Answer 3
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- General Overview
- The contradiction in Maimonides and the status of repentance as a matter, not a commandment
- The laws of repentance as laws of serving God outside formal Jewish law
- The need to persuade people to repent, and how this differs from ordinary commandments
- Repentance as a process, not a result: a penitent is preferable to a completely righteous person
- Repentance out of love and repentance out of fear, the impossibility of erasing the past, and the transformation of sins
- “I will sin and repent” as the initial thought of righteous people, and the meaning of “they do not give him the opportunity”
- Action and process versus endpoint states: a bill of divorce, velocity, and defining repentance as a “derivative”
- Commandment, reward, and multiple prohibitions: “study and receive reward” and interest/usury
- Repentance and free choice: Elijah at Mount Carmel and the two demands of decision
- Rebecca, a “Mizrachi-type,” and Esau as an “apostate Jew”
- “Everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven”: determinism, free choice, and action without a cause
- A new creation and becoming like one’s Creator: the chains that begin with free choice
- Unintentional and intentional wrongdoing: providence, “one inn,” and “swept away without justice”
- Costs, reward and punishment, and the parable of elections in Syria, Switzerland, and Israel
- Sin, coercion, “a transgression for the sake of Heaven,” and someone compelled in his beliefs
Summary
General Overview
The text presents an approach that distinguishes between repentance as a commandment and repentance as a matter of fundamental importance, and concludes that there is no commandment to repent, but there is a necessary value in doing so. That is because repentance means returning to the point of free choice and to service for its own sake, where serving God is the basic value without competing motivations. It defines the laws of repentance in Maimonides as laws of serving God in the non-formal sense, where it is impossible to command a person to become the very kind of being who can be commanded. Therefore, the medieval authorities (Rishonim) persuade people to repent through ethics and ideas rather than by using the language of formal obligation. It develops the conception that repentance is mainly a psychological process of progress, not merely a result of erasing sins, and through this explains statements such as that a penitent is preferable to a completely righteous person, as well as distinctions like repentance out of love and repentance out of fear. It connects repentance to free choice as a point that is not deterministic, presents a value in the very fact that a person chooses even before he chooses the good, and illustrates this through Elijah at Mount Carmel and other examples, alongside an examination of determinism, providence, and responsibility in acts such as unintentional and intentional murder and being compelled in one’s beliefs.
The contradiction in Maimonides and the status of repentance as a matter, not a commandment
The text opens with a contradiction between Maimonides in Sefer HaMitzvot and in the Mishneh Torah on the question whether there is a commandment to repent, and concludes that there is no commandment to repent, but there is a reason and importance in doing so. It argues that there cannot be a commandment to repent, because repentance means returning to being a chooser and returning to the point of doing things “for their own sake,” and a person cannot be commanded regarding the very ability to be subject to command. It defines doing something for its own sake as doing what is true because it is true, and as a state in which serving God is the foundational value. It explains that sin generally stems from additional motivations, and therefore at that point a person is not serving God, while repentance returns him to a place where there are no additional motivations, and in principle there should not be sin there.
The laws of repentance as laws of serving God outside formal Jewish law
The text states that the laws of repentance are really laws of serving God, and therefore the subjects they contain deal with the non-formal aspect that does not fall under formal Jewish law. It gives examples such as love of God, which appears both in the laws of the foundations of the Torah and in the laws of repentance, as well as Torah study, service for its own sake, and the discussion of free choice in chapters 5 and 6. It explains that there cannot be a law commanding the observance of the law itself, or that the Holy One, blessed be He, would command the very act of serving Him, because if a person does not serve Him, he will not keep that command either. Therefore, these things necessarily lie outside formal Jewish law, and the root of them all is repentance itself.
The need to persuade people to repent, and how this differs from ordinary commandments
The text explains that the Holy One, blessed be He, opened the possibility of repentance, and a person is supposed to conclude on his own that he should repent, not because of a command but because he understands that it makes sense and that there is no other way. It argues that this is why Maimonides, Shaarei Teshuvah by Rabbeinu Yonah, and other medieval authorities (Rishonim) try to persuade us to repent by means of ethics, ideas, and descriptions of the virtues of a penitent, unlike commandments such as redeeming a firstborn donkey, reciting Grace after Meals, or honoring parents, regarding which one simply says, “You are obligated,” without persuasion. It raises the question why there is still a commandment regarding Grace after Meals with no such persuasion, and answers that the challenge involved in obeying in the case of Grace after Meals is small relative to repentance, which involves a broad change in the course of life. This strengthens the idea that repentance is not erasing one isolated sin but changing a person’s basic direction and inner state.
Repentance as a process, not a result: a penitent is preferable to a completely righteous person
The text presents an implication of this conception of repentance: its essence is the process rather than its result, even though the result is the cessation of sin. As a central indication, it cites the saying that a penitent is preferable to a completely righteous person, and asks how one can be “more than completely righteous” if after atonement he is apparently just completely righteous. It explains that the superiority comes from the value of the process itself, similar to the formulation “do what is true because it is true, and in the end good will come,” where the result comes at the end but is not the motive. The process of inner labor and progress is itself valuable even before the question of erasing sin.
Repentance out of love and repentance out of fear, the impossibility of erasing the past, and the transformation of sins
The text argues that one thing repentance does not do is completely erase the past, because “it is impossible to erase the past”; rather, the past can change in meaning. It connects this to the distinction between repentance out of love and repentance out of fear, where intentional sins become like unintentional ones or even become merits, and describes this as recoloring the past rather than deleting it. It explains that “sins become merits” because the process of repentance itself becomes a merit, and the sin becomes the circumstance that enables the person to become a penitent who possesses an advantage even over a completely righteous person.
“I will sin and repent” as the initial thought of righteous people, and the meaning of “they do not give him the opportunity”
The text cites, in the name of the Hasidim, an interpretation according to which the initial thought behind “I will sin and repent, I will sin and repent” is not an attempt to cut corners, but a desire to become a penitent and not merely a completely righteous person, in order to attain the higher closeness described by Maimonides regarding the penitent. It argues that the novelty is that one may not do this—or at least “they will not allow you to do it”—and raises the possibility of interpreting this either as a prohibition or simply as unwise, but concludes that the Sages do not recommend it. It explains that the phrase “they do not give him the opportunity” means that if they did give him the opportunity, it would in some sense be “okay,” even “more than okay,” from the standpoint of serving God, except that a person need not add more sins because “there is no righteous person on earth who does good and does not sin.” He adds that even Rabbi Kook says one must repent even without sins.
Action and process versus endpoint states: a bill of divorce, velocity, and defining repentance as a “derivative”
The text argues that people are mistaken when they think the role of processes is only to bring about states, and illustrates this with discussions among the medieval and later authorities on defining the valid giving of a bill of divorce around the phrase “and he shall place it in her hand,” and the difficulty of defining the act of giving merely through transfer of ownership or physical action. It explains that the great number of cases in the Talmud arises because “the act of giving is an act” that cannot be adequately defined only through the state before and after, just as it is wrong to define velocity only by changes in distance and time, since velocity exists even at a single instant. From this it applies the idea to repentance and argues that repentance is a psychological state and a potential that produces change. Therefore its value lies in the progress and in the “derivative of one’s spiritual level,” not in the level itself, to the point of saying that repenting from one level to another and from a higher level to yet another are fundamentally alike in terms of the value of the process, though he concedes that the destination also has value, just not as the definition of repentance.
