interest of his—that still does not necessarily mean that this step was not taken also from pure motives. The fact that it also benefits me does not mean that I would not have done it even without that, because I truly think it is important. All right? I really have to jump in here and just say one word about the context. We are not saying that maybe he won’t act from pure motives. We are only saying that the existing potential, as a normal person with human traits, to act for his own interest—such a potential prevents a person from functioning in a high office. Let’s—once again, I’m not going to start, I’m not going to start arguing… I couldn’t restrain myself, but that’s okay. I’m not going to start arguing about Bibi now. On this point I’m like you. But I mean the interpretation itself—I’m making a general point. Obviously one should try to make sure that people don’t have interests, so that they won’t have an impulse to act for those interests. As policy, yes. But now I’m saying: once a person did an action, and the fact is that it brought him some value—does that necessarily mean the action was done for that value? No, not necessarily. It may have been done from pure motives even though it gave him some added value. In that sense, I think that also in Jonah’s case, maybe the Holy One, blessed be He, saw that in his heart he really did pity the gourd. The fact that the gourd gave him value still doesn’t mean he didn’t also really pity it. What does it mean to pity a gourd? What does it mean to pity a gourd? It’s plant life, not alive in the same sense. There—you know, it’s like the story about Rav Kook and Rabbi Aryeh Levin, when he picked a leaf and Rav Kook was terribly shocked. There is a kind of identification with nature—eco-ethics, if you will—such that you pity animals, you pity plants, you pity everything that exists in the world, not only human beings. Never mind, it’s with the… why did Moses our teacher not need to strike the Nile? Because the Nile had done him a favor—it hid him, according to the well-known Midrash. No, that is on his side. Gratitude is about the person, not about the Nile. Not toward the Nile—gratitude to the Nile is irrelevant. No, no, no—so what? There the explanation is that this is a trait in a person. Gratitude has to be a character trait in the person. Fine, so let him show gratitude to human beings. Why to rivers? The Nile does not need it; it’s irrelevant. So you can say it is meant to strengthen that trait in him. So here too I can say the same thing. In other words, Jonah’s compassion was so broad over all God’s works that even a gourd, which in fact does not feel, aroused compassion in him. It’s a shame—why kill it immediately when it was just born, after one night of existing? Anyway, that’s what the verse says there, so the burden of explanation is not on me in this context. In any case, one explanation basically says: no, it could be that Jonah really did pity the gourd sincerely. The fact that he had an interest does not necessarily mean he did not pity the gourd. And if so, then this a fortiori argument returns to its proper place. The Holy One, blessed be He, pities Nineveh, and Jonah pitied the gourd, and He says to him: if you pitied the gourd, for which you did not labor and did not grow, which came in a night and perished in a night, and shall I not pity Nineveh, which has existed a long time? There are many people in it and much cattle, and so on. So it’s an excellent a fortiori argument. That’s one side. Here I changed the perception of Jonah. What is more relevant to us is changing the perception of the Holy One, blessed be He. Another possible explanation: Jonah really acted from self-interested motives. He did not pity the gourd; he pitied himself. But the Holy One, blessed be He, also did not pity Nineveh, but Himself. When the Holy One, blessed be He, says, “You did not pity the gourd”—the meaning is: after all, you need the gourd, and look how much you need it. Don’t you understand that I need Nineveh? All the more so I need Nineveh. After all, why would I have created it if I didn’t need it? I created Nineveh because I need it. So I too act from self-interested motives exactly like you. And once again, there is an a fortiori argument on the same plane. Either they are both altruists or they are both self-interested. So one can explain that Jonah was altruistic even though it doesn’t look that way, and one can say that the Holy One, blessed be He, is self-interested even though that too does not seem so. In both cases, you are comparing the lesser to the greater—you build the a fortiori argument and place it on equal foundations. And indeed, when you look at the context in the Book of Jonah, then in the Book of Jonah—actually I once saw this, I think, in an article by Aviezer, but I think there are other commentators who say this—Natan Aviezer, the physicist. I once saw an article he wrote on the Book of Jonah. Later I tried to find it again and didn’t manage, but I once saw it in his article. The claim is that there was an argument between Jonah and the Holy One, blessed be He. At the beginning of the book the Holy One, blessed be He, sent him to Nineveh to bring them to repentance. And Jonah the prophet