Commandment, reward, and multiple prohibitions: “study and receive reward” and interest/usury
The text considers whether the view of repentance as a process can explain the dispute over whether there is a commandment to repent, and criticizes the idea that the commandment of repentance exists only in order to grant extra reward, similar to bringing children “in order to give reward to those who bring them,” arguing that there is no such thing as reward being given “for nothing.” It cites Rabbi Israel Salanter on the statement “the stubborn and rebellious son never was and never will be,” and interprets “study and receive reward” as a principle that Torah study is for the sake of learning and not only for practice, because there is a section that cannot actually be implemented and its study teaches the proper relationship to Torah. He brings the opposite example of interest and usury, which are written as two prohibitions “so that one violates two prohibitions,” and explains based on Rashi that there are two distinct problematic aspects—the biting of the borrower and the increase of the lender’s money—and therefore there are two floggings because there are two defects, just as one who eats a “flying creeping thing” receives five floggings because there are five distinct problems, not simply to “deter” or “multiply” for no reason. He asks why the Sabbath is stated many times without becoming multiple commandments, and explains that verbal repetition does not create multiple obligations when it adds no new content, unlike interest and usury where there is distinct content.
Repentance and free choice: Elijah at Mount Carmel and the two demands of decision
The text identifies repentance almost as a synonym for free choice, because repentance is a return to being one who chooses and decides regarding his values and actions. It interprets Elijah’s words at Mount Carmel, “How long will you keep limping between two opinions?” literally, as claiming that it is better to be a consistent worshiper of Baal than a person who does not decide and does not choose, and it presents a double demand: first of all to be a chooser, and then to choose the good. It states that there is value in the very fact that a person chooses even before the question of whether he chooses the good, and connects this to the verse “and you shall choose life” as guidance that is not a formal commandment, because “it is impossible to command someone to choose,” but rather a demand not to be a nonentity, and then also to choose life.
Rebecca, a “Mizrachi-type,” and Esau as an “apostate Jew”
The text brings a humorous story from Bnei Brak about Rebecca passing by houses of idolatry and study halls, and the fetus kicking at both, and after being told “two nations are in your womb” she calms down. It explains that the calm comes from the idea that “one wicked son and one righteous son is better than a Mizrachi-type,” where the definition is a person who “limps between two opinions” and does not decide. It argues that Esau is viewed by the Sages in the unusual category of an “apostate Jew,” and explains this as a symbol of one who chose evil, while mentioning Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner’s distinction between Jacob and Esau. It rejects a reading that attributes good and evil to a predetermined nature “from the womb,” and presents the rabbinic midrashim as literary descriptions emphasizing choice rather than inborn necessity.
“Everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven”: determinism, free choice, and action without a cause
The text interprets “everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven” as a description of natural determinism, in which most of reality—including human behavior insofar as it is not a value decision—is the result of natural law and causality, whereas fear of Heaven involves unconstrained choice. It describes a deterministic view according to which all events were already fixed at the Big Bang, and notes that the Ramchal says all of Kabbalah is meant to explain “how good and evil emerge” from a simple source, while presenting the problem of multiplicity as an even sharper question within determinism. It defines free choice as an action that has no cause—not random, but directed through deliberation—and argues that if one can derive from the data what a person will do, then there is no choice even if there is a feeling of choice, mentioning experiments in which brain stimulation causes movement and the person attributes it to his own decision. It distinguishes between a cause and an “influencing factor,” and argues that a book of ethics does not “produce” repentance, because if it did, the book would be the penitent rather than the person.
A new creation and becoming like one’s Creator: the chains that begin with free choice
The text argues that the only points at which something genuinely new begins in the world are points of free choice, where a person starts a new chain of cause and effect that is not a necessary continuation of the Big Bang. It explains that an act of choice, like giving charity, creates results in the world that continue as a causal chain, but the beginning of the chain lies in the person’s choice and therefore it is “now” and not merely at the beginning of the world. It concludes that one who chooses “becomes like his Creator” in that he creates a new reality out of nothing, in the sense that this reality would not have been necessitated by previous circumstances without him. From here comes the value of a person being a chooser even before he chooses the good, alongside a second level of value in choosing the good.
Unintentional and intentional wrongdoing: providence, “one inn,” and “swept away without justice”
The text cites the Talmud in Makkot about two men whom the Holy One, blessed be He, brings to one inn so that the one liable for death dies and the one liable for exile is exiled. It explains that this providence fits the case of unintentional killing, where the person did not decide to kill and is therefore an instrument within nature and providence, and from this follows that the victim “apparently deserved to die.” It distinguishes this from intentional murder, where a person can kill even someone who did not deserve to die, and cites the Talmud in Chagigah on “there are those swept away without justice” as an example of a person killed without deserving it, describing this as a power given to human beings through free choice to create realities that are not necessitated by the circumstances.
Costs, reward and punishment, and the parable of elections in Syria, Switzerland, and Israel
The text argues that saying God tells us to choose the good and punishes evil does not negate free choice but gives it meaning, because without costs there is no value to choice. It gives a parable of three kinds of political elections: in Syria there is apparent freedom without real options, in Switzerland there are options without significance because “there are no problems,” and in Israel there are both freedom and real costs and consequences that depend on the choice. It concludes that the system of constraints of good and evil, reward and punishment, is what gives value to freedom of choice, and distinguishes between valueless freedom and liberty that exists within constraints.
Sin, coercion, “a transgression for the sake of Heaven,” and someone compelled in his beliefs
The text argues that when a person truly thinks he is choosing the good and it turns out he was mistaken, this is similar to coercion, and gives the example of “he intended to eat lamb meat and pork came up in his hand” as a case that does not require repentance. It distinguishes this from “a transgression for the sake of Heaven,” arguing that a transgression for the sake of Heaven is a case where the act is actually right even though it goes against formal Jewish law, not a case of error. It raises the difficulty of imagining a full choice of evil and mentions the dispute between Socrates and Aristotle, then moves to discuss a person who is a genuine heretic, not dragged by desires but someone who “really thinks that way,” and states that this is a case of being “compelled in his mind.” It cites a famous responsum of the Radbaz about a Jew who thinks Moses our teacher is God and rules, “Leave him alone; he is compelled in his thinking,” and mentions the example of Rav Hillel, who thought “Israel has no messiah,” as context for this claim. It presents an opposing view identified in Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman’s Kovetz Ma’amarim, which obligates even distant people such as “the Eskimos” to search for the truth until they reach Baranovich, and explains that this rests on the assumption that “there is no coercion in matters of belief.” It compares this to Maimonides on the question of one’s share in the world to come, presents an interpretation according to which failure to arrive at correct beliefs is like failing to build one’s “share” rather than necessarily a punishment, and leaves the dispute unresolved while emphasizing that in any case there is no justification for punishing a person for what he is compelled into in his beliefs.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We talked a bit—we started from the contradiction in Maimonides between Sefer HaMitzvot and the Mishneh Torah, on the question of whether there is or is not a commandment to repent. The conclusion was that there is no commandment to repent; there is a reason, a value, in repenting. I tried to explain why there cannot be a commandment to repent. Because this commandment—its whole point, or repentance’s whole point—is really to return, to return to being a chooser, to being someone who decides his steps, to the point of doing things “for their own sake.” We talked a bit about the concept of doing something for its own sake: to do what is true because it is true. Or in other words, that serving God should be the foundational value, and not that there should be more fundamental values that serve as the explanation or basis for why I serve God—that this itself should be my basic value. A person who sins generally acts because of additional motivations beyond serving God. So in that place where he sinned, he was not really serving God, because there are additional motivations involved in what he is doing, and that is not the most basic thing, the root of everything. And repentance means returning to that place where there are no additional motivations, and once there are no additional motivations, then in principle there should not be any sin either. There are a few more complicated points here—not every time does a person do exactly what he decided to do—but for the moment I’m setting that aside. And then last time we saw, I spoke a bit about the nature of the laws of repentance, that really the laws of repentance are the laws of serving God. And therefore the collection of topics that appears in the laws of repentance is a collection of topics that all lie outside the framework of formal Jewish law. Even if there are things that in other places appear in formal Jewish law, they come back in the laws of repentance, and there the non-formal aspect is what is discussed. We talked about love of God, for example, which appears in the laws of the foundations of the Torah and in the laws of repentance. We talked about Torah study, about serving God for its own sake, all kinds of things that appear in the laws of repentance, about free choice, chapters 5 and 6. All the discussions in the laws of repentance—all of them deal with the introduction or foundation of serving God, which lies outside formal Jewish law. And it necessarily lies outside formal Jewish law, because there cannot be a law that commands me to observe the law, or that the Holy One, blessed be He, commands me to serve Him. If I’m not serving Him, then I also won’t keep that command itself. So it is clear that these things have to be somehow outside formal Jewish law, and the father of them all is repentance itself. Repentance itself is not really a commandment but a matter of fundamental importance. The Holy One, blessed be He, opened this door before us, this possibility of repentance, and from there we are supposed to draw the conclusion on our own—not because of a command telling us we must repent. That is why Maimonides, Shaarei Teshuvah by Rabbeinu Yonah, and other medieval authorities (Rishonim) try to persuade us to repent. Usually they don’t try to persuade us to redeem a firstborn donkey, or to recite Grace after Meals, or even all that much to honor parents. They just say: you are obligated, period; do what you’re obligated to do. But in the laws of repentance they start becoming conciliatory, speaking about ethics, about the ideas behind things, about the lofty qualities attained by the penitent. And the reason is that they need to persuade us to repent because there is no command. We are not doing this because of a command; they are supposed to make clear to us why repentance is necessary—because it makes sense, because there is no other way—and only for that reason are we supposed to do this repentance. So really the entire point of the laws of repentance, and certainly of repentance itself, is to return to that initial point where we choose to serve God. We choose to serve God because we want to serve God, not for any other reason.
[Speaker B] Why not say that the Sages try so hard to persuade us to repent because repentance—as the Rabbi said—touches every area of life? It’s basically changing the whole course of a person’s life.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. And with Grace after Meals, that’s not necessarily the case—you don’t need persuasion there. Why don’t you need persuasion? What, if someone doesn’t say Grace after Meals three times a day, that’s not such a…
[Speaker B] No, because there is a commandment in both cases. It’s just that the test you face here, when you decide whether or not to say the blessing, whether or not to listen to that command and recite it, is a tiny test compared to repentance, which is changing the whole, the whole…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Repentance too—it’s a big question how much it really is changing everything or not. Your assumption—and here I agree, it fits this whole line of thought—but then in any case you come back to this line of thought one way or another. You’re basically saying that repentance is not erasing this sin or erasing that sin, but changing some basic direction in your conduct. It’s an inner psychological change. Yes. But they… so the question now is whether there is a commandment to repent or not. You can debate it. But in Maimonides, where there is no commandment to repent, it seems to me a very compelling explanation. I’m not saying that someone who says there is a commandment to repent necessarily doesn’t understand repentance this way—I don’t know. Fine. So that was basically what we did until now. One of the implications of this whole thing is that we understand the process of repentance as something whose essence is really the process and not the result of the process. The result of the process is that I stop committing transgressions. But stopping transgressions is not what repentance is about. If it says you have to recite Grace after Meals, then of course you have to stop not reciting Grace after Meals. Meaning, that’s the point of commandments, each in its own place. The process of repentance is not the final state I eventually reach—not committing transgressions or observing commandments—but the progress toward that state, the inner change, that process that leads me in the direction of that state. Here I’m actually a little uncertain. There are several indications that show that what matters in repentance really is the process and not the result. Maybe the clearest indication is that saying presented in the Talmud as a dispute, but afterward everybody quotes one of the opinions: that a penitent is preferable to a completely righteous person. Why is a penitent preferable to a completely righteous person? A penitent is someone who sinned, repented, and his sin was atoned for. Right? So now he’s gone back to being completely righteous. How can there be something that is more than completely righteous? If there is something more than completely righteous, then he isn’t complete. How does the penitent become more than completely righteous? At most he goes back to being completely righteous. After sinning a bit, he goes back to being completely righteous. How does the penitent become more than a completely righteous person? The answer is of course—the answer, the answer, not the repentance—is that the process of repentance is not exhausted by erasing the sin so that I return to being completely righteous. That’s the result. As Maimonides says: do what is true because it is true, and in the end good will come. The result will come at the end, but you don’t do it for the result. You do what is true because it is true. You are in the process because the process itself has value, not because of the result it leads to. So therefore the penitent not only erased his sins and returned to being completely righteous—he also performed the act of moving toward that state, that inner labor, that process, that psychological change. And that itself has value, even before the question of whether in the end the sin is erased, or whether in the end the result is that the sin is erased. That’s true, but that is not the value of repentance. The value of repentance is a bonus—“and in the end good will come.” The value of repentance is really the doing of it. As they always say on the news, the meeting itself has value simply in its taking place. They always say that when meetings have no value at all, they explain to us that the value of the meeting lies in the very fact that it took place. And it also gives them a few more seconds to waste on the news talking about it. After all, what else are they going to talk about? So here too, the value of repentance is not only in the result we reach, but also in the very fact that I moved toward it, that I made the effort, that I went through the process. Repentance is a process; it is not arriving at a