runs away, does not want to go. What’s the idea there? This flight describes some fundamental argument. Jonah the prophet does not accept the approach that the Holy One, blessed be He, is trying to impose on him. He says: if they sinned, wipe them out. Why go there and bring them to repentance and all that? If they sinned—“wisdom was asked: what is the law of the sinner? That he should die,” as the Sages expound. In principle, one who sins has no right to exist. And this is Jonah’s argument with the Holy One, blessed be He, and that is why he runs away, and so on. If you look at the book through that prism, then the a fortiori argument that ends the book, it seems to me, really brings it to some kind of crescendo—brings it to a peak—where the Holy One, blessed be He, basically says to Jonah: you don’t understand the whole story. This a fortiori argument basically says to Jonah: if you think that someone who sins should die, then you don’t understand why you and human beings in general were created. You were created only because you are sinning creatures who can repent and improve. After all, that’s why I brought you into the world. Because I cannot do that self-improvement. I need flawed creatures like you, who after they sin repent and improve back again. And therefore if you tell me that I should wipe out every person who has repented, you have no idea what you’re talking about. I would need to wipe out a person who never sinned. The completely righteous person Ezra spoke of before, who doesn’t really exist—if he did exist, he would need to be wiped out, because he is superfluous, a superfluous creature. Perfection the Holy One, blessed be He, has even better without him, from Himself. The reason He needs us is specifically because of our lack of perfection. Because we are flawed creatures who can perfect themselves. So here the Holy One, blessed be He, says to Jonah: you turned the bowl upside down. It is precisely penitents that I need. I need those people who sinned so that they can repent. That is why I am sending you to them. Because that is why this whole enterprise was created. I do not need completely righteous people. What interest is that? I am more completely righteous than all of them. That is not what I lack. The relation of the Holy One, blessed be He, to completely righteous people is an altruistic relation. He does it for their sake—if they exist at all, I don’t know if they exist. The relation of the Holy One, blessed be He, to sinful, flawed human beings who improve—yes—that is a self-interested relation, not an altruistic one. He needs us. Because He cannot do it. He created us so that we would do it for Him. And this, following the argument between the Holy One, blessed be He, and Jonah—this is the a fortiori argument at the end of the book. That is exactly what it comes to say to Jonah. Can you hear me now? Now yes. Okay, I don’t know what happened here. In short, you did hear what I said about Jonah’s a fortiori argument. In other words, Jonah—Jonah—the a fortiori argument basically comes to explain to Jonah the point around which the whole book’s argument revolves: that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not need completely righteous people. He is the greatest completely righteous one. The Holy One, blessed be He, needs people who sin and repent, because then they can perfect themselves in a way He cannot do, and that is why they are here. Creatures who have never sinned, creatures who are completely righteous, are superfluous creatures. And so this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, is trying to illustrate to Jonah through the a fortiori argument of the gourd: that you basically pity the gourd because you need it; I too pity Nineveh because I need it. And I need specifically Nineveh, not you. I need Nineveh because Nineveh consists of creatures who improve, and that is indeed what happened there in the end. And by the way, if Jonah represents the completely righteous person, then Jonah’s justification for his own existence is in the fact that he goes to Nineveh and brings them back in repentance, thereby contributing to there being improvement in the world. So in that sense, even though he is completely righteous, he has the ability to contribute to the world’s processes of improvement. And in that sense maybe the people of Nineveh provide the justification for Jonah’s existence. Although he is seemingly the completely righteous person who does not sin—and then, in an upside-down way, he did sin, because he fled from the Holy One, blessed be He, and argued with Him—but it was an ideological sin: he did not agree with the worldview that the Holy One, blessed be He, was expressing. So the Holy One, blessed be He, answers him in an upside-down way and says to him: your right to exist as a completely righteous person comes from them, because they are creatures who sin and repent. So if you can contribute to there being improvement in the world, that is what gives meaning to your own existence, not the fact that you are completely righteous. Don’t argue with me over whether to forgive sinners and accept their repentance or not. That is the whole point. Repentance preceded the world. What the Sages say, that