state. The value of repenting is not because afterward I erase all the sins and become completely righteous. No. Even if by chance I erased nothing at all, there is value in the fact that I did the inner work. This is one of the reasons why sins—so someone who sins unintentionally, how does that work there? “His sins become merits”—how does that work there? Not someone who sins unintentionally—in repentance out of love and repentance out of fear, right. In repentance out of love and repentance out of fear, where the question is whether intentional sins become like unintentional sins, or become merits. One thing does not happen: they are not erased. Either they turn into merits or they become unintentional sins, but to be erased—no. You can’t erase the past. The past happened. All you can do is—what? Recolor it. Either it becomes like unintentional sins, meaning you get leniency—well, it’s not a full transgression, it’s a lighter transgression, an unintentional one instead of an intentional one. Or it becomes an actual springboard—it turns into merits. How do sins turn into merits? Do you know how? Because what happened when I erased the sin? Then I became completely righteous, right? But it didn’t turn into merits—the transgression was erased. But if a penitent is preferable to a completely righteous person, what does that mean? It means that this very process of erasing sins is itself of value; it is a merit. That sin caused me to become more than completely righteous. Not only was the transgression erased, but I also gained a merit—I repented. It’s not that the transgression turned into a merit, but that the transgression became the circumstance that made it possible for me now to become a penitent; and that means I will also have a merit, not only that the sin was erased. That’s why I’m preferable to a completely righteous person. By the way, this is what the Hasidim say—though when the Hasidim say it, it’s probably also true—that someone who says, “I will sin and repent, I will sin and repent,” they do not give him the opportunity to repent. What’s the initial thought behind “I will sin and repent”? What’s the idea of “I will sin and repent”? Usually we understand that as someone trying to cut corners: he’ll sin, but it’s okay, afterward he’ll repent and go back to being completely righteous, everything will be fine. No—what are you talking about? That’s the initial thought of righteous people. They want to be penitents, not just completely righteous people. How will he become a penitent? He’ll sin and repent, and then he’ll be far more than completely righteous. There’s some initial thought there about making rectifications—yes, going down to gather all the sparks from low places and becoming a penitent who is preferable to a completely righteous person. So the real initial thought of “I will sin and repent” is this, and the great novelty is that it is forbidden to do that. It is forbidden—or at least they won’t let you do it, so it’s not worth it. The question is whether to understand this as forbidden or just as not worthwhile. But practically speaking, the Sages apparently do not recommend doing this. In any case, the point is: what does it mean that “they do not give him the opportunity” to repent—and if they did give him the opportunity, then it would be okay? It would be okay? “I will sin and repent”? Yes, apparently so, only you should know that they won’t give you the chance. Why is it okay? It’s okay—it’s even more than okay—because your initial thought is that you’re doing it out of a goal of serving God. You want to be a penitent too, not just completely righteous. You won’t have that special quality as a completely righteous person. How will you also acquire that quality? How will you get as close as possible to the Holy One, blessed be He? Yesterday he was separated and distant, and today he is—what Maimonides writes about the penitent. How will you get to be that? You have to sin and repent. Fine. But don’t worry—“there is no righteous person on earth who does good and does not sin.” Everyone, even without planning, probably needs to repent somewhere. Rabbi Kook, I think, says that one needs to repent even without sins. Never mind. But even in the ordinary conceptions, you need to repent for the sins you did commit. Don’t add to them—that is, do not add more sins beyond the ones you already have. But this initial thought of “I will sin and repent”—what does it tell us? It tells us that there is value in the process. The process does not merely erase and return you to the state you were in before the sin. This process advances you beyond what you were before. It not only erases the sin, but the very fact that you repented gives you an added level. By the way, I won’t go into it here, but this is an interesting philosophical question. People very often make this mistake and think that the role of processes is to bring about states. I mean, one example just to make this clear: in giving a bill of divorce, yes, in giving a bill of divorce, the medieval and later authorities debate a great deal what the definition is—how to define the giving of a bill of divorce so that it counts as valid giving. It says, “and he shall place it in her hand.” What is the act of giving that counts as valid? There are lots of uncertainties there. On the one hand, transferring ownership of the bill is fine, but apparently it is not strictly necessary—there are certain cases where that too is called giving a bill of divorce, for example if he placed the bill in her courtyard and transferred ownership of the courtyard to her, that is a valid divorce. You can transfer ownership of the bill; that too is called giving. But it’s not only transfer of ownership. There are cases where you do not transfer ownership and nevertheless the divorce is valid—for example, where it involves items from which benefit is forbidden, which you cannot transfer, at least according to some views, and nevertheless giving the bill of divorce is still valid. So transfer of ownership is not the definition. A physical act is certainly not the definition either, because you can also transfer without a physical act of handing over the bill: put it in her courtyard, give her the courtyard. So what is it then? And then there are all these splits—there are a few sections in Kehillot Yaakov on Gittin, if you can look there, two or three sections—horrible fragmentation. The number of details in the definition is more or less the number of cases that appear in the Talmud. A very, very convoluted definition, to the point where it’s not even clear why we needed the definition at all. Just leave the cases as they are and that’s it. A definition is usually supposed to gather all the cases under one simple principle. But when the number of details in the principle is the same as the number of cases, there is no point in looking for such a principle—we’ve gained nothing. So what is really going on there? Why do I think they fail to truly define the matter? And why is the Talmud really full of—it has ten… many dozens of cases the Talmud brings: this is valid giving, this is invalid giving. Just state the principle—one, two, three—that’s all. Why do you need a hundred thousand cases? It seems to me the answer is that the act of giving is an act. And all the attempts to define the act through the state before the act and the state after it—before, the bill was mine, and afterward, the bill is hers—that’s defining it through transfer of ownership, right? These are attempts to define an action through endpoint states. You cannot define an action through endpoint states. Because an action has a certain standing of its own, not only in the sense that it transfers from one state to another. It’s like defining velocity not through changes in distance divided by changes in time. How do we define velocity? Change in distance divided by change in time, right? But ultimately velocity exists at a point in time too, right? Anyone who knows a little. Fine? We define it through differences. But there is velocity at every point in time. If the function is not a straight line, then there is even a different velocity at every point in time. Right? At each point there is velocity. How do you do change in distance divided by change in time at a single point in time? The simple point is that velocity is not change in distance divided by change in time. Velocity is something beyond the state of being in this place at this time and that place at that time. Once again, it’s defining the process through the differences between the starting state and the ending state. But that’s a technical definition, an operational definition. That’s how you calculate velocity. But what is velocity? It isn’t that at all. Velocity is some kind of potential that is actualized through change of place over time. But that potential exists in the body even at a single moment. Its physical expression is that the body changes place over time. That is another example of this. By the way, all derivatives—almost all derivatives of the sort we consider real, all derivatives that define a real quantity and not an artificial one—all derivatives that define a real quantity are actually misleading. They are a calculation through smaller and smaller differences. But the quantity we are calculating exists even without differences; it exists even at a point. Because that quantity is not a difference between states; it is the potential to change my state from here to there. If I have that potential, then it means my state will change. Repentance is the same thing. When I repent, it means I am in a psychological state whose outcome will be a change of state. Before, I was in a state—as Maimonides says, once he was separated and distant and abominable, and now he is near, and so on. That is defining the process through the state before and the state after. But that is not the act of repentance. The act of repentance is not returning to be completely righteous. The act of repentance is acquiring that capacity, that energy, that state of mind whose result will ultimately be that my spiritual level changes or rises. And therefore, in practice, to repent from here to here is the same thing as to repent from here to here. There is no difference at all. Because the derivative is the same derivative. Meaning, if you have this sort of velocity, then if you started here, you’ll only get to here. If you started here, you’ll get to there. But in terms of the value of the repentance you did, it’s the same thing—it makes no difference at all. Because the value of repentance is the progress, not where I arrive. Where I arrive is another matter. It has value too—I’m not saying it has no value. I’m saying that the concept of repentance is not that. The concept of repentance is progress, the potential, the derivative of my spiritual level, not the level itself. Fine. I once wrote something about this—whoever wants can read it there.
[Speaker B] Maybe there’s another explanation of what the Sages mean when they say, “In the place where penitents stand, completely righteous people cannot stand.” Maybe it’s really a kind of demand on penitents: don’t think you have some kind of deadline, that once you reach the level of a completely righteous person, you’re done.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It just says that the righteous can’t stand there—the penitents specifically do stand.
[Speaker B] Fine, but don’t think you just need to reach the level of a completely righteous person and then say, okay, I’ve arrived, I’ve reached the summit.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, in any case, some people say it’s because of the crowding, you know. In the place where penitents stand, completely righteous people can’t stand because it’s crowded there.
[Speaker B] To hold onto the smell strongly?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. In any case, the horses are in the middle of the road and the sidewalk is on the sides. So what I wanted to say here is actually that the principle we arrive at, the conception of repentance we arrive at, is that repentance is not a tool for erasing sins. Repentance is a value in itself. The state of being in a process of repentance—that process itself—is the value of repentance. Erasing sins is a result. “In the end good will come.” But it’s a result—that’s not the point. It may be possible to connect the dispute over whether there is a commandment to repent or not to this, although in Maimonides himself that probably comes out problematic. But maybe one can connect it to this. Someone who says there is a commandment to repent—then the question arises, and this is what…
[Speaker B] I spoke about one of the previous times, I think—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] why do we need that commandment? Because apparently…
[Speaker B] In order to receive reward. The commandment exists so that someone who repents will receive reward for it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, just because the action he would do anyway—he’ll get double reward for it? Yes. I don’t know, that’s strange. So then there’s really no value in repentance in itself.
[Speaker B] It’s like the question of why bring the children. If the men and women come, why are the children commanded? “In order to give reward to those who bring them.” So the command comes in order to…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to give reward to those who bring them because something happened. What do you mean, to give reward to those who bring them? What? Because there is value in the children being there. What, just some scriptural decree in order to increase their reward?
[Speaker B] The reward of the parents, because that way the children will be with the parents.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What are you talking about? That is not how it reads at all. To increase the parents’ reward—why? Because there is value in the children being there. It’s just that this value is not itself a commandment because you cannot command children. So I say: you take care that he fulfills that value, and naturally you will receive reward. What, to receive reward just because—just because I feel like giving you more reward? Let Him give me more reward—what does He want from me?
[Speaker B] The stubborn and rebellious son? Hm? The stubborn and rebellious son? What he said there about reward? Even the demand itself has value.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well yes, of course. Torah study. Exactly. Rabbi Israel Salanter writes about this—he has a very beautiful essay. He says: what does it mean there where it says the stubborn and rebellious son never was and never will be? So why was it written? “Study it and receive reward.” Rabbi Israel Salanter says: what does “study it and receive reward” mean? Have we already finished the rest of the Torah? Has anyone finished all the rest? And we need this verse in order to fill in one more slice of time left to me until age 120? What does that mean? He says, that’s not the point at all. The point is: the stubborn and rebellious son—since it never was and never will be, then why must one study it? One must study it in order to receive reward for Torah study, right? So from here we learn the principle of “study and receive reward.” If there were no section that was not meant for implementation, for practice, we would think Torah study is for the sake of practice. But there is no greater mistake than that. Torah study is for the sake of studying. And where do you learn that? Here, in the stubborn and rebellious son. Clearly, you can’t practice it. So why study it? Why is it part of the Torah? To teach you the principle of “study and receive reward.”
[Speaker B] The simple meaning is that it is there in order to convey educational and intellectual content related to the section.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not contradictory, by the way. I’m only saying there is that too. But the commandment in itself is not one that can actually be carried out. So why is it a commandment?
[Speaker B] Because it teaches you how to relate.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But when you relate that way, you are not fulfilling the commandment. You are not fulfilling the commandment of the stubborn and rebellious son when you relate that way.
[Speaker B] If the Torah wanted to tell me, on Rosh Hashanah in the portion it could have written—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to teach me the ABCs and tell me, memorize this and that’s it. No—and that’s exactly the point, no. Obviously, the section has value, because you don’t get reward for nonsense. No, that’s exactly the point. It has value, but a commandment—it wasn’t supposed to be a commandment, because after all it isn’t meant to be implemented. It really isn’t a commandment in the sense of a commandment that is going to be carried out. It’s a commandment in the sense that it is part of the Torah and one has to study it. Now why do you really get value for that? Is it abracadabra? Some kind of memorizing abracadabra? Of course not. Because you learn valuable things from it, that’s why you get reward for it. And exactly the same is true here. The fact that a certain thing is there because it says “neshekh” and “tarbit” at the beginning of the chapter “Eizehu Neshekh,” so it says “neshekh” and “tarbit” are two prohibitions, and why were they written? After all, there’s no practical difference between them. Wherever there is neshekh there is tarbit; wherever there is no neshekh there is no tarbit. There’s no practical difference at all. So why were they written? So that one violates two prohibitions. That’s the opposite of “study it and receive reward.” What does it mean, “to violate two prohibitions”?
[Speaker B] To get lashes twice.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And why? Why should he really get lashes twice? What, because he deserves eighty lashes for that? What are you talking about? Look at Rashi on the Mishnah there in “Eizehu Neshekh.” So Rashi says, what’s the difference between neshekh and tarbit? After all, these are two different words. Neshekh is to bite the borrower, to take from him, to bite him, to take the additional money from him. Got it? Tarbit is to increase the wealth of the lender. There are two aspects here, and both are problematic. Two problematic aspects. Now practically, neither one appears without the other, although there are cases that I think I can produce where one exists without the other, at least in our economy today, but in principle they do not appear one without the other in practice. Meaning, whenever there is neshekh it will also be tarbit. But that doesn’t mean—there are two problematic aspects here. Really, every such act contains two aspects, two defects. You also harm the other person, and you also increase your own wealth improperly. So two aspects—he deserves two sets of lashes. There is no such thing as just “violating two prohibitions” or “increasing reward”; that’s nonsense, there’s no such thing. Whenever someone gets lashes twice, it’s because there really were two problems there. It’s not just so that you’ll get eighty lashes to deter you more strongly.
[Speaker B] Like someone who eats a flying creeping thing and gets five sets of lashes—so he gets such-and-such for an ordinary creeping thing, such-and-such for a flying creeping thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course, because there are five problems involved that occurred because he ate that flying creeping thing. Five problems.