repentance preceded the world—that is the whole idea. What does it mean that repentance preceded the world? The whole world was created so that there would be penitents in it, because otherwise who needs the world? That is the plan, the whole story—for this the whole story was created. Which sheds further light on why the Torah, and Maimonides following what he understands in the Torah, do not count the commandment to repent—because it is the infrastructure of the whole system of commandments, of the creation of the world altogether. There is no point in counting it as a commandment—or your being a chooser, because I said that basically repentance is your being a chooser. Being a chooser and repenting are the most fundamental things there are. Obviously they cannot be counted among the commandments. This is not one commandment among the 613. Now this is also what is said in the Midrash about Moses our teacher’s response when he ascended to heaven and the angels said: why bring the Torah down? He says to them: you have no evil inclination. Yes. No—the interesting question, I spoke about this in another context—the question that arises there is: what did the angels think in the first place? What did the angels do with the Torah? Why did they want the Torah to remain up there and not come down here? What did they think? Moses our teacher asked them a good question: do you have father and mother? Do you work on the six weekdays such that you need to rest on the Sabbath? Do you steal? What do you do with the Torah? On that, I once gave a series about the meaning of Torah—what Torah is—that Torah is not exactly these acts but expressions of spiritual principles. But yes, that is one aspect of the argument described there in the Midrash. And in general, the point that needs to be understood here is that I want to… basically I want to end this whole series here. We’re finishing here, so I think this is a good point on which to end it, because what we see here is that the argument over whether a human being has choice or does not have choice is not some scientific, philosophical, side issue, this or that. The question is whether there are human beings at all. In a deterministic world, a human being is a monkey—a monkey who perhaps knows how to perform tasks in a more sophisticated way, that’s all. There are no human beings in the world. There are more sophisticated animals. It is an entirely different world. The question of whether there is choice or there is no choice is not some side dispute; it is a dispute over the question what this world that is here is at all, and of course also why it was created. If the world is entirely deterministic, then it is really a major question—not that maybe we can understand why the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world; that’s a hard question. But here it seems there is almost no possibility of an answer at all, because if the world is deterministic, then basically everything the world does is what the Holy One, blessed be He, programmed it to do. So what is all this needed for? Let Him do it alone. Let Him do it Himself. A computer. Like a computer, yes. And what is that needed for? And if the Holy One, blessed be He, knows how to do it, then let Him do it Himself. We are superfluous here. We are a means—we are not even… and it’s not even clear a means to what. So leave the whole thing. In other words, it seems that choice is not some contingent aspect, something you can adopt or not adopt, a side matter, an issue one can debate or not. There is something so fundamental here that it is the infrastructure that explains why this whole world exists at all. To argue over whether we have free will is really to argue about something far, far more fundamental than any other argument that can be imagined. It is an argument over whether arguments can exist at all. In other words, it’s not only discussions—it is so fundamental that it is hard even to describe. In this matter I want to bring certain implications, and with this it really would be fitting to end this very, very long series. In the accepted educational approach, we are used to thinking that, say, a child or student or trainee who decides to abandon his religious commitment—to “go off the path,” as they call it—is an educational failure. That’s how people look at it in the religious world. I want to raise here another aspect, or even the opposite. In a certain sense, a person who chooses to act, chooses some path, even though I disagree with the path he chose—there is educational success in that. The man chose his path. By contrast, a person who goes on the right path but without choosing—there too there is a kind of failure. The path is of course correct, and I’m glad he is going on that path, but if he doesn’t do it out of his own decision, out of the fact that he chose that path, there is a kind of failure in that. So the picture is more complex than people usually think. Good thing we didn’t bring our sons to this class. Wait, I can’t hear anything. Good thing we didn’t bring the boys to the class. Why? Bring them. I think it’s very important that they hear this. Yes, yes. That’s exactly the point. I think it’s important to say this out loud too, not only