[Speaker B] The Talmud says what they are.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It brings verses showing that there is this prohibition and that prohibition. Exactly. Of course, because there are five problems involved that occurred because he ate that flying creeping thing. Five problems, and the Talmud says what they are. It brings verses showing there is this prohibition and that prohibition—five prohibitions. Exactly. And each such verse is a prohibition, but each of those problems, each such verse describes a different problem found in that flying creeping thing. The Talmud writes—the Torah, sorry, the Torah—there are things we also asked about the Torah, not only about the Talmud—that the Torah says twelve times to keep the Sabbath. We talked about this last time. That is not counted as twelve commandments, and when you fulfill it you won’t get reward for twelve commandments. Why not? The Torah commanded it twelve times. How is that different from neshekh and tarbit, where you get lashes twice because it’s written twice? Why? It says the same thing twice—why do you get lashes twice? And with the Sabbath it says the same thing twelve times. So let there be twelve positive commandments. If that could override a prohibition, we could now override the whole Torah, because observing the Sabbath is twelve positive commandments. Why not? It’s the same content. If it’s the same content, then obviously it’s just repetition. But neshekh and tarbit are not the same content. Practically, whenever you lend with interest, you always create both defects together. So therefore you get lashes twice, but you get lashes twice because there are two defects. You never get lashes twice when it’s one defect. There’s no such thing. Increasing punishment or increasing reward is always because there is really something additional there, not just because they wanted to grant you merit. It’s like “The Holy One, blessed be He, wished to confer merit upon Israel, therefore He gave them much Torah and many commandments.” A childish conception says, yes, basically this has no value, but the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to give us reward. Utter nonsense. What do you mean? Obviously He wished to confer merit upon Israel, therefore He gave them much Torah and many commandments, because there is value in Torah and commandments. You truly gain something from them. And as a result there is also reward and punishment. But it always begins with the question of what really lies before the worlds of reward and punishment. How did we get to all of this? Because there was a process—a process of repentance,
[Speaker B] Not just the beginning and the end—the process too. Okay, so why is that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no command regarding that, and a command is—
[Speaker B] To receive reward—that’s not a commandment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You said it was, that this commandment is to receive reward. Okay, fine. So now we said that this commandment isn’t there in order to receive reward. Fine. So if that’s the case, then basically the conclusion is that there is value in repentance, there is value in the very act of repentance, in the very process of progress, and not only in the state I reach as a result of that process. And I began to say now, with this dispute over whether there is or isn’t a commandment—the dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides—it could be that this too is somehow connected to the matter. I asked: why is there a commandment? After all, we are already commanded to refrain from sin and to fulfill the commandments. So someone who understands the commandment of repentance on the technical level, that you are supposed to reach a state in which you have commandments and no transgressions—then indeed the commandment of repentance is superfluous. So indeed the commandment is superfluous, and then perhaps according to that view there would indeed be no commandment of repentance. But one who understands that there is a commandment of repentance—then obviously there is something in repentance beyond the general commands, the 613 commandments, or the other 613 or 612 commandments that we are commanded to do or not do. What is there in it beyond that? The process. You are supposed in the end to arrive at a state where you have commandments and no transgressions. But what is there in this beyond the need to have commandments and not transgressions? Because that already exists in the other commandments. What exists here beyond that is the process. So one who says there is a commandment here may understand it as a process. One who says there is no commandment—that’s why I said this is more problematic in Maimonides—one who says there is no commandment may be saying there is no commandment because it really doesn’t add much. Now Maimonides, who nevertheless says and devotes the laws of repentance and so on to it, even though he writes that there is no commandment, it is quite clear that it is not because it adds nothing. Rather it is because he wants to say that… it’s impossible to command this. Everything we explained in previous sessions: because you cannot command this thing, because the whole point is to become someone who is commanded. So how can you command someone to become commanded? To return to being someone who is subject to command, someone who fulfills the commandments, who serves God. So you can’t command me to fulfill commandments. It’s just beside the point. Just as you can’t command me to be a chooser. Chapters 5 and 6 of the laws of repentance deal with free choice. Again, why does that appear in the laws of repentance? Because it is not a commandment; it cannot be a commandment. We are dealing with something that cannot be commanded. So since that is so, it indeed appears in the laws of repentance—you cannot command someone to be a chooser. So basically the conclusion is that repentance is almost a synonym for free choice, because it means returning to being a chooser, returning to being someone who decides on certain values and carries them out. And in fact, it seems to me that regarding this issue of the value of repenting, or the value of being a chooser, we can distinguish between two levels. In Kings there, when it speaks about Elijah on Mount Carmel, Elijah says to the people: “How long will you keep limping between two opinions? If the Lord is God, go after Him, and if Baal—”
[Speaker B] —then go after him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And usually we—I think these verses should be read in their plain sense. He says to them: even worshipers of Baal are better than you. At least be worshipers of Baal. Do you believe in that? Then go with it. But you don’t believe in anything at all; you’re just nobodies. One time you go here, one time there, however it happens to come out, wherever the crowd goes, not really knowing what. That’s not serious. Meaning: be choosers. Decide. Decide badly—that is already better than not deciding at all. Of course, the best thing is to decide to choose the positive direction. But at least choose. First of all, be a chooser. So what Elijah was really saying to them was: I demand a double demand from you. First of all, be choosers. That’s the first thing. You’re just nobodies, you don’t choose. Beyond being choosers, of course you are also required to choose the good, not just to be choosers. But the claim against you is a double claim: not only are you doing evil, but also you are not doing it from choice—you’re just nobodies. Meaning that there is value in the very fact that a person is a chooser, even before the question of whether he chooses the good. In other words, even choice itself has value not only because it leads us to do good. Even though that’s usually what happens, because usually when someone sins it isn’t really a choice; it’s a kind of decline. We always feel it that way. Someone who truly chooses, in a pure choice, usually chooses the good, not evil. When we fall, the feeling is always that we fall into sin; we do not decide that now we are sinning. Usually that’s not the case. Therefore, usually someone who chooses also chooses the good. But in truth one has to understand that there are two components here, two stages. First of all, to choose, and afterward—the weekly Torah portion, yes—“and choose life.” “See, I have set before you today good and evil, death and life, and choose life.” What is “choose life”? Is there a com… it’s not a commandment, yes, you mustn’t call it a commandment, because you can’t command someone to choose, because otherwise I would also need to choose to fulfill that commandment. Rather, I am required to choose, to be a chooser, not to be a nobody. And then also to choose life. Not only to choose, but also to choose life. So in fact choice too—I said again—repentance and choice are almost synonymous words. Repentance means returning to being a chooser; it is being a chooser. That is called repentance. When you sin, you are basically not choosing—you are sliding downward. You are not deciding for yourself what you do. Repentance is to return to the state in which you decide, in which you choose. And therefore free choice too is located in the laws of repentance, in Maimonides’ discussion of free choice. Yes, the famous story about the Mizrachnikim—you probably know it—that in Bnei Brak, with Rebecca, when she feels that when she passes idolatrous temples he kicks, and when she passes study houses he also kicks, and she went to inquire of the Lord. So they told her—Shem and Ever, yes—they told her: “Two nations are in your womb,” “two nations are in your womb,” and “two peoples shall separate from within you, and one people shall prevail over the other, and the elder shall serve the younger.” Then she calmed down and went home happy and glad of heart. And of course in Bnei Brak they ask: what did she think at first, and what did she think afterward? Meaning, at first she didn’t know, and now they tell her you have one wicked one and one righteous one, and now she calms down? The answer is yes, she calms down, because one wicked and one righteous is better than a Mizrachnik. Meaning, someone who each time decides by limping between two opinions. Yes, a Mizrachnik is not someone who wears a knitted kippah—that’s Bnei Brak’s mistake. A Mizrachnik is someone who is a Mizrachnik. You can have Mizrachnikim in frock coats and garters too. The question is whether someone doesn’t decide, someone who goes whichever way the wind blows and does not decide on his path. And indeed it is better to have one wicked and one righteous—that is exactly Elijah on Mount Carmel—better a wicked one and a righteous one than someone who doesn’t decide. Because the wicked one at least decided. You know, Esau is the only one—our Sages say that Esau was an apostate Jew. But of course you can’t really be an apostate Jew. You can’t be an apostate Jew. What do you mean, Jew? After all, Esau and his descendants are gentiles, right? Why are his descendants gentiles? He was an apostate Jew. Meaning he actually succeeded in converting. No apostate Jew actually succeeds in converting. Only Esau succeeded. Why? Because Esau is the symbol of someone who chose evil. Esau and Jacob came out as twins. I happened to mention Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner one of the previous times, didn’t I? The two goats, and “until one cannot distinguish,” right? You have to compare the two things in order to discern the difference between them: this one chose the good and this one chose the evil. Jacob and Esau.
[Speaker B] If he was like that from his mother’s womb, then he didn’t choose?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. But he wasn’t.
[Speaker B] Even if he was like that from his mother’s womb—what do you mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the midrash is a literary description. Meaning, they say that this is perhaps what might emerge from him. But there are many midrashim of our Sages, by the way, in many places. I once gave a bar mitzvah talk for my son about this—that the choice between Jacob and Esau is a choice because this one chose the good and that one chose the evil. No, it’s not some kind of thing from the womb. There are many rabbinic statements about this. Anyway. What exactly is this matter of being a chooser? Why does this thing really have value, this matter of being a chooser? What basically characterizes a process of choice? We know that generally every event in the world is built as cause and effect. Everything that happens has a cause that brought it about. The Talmud says that everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven. What does “in the hands of Heaven” mean? It means in the hands of natural forces; it means that it is deterministic. Except for the fear of Heaven. Why except for the fear of Heaven? Because in matters of the fear of Heaven, what determines things is not Heaven and not the laws of nature, but human choice. In the context of good and evil, in value decisions, there a person has free choice. There it is not dictated in advance. That is the one exception in which the laws of nature do not dictate what the outcome will be. In all the rest of reality, reality is completely deterministic. What does that really mean? In a deterministic world, in effect—some people believe this nonsense—that at the moment of the Big Bang it was determined that I would now raise this phone. From then on it’s just calculation. Meaning, okay, maybe a very complicated calculation that no one knows how to do, but it is altogether a completely deterministic unfolding. Everything was already there. Fine? If the kabbalists trouble themselves so much to explain how multiplicity emerges from unity—the whole of Kabbalah, as Ramchal says, is intended to explain how good and evil can emerge, emanating from one thing that is simple, the Holy One, blessed be He, God, the Infinite Light, which is utterly simple. The Infinite Light is not God—it is one level below that—which is utterly simple. So how do two opposite things suddenly emerge from something simple that is not made of parts, has no components in it, no ingredients whatsoever? All of Kabbalah, Ramchal says, is basically meant to answer this question. In questions about a deterministic world, it seems that this question multiplies itself a thousandfold. It began with an incredibly simple point of matter, mathematical, with no parts at all, just one discrete, simple unit—really, the Holy One, blessed be He—and look what came out of it, the whole catastrophe around us. Meaning, how did all this multiplicity and variety come out of something that had absolutely no components, that was utterly simple? It’s a double and redoubled difficulty. But let’s leave that aside for now. At the end of the day, what comes out of this is that the whole natural world, and also human behavior in places where it is not connected to the fear of Heaven, to value decisions—which is also deterministic, because the human being too is a deterministic creature, a physico-chemical creature—so all of this reality was actually already there in the Big Bang. From then on it is just the transition from potential to actual. If it isn’t connected to the fear of Heaven—apparently it is connected, you wanted to illustrate a question touching on Torah, touching on an important matter. But if it were just some ordinary thing, I don’t know if there are things a person does just like that, not because of value-based reasons, then it really was dictated in advance. You just eat something because you like it, because you’re hungry, because you don’t really know what—then it is dictated in advance, it is deterministic, because various things moved around in your brain and therefore you do it. This is called “everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven”; that seems to me, at least that’s how I understand the matter. And the great novelty is that in things connected to the fear of Heaven, in those things where a person stands at a value crossroads and has the possibility of choosing between good and evil, there it is not the result of the laws of nature; there it is the result of his choice. Now what does it mean, the result of his choice? What does it mean that this is basically a process of choice? So here one could elaborate at great length, but I’ll try to do it briefly. Essentially, a process of choice is an action that has no cause. That is what characterizes the act of choice. It is an action that has no cause. A deterministic action is an action where, as Laplace says, give me the set of data at this moment and I will tell you exactly what will happen from here until the coming of the righteous redeemer—and the righteous redeemer himself too, if you want, ten percent off today at Spitzer. What is the deterministic conception? That every cause produces an effect in some necessary chain. Give me the cause and I’ll tell you what will come out, what the effect will be. In a world of choice, you cannot know today what will come out tomorrow—what will Shlomo choose? Will he choose this way or that way? You can’t know. Why can’t you know? Because the data of today do not dictate what will be at the next moment or tomorrow. It depends on what I choose. If the data—even my physiological data, by the way, it doesn’t matter—if there are any data in the world that dictate my future choice, then that means there is no choice. That means that in practice this is a deterministic process. There may be a feeling of choice, but there is no real choice. There are philosophers who challenge this; I have never merited to understand those arguments. There is no such thing. By the way, today there are experimental results on this issue. It was published in Nature, by the way, not long ago. These are experiments where they send some laser beam into a person’s brain and suddenly he raises his hand. And he feels, from his own experience, that he decided to raise his hand.
[Speaker B] That’s not new. What? They already did that long ago, when they connect some electrode to someone, then press it and each time he gets up and starts walking around. Then they ask him why, and every time he starts telling a story: I’m looking for this, I’m checking whether it’s open.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, I heard about an article; I’m not familiar with this from before. There’s some article from very recently that was published in Nature, and it’s a great innovation among our scholarly cousins.
[Speaker B] I also saw it in a book more than twenty years ago.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Could be, I haven’t checked the subject in depth, maybe. In any case, the point is that if there really is some given biochemical, physical state—doesn’t matter—which allows you to derive what the person will do, then that means he has no choice. It means the state dictates what he will do, not what he decided. Okay? Even if he has a feeling of decision, it doesn’t matter; the decision too is a result of that state, so it doesn’t matter. Therefore choice means an outcome that has no cause. That is what it means to have choice. What does that really say? It basically says that the whole world was created at the Big Bang. The Holy One, blessed be He, created it in the Big Bang, and from then on everything continued. Except for those points at which human beings choose. At those points where human beings choose, a new chain begins. Probability, no?