to think it. It has to be said aloud, it is very important. In other words, we need to understand that we are here in order to choose. Not in order to keep the Sabbath, but in order to choose to keep the Sabbath. That is not the same thing. If someone kept the Sabbath not out of choice, or someone chooses—but chooses not to keep the Sabbath—neither of them is the ideal product of religious education. The ideal product should be someone who chooses the good path, or the correct path. Okay? But if someone does not choose, or if he chooses the wrong path, both are different kinds of failure. Which is preferable to which, I don’t know, but both are certain kinds of failure—partial failure or something like that. And therefore, in this sense, I’m not at all sure that the attitude—or more precisely, I am sure not—that the common attitude, as though someone who chose to leave the path is a failure and someone who remained on the path is a success—I disagree. I disagree. It depends on why it was done. If he left the path out of choice, there is success here—unfortunately partial success. I would have been happy for him also to choose the path that in my view is correct. But first of all, he chose. That is his image of God. First of all, he has to do what he was born for. He was born to choose, not to keep the Sabbath. To choose to keep the Sabbath. And someone who keeps the Sabbath not because he chose to, but because inertia is the most comfortable place, he doesn’t want to leave his comfort zone—there is very serious doubt how much value there is in that, because he didn’t choose it. So to what extent is this really an action that can be attributed to him? He was simply channeled into doing this thing, yes? It’s not an action he decided on. Maybe that’s the advantage of the penitent? What? Maybe that’s the advantage of the penitent? Not exactly, because the completely righteous person can absolutely be someone who chose his path; he just chooses all the time and doesn’t fail. He chooses correctly all the time. So it’s not the same thing. There is—look, a completely righteous person can certainly be a person who is deciding all the time, only he has decided correctly one hundred percent of the time. He has never failed. Okay? But Rabbi, I mean more the one who changed his path. That’s true, I said it earlier. But in this respect it still doesn’t mean that the completely righteous person is not a deciding person. He is a deciding person; he just always decides correctly. Earlier I spoke about the advantage of self-perfecting—that’s another story. After all, they say “Greater is one who is commanded and does than one who is not commanded and does.” Isn’t that connected? So therefore he does it because he is commanded, not because it makes sense or because he wants to, but because he is commanded to do it. Exactly. I wasn’t speaking about the logic of “I want.” No, in general I’m saying there are things that make sense too—even the Sabbath makes sense. Yes, but I’m not talking about logic; that’s a completely different question. No, but commandment means you do it because you are commanded to do it, not because maybe you want to—not everything that should be done. I do it because I am commanded, and I choose to do what I am commanded. Of course. That’s obvious; it has nothing to do with us at all. Of course. Everything you have to do is only because of the command. But you have to choose to do it because of the command. Someone who is programmed to fulfill commands does it because of the command, but he doesn’t do it at all, because it is not his choice. You need to decide to be committed to commands, not decide to do it because it is moral. That is another discussion. Within the world of decisions, you need to do it because of the command and not because reason necessitates it, as Maimonides writes in the Laws of Kings. That is within the world of decisions. But of course, of course it has to be done out of decision. And that is what I’m talking about, not the question of which decision. That’s another discussion. Look, in this matter there is the well-known joke that went around in Bnei Brak when I was there—I heard it more than once—about some janitor in a building, an Arab janitor in the building, who came to work during Ramadan, and they ask him, “Tell me, what, you’re not fasting? You have Ramadan now.” He says, “I’m Mizrahi.” Meaning the claim is that some kind of sloppy in-between easterner, yes, someone who doesn’t really decide but goes “religious lite.” Religious lite. What? Yes, religious lite. Religious lite not in the sense—there is religious lite in the sense that he may choose some things and not others, he chooses not to do some. That is not lite. That is partial religiosity but serious, not lite. He does what he decided, he just decided to do this and not that. I’m not saying that’s correct; I’m saying it’s serious religiosity. Religious lite means someone who doesn’t decide, but just does what suits him; he doesn’t really decide and examine his path and decide what he ought to do. That is liteness. The partialness of observance is not an indication of liteness. After all, someone could be Reform and keep, say, part of the commandments and not others, but do it all out of awareness and decision—that’s not lite. In my opinion, by the way, his status is much higher on the scale than an Orthodox lite person, because he decides on his path, as I said earlier. The fact that in my opinion he decided wrongly—there we are already entering another dispute, other questions: who determined that what was determined for us is the right thing, and so on and so on. Fine, that is another discussion, the main dispute—the question of what really are the things that should be done. Okay? That’s another discussion. It’s something else that doesn’t concern us. In any case, the point is that there is the… you know the story about Rebecca, where it says there—in the Midrash it says “And she went to inquire of the Lord,” yes? And they said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall be separated from within you; one people shall prevail over the other, and the elder shall serve the younger.” So the Midrash says there that when Rebecca went to houses of idol worship she felt that the baby in her womb wanted to come out, and when she went to study houses she also felt that he wanted to come out. She thought she had one, yes? In other words, what does this mean? What’s going on here? She doesn’t understand—is he drawn to houses of idol worship or to the study hall? “And she went to inquire of the Lord”—she went to the study hall of Shem and Ever. What did they tell her? “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples…” You have two—it’s not one. And then she calmed down. So they ask: why did she calm down? At first she thought she had one who was sometimes righteous and sometimes wicked, and now she understands she has two, one righteous and one wicked. Why is that more calming? So the answer is: better one righteous and one wicked than one in-betweener. Meaning, also the righteous one—and by the way, in my opinion this is not a joke; in my opinion it’s true. In other words, better one righteous and one wicked, in the sense of two people who choose their path. Even if one chooses evil and one chooses good, that is better than someone who does not choose. Someone who does not choose just goes after the crowd, like in HaGashash HaHiver: “I didn’t go with dad, I didn’t go with mom, I went with the crowd.” In other words: if the crowd is going here, the crowd goes into a study hall, then I also go into a study hall; if the crowd goes into houses of idol worship, I go into houses of idol worship. There are Elijah’s verses on Mount Carmel—we usually read this, I think, as a kind of rhetorical provocation. I read it literally, that Elijah the prophet says to the people: “How long will you keep hopping between two branches? If the Lord is God, follow Him; and if Baal, follow him.” Usually we understand that as if he is trying to push them into a corner in order to bring them back in repentance. I read it literally. Elijah the prophet is saying to them: why are you in-between? If you really believe in Baal, then follow him consistently. Don’t tell me now “The Lord is God” when fire comes out of heaven and all kinds of pyrotechnics make an impression on you. Decide where you stand. If Baal is God, then follow him. Do it properly. Be men, so to speak. Choose your path. Even if you choose evil, at least you choose. That is much better than someone who does not choose at all. Now these things are actually tied to the question of just how fundamental choice really is. Up to now I kept talking about the question whether we do or do not have choice. Today’s session I devoted to the question that, assuming we do have choice, this is not just one more statement among many other statements, or one more commandment to choose, another commandment among the 613 commandments. It is the infrastructure of the whole story. If it doesn’t exist, nothing exists. And this has many, many implications. For example, as someone commented earlier, it means that we need to say this to those we educate. Not hide it from them because maybe, God forbid, they’ll take it seriously. I want them to take it seriously. Even though there is a risk here, because it also gives them legitimacy to choose a different path. True. But if they decided to choose another path, then that is their choice. And if you wrap it up and hide it and cause them not to choose, it is not clear that you are producing a finer or more successful result. Therefore, of course, one needs to know when to say this and how to say it, and not at every age. At some stage one has to educate a person toward this and expose him to it gradually. I’m saying this because in the end a person can also use this as a kind of legitimacy not to choose—simply to go in the direction that is comfortable for him and say, “See, you said a person has to choose his path.” I mean really choose. Not go after whatever suits you and present it under the heading “I chose my path.” Because we know that this does not always happen out of choice. On the other hand, it also does not always happen without choice, just in order to permit yourself sexual prohibitions and all kinds of things of that sort. Sometimes a person really decides that this whole story doesn’t seem right to him. So he chooses another path. That should be respected. I think that is something—there is a kind of success in that. Despite all the sorrow that the path he chose is, in my view, not correct, I still see in it some kind of success. But it creates a very big challenge in education. It’s as though you’re saying: don’t educate toward commandment observance, educate toward the possibility of choosing. No—educate toward choosing commandment observance. You can fail in either of those two components, true. But you need to educate toward both. I am not saying not to educate toward commandment observance. Of course yes. Educate toward commandment observance out of choice. What does that mean for education? That education is not training or programming. Rather, education is an attempt to help a person crystallize into a choosing creature and not let his impulses carry him away—not the good inclination and not the evil inclination, by the way. Not even the good inclination. A person has to decide for himself not to let his impulses decide. We spoke about this when we discussed the topographical outline near the beginning—fairly near the beginning—of the series. Okay, here we are basically ending this long process. About the next topic, there will already be a message on WhatsApp. If anyone still wants to comment or ask, you can now. Thank you very much for the whole series, more power to the Rabbi. Thank you very much. I don’t see us educating our children to choose commandments—what obligation is there in the commandment? It depends on the choices you choose. Choose to be an educator toward choice. You’re taking a fatalistic, deterministic approach that says: this is what we are. We are also expected to choose. To choose our educational path. If someone chose, then it could be that he is not committed. Anyone may not see the obligation as the same thing in which you see obligation. But the question is, what does it mean that he doesn’t see it? If you weren’t persuaded by what I’m saying, I understand. But if what I’m saying is right, then seemingly we are obligated to do it this way. So in Haredi education this thing doesn’t really exist, then. Right, to a large extent. Maybe also in Hardal circles—more closed educational systems—this exists much less, right? Not zero or one, but yes. Maybe this fits very nicely with Rav Kook’s explanation of “You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” Apparently this is the most important verse, where if one did not have proper intention one needs to repeat it, and Ashrei is the most important psalm that we say. “You satisfy every living thing with desire.” Rav Kook explains this—so you don’t need the desire. “You satisfy every living thing with what it wants”—that’s obvious, that’s self-understood. What Rav Kook explains is that He bestows will upon us—that is choice—and that is deeper, indeed Hasidic. Fine, but that is the essence. The essence is in education, it’s… No, I agree with the vort, I agree with the conclusion of the vort, but that is the nature of vorts. Vorts usually are things whose conclusion I agree with, but the reasoning—well, it does not emerge from the place from which you are trying to extract it. I think the straightforward meaning of the verse is that He satisfies each one with what he needs, what he wants—food and so on; after all, for that you are thanking Him. In the simple explanation the word “desire” doesn’t fit in, but never mind, we’re not arguing. What I’m trying to say is: in educating a child, you don’t want merely to explain to him what to do and then he will do what you do in a programmed way. You want him to have the will to do what… that is the essence of will, and therefore forcing a child to do something—therefore religious coercion… I’m saying that forcing a child to do something certainly can have a place. I do not reject coercion at all. It is not education. Certainly, certainly at certain ages, but as part of some broader educational goal, one has to know how to maneuver between… It’s for habit. The point is that, after all, if in the end our goal is that the child will know, in his later choices, how to decide correctly—how will he do that? If he practices choices by my giving him free will so that he can practice choosing, because I won’t be beside him all the time—that is education. True, but in the second… I would not derive from this the conclusion that at every step and every stage in the child’s life one must give him free choice and not use coercion. One has to accustom him to choose, one has to educate him to choose, but there is also an element of coercion in education. I think that is perfectly fine. Sometimes even just in order to instill in him the importance and the fundamental nature of things, the moment you force a child to do something he understands that this is something very, very important. It is part of your ability to show him its importance. This is not… what I set up here is not the method of education but the goal of education. How to achieve that goal—that is a more complicated story that requires bigger tools. Okay, friends, I have to leave because I have something, so next time we’ll let you know on WhatsApp. More power to you, thank you, Sabbath peace. Sabbath peace, thank you very much, bye.