[Speaker B] What? A probabilistic chain?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, not probability. I decided, I chose. It is also not correct to describe it as probability, because it is not probability. If it is something without a cause, then probability too is not the right category to apply to it. Probability is also something deterministic. In the world there really is nothing non-deterministic, except perhaps quantum phenomena. When you throw a die into the air—is that deterministic? Random? Absolutely not random. Give me the initial velocity, the structure of the die, the density of the air, the direction, all the data in short, the winds, whatever you want, gravity—I’ll tell you what face the die will land on. It is completely deterministic. It’s just so complicated that we treat it with statistical tools, that’s all. A deterministic process. There are no random processes except quantum mechanics, which is a separate affair. So therefore an act of choice is an act without a cause. It is not random, by the way. It is not random; it’s not like I’m throwing a die. It is a directed action, an action done with deliberation, but it has no cause. Now what this really means is that in the entire world around us there is nothing new—“there is nothing new under the sun”; only above the sun is there something new. Above the sun means the spiritual realms, where there is choice. The root of choice is in the Infinite, says the Ari of blessed memory. And that is above the sun. Because under the sun there is nothing new. Under the sun everything is cause and effect. Everything began with the creation of the world at the Big Bang and was dictated from there. The only genuinely new things that we can truly create ex nihilo are at those points where we decide, where we make some value-based choice.
[Speaker B] But even when a person chooses, he chooses for reasons; he doesn’t choose for no reason.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he chooses for the sake of goals, not because of causes.
[Speaker B] Fine, but say he chooses because until now he used to commit transgressions, and yesterday he read an ethics book saying why it isn’t right, and things like that, so because of that book—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He now decided because of the book. Because if the book caused it, then he isn’t a penitent—the book is the penitent.
[Speaker B] Yes, but still there is a cause; if he hadn’t read the book he wouldn’t have done it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s not called a cause. A cause is something that produces the thing. There is an influencing factor, that’s true, but it is not a cause. The book did not produce it. You could not dictate in advance that if he reads the book then tomorrow morning he will repent. Because if that were so, then the book did the repentance.
[Speaker B] But if I know in advance, say, what the factors are that act on him from the other side too, and what his willpower is, and so on—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then you wouldn’t know anything. Maybe yes—I believe not—but if yes, then again, there are no penitents in the world. Then causes dictated it; they’re just complicated, so it’s hard to control it. So if you’re a determinist, that’s what you think. But if you are not a determinist, then it follows automatically that the only new chains that begin, new cause-and-effect chains that begin, are in acts of human choice. When a person acts out of choice, that action is ultimately physical, usually, or something like that—there are thoughts too, but even that is basically a physical action—then that physical action has consequences, and there a new chain of cause and effect begins. I moved my hand because of my choice. I gave charity to a poor person. As a result, now he has money, he goes to buy bread, and a new causal chain begins that can continue infinitely. But the beginning of that chain is not in the Big Bang—it is now. What this basically means is that a person who chooses resembles his Creator. He is a creator of worlds; he creates a new chain, he creates a new reality ex nihilo. It would not have existed without him. All the other actions we do are actions dictated from the moment of the world’s creation. We didn’t do anything in them; we are extras on the stage. We did nothing. You know, there is a contradiction—I just remembered. There is a Talmud in Makkot that says: what is the case of an inadvertent murderer? It’s a case where someone committed murder and became liable to exile but was not exiled, and another committed intentional murder and was not executed. The Holy One, blessed be He, brings them both to one inn. The one below—the one liable to death is below, the one liable to exile is above. The one above drops the ax on the one below; the lower one dies as he deserves, and the upper one becomes liable to exile as he deserves, and everything comes to rest in peace. I’m not even talking now about how it started—that’s an interesting question in itself. How did the first one become liable to exile in the first place? But let’s leave that interesting question. Because after all, it didn’t start with the inns, right? Someone had to become liable to exile not because of this roundabout arrangement, otherwise the whole business never starts. Maybe Cain and Abel started all the inadvertent murders that ever happened. But beyond that, this is said about an inadvertent murderer, not an intentional murderer. Because an inadvertent murderer is a person who did not decide to murder. So why did the other one die? I didn’t decide to kill him; apparently he deserved to die, because the Holy One, blessed be He, killed him, not I. I am only an instrument in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He. So there it is clear that he died only because he really deserved to. Why did the Holy One, blessed be He, kill him? Because this is a non-volitional act; it is not an act that is the result of choice. It is an act that I did unintentionally, accidentally. Why—doesn’t he go into exile?
[Speaker B] What? If it’s close to coercion, then he doesn’t go into exile. Well, inadvertent but close to coercion. So what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it’s not a voluntary action, then by definition it is coercion. No, there is a dimension of choice here, but still that dimension of choice does not kill someone who does not deserve to die. There is a dimension of choice here, but it’s not a choice to kill him. It’s negligence. So you deserve punishment for the negligence, but you did not decide to kill him. So why should he die?
[Speaker B] It’s an accident.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But if you did decide to kill him, and you are an intentional murderer, then he will die even if he does not deserve to. No appointments, no one inn, none of that stuff. If you decide to kill someone, he will die even if he doesn’t deserve to. Usually. Sometimes the Holy One, blessed be He, will intervene anyway, but in the ordinary conduct of the world—the Talmud in Chagigah writes: “There is one who perishes without justice.” What is that? For example, a person who killed his fellow. What does that mean? That when a person kills his fellow, this is “one who perishes without justice”—he did not deserve to die.
[Speaker B] There the Talmud gives an example of the Angel of Death himself making a mistake. In the Talmud there, on that verse—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They bring that the Angel of Death—yes, but what is the Angel of Death when I kill him? It means that I bring the Angel of Death upon him. The Angel of Death doesn’t come by himself.
[Speaker B] No, he was his messenger, and he said to him, bring Miriam the hairdresser—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, I’m saying that even with an intentional murderer this does not contradict it. He sent the Angel of Death to so-and-so, whom he murdered. That is only the metaphysical description of the physical act he performed. So with an intentional murderer, when you decide, then he will die even if he doesn’t deserve to. Everything the Talmud there explains—that the Holy One, blessed be He, arranges them, and individual providence, and everything happens only according to calculation—that all applies only in cases that are not cases of choice. Only in situations you did not decide about, when you were inadvertent. Because then you too are part of nature, okay? Things happen to you, so it is really the Holy One, blessed be He, arranging it. It’s not that you decided to kill him; the Holy One, blessed be He, arranged for him to die. Ah, so if the Holy One, blessed be He, arranged for him to die, then apparently he deserved to die. The Holy One, blessed be He, does not execute judgment without justice. Meaning, that is clear. But if I decide to do it, that is my act of choice, and I can kill someone who does not deserve it. Why? Because in the end that is the power the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us—the power to choose. And the power to choose means the power to create things that are not compelled by prior circumstances. New things. We create chains of new reality in the world, which would not have existed if we had not chosen. That is the value of choice. By the way, that is true even for someone who chooses evil. Even someone who chooses evil—same thing, as long as he chose. Therefore there is value in choice even before the question whether you chose evil or good. There is value in being a chooser. Why? Because in that you actualize the powers the Holy One, blessed be He, placed within you; you resemble the Holy One, blessed be He, when you choose. That is the value of being a chooser. Now beyond that, there is of course value in resembling the Holy One, blessed be He, not only in that you create worlds, but in that you create positive worlds. Fine, level two. Meaning, not only to choose, but also to choose the good. Fine, that’s Elijah the prophet, yes—or Rebecca there—that one must choose and one must choose the good. Someone who does not choose—that is an even worse problem, in a certain sense, than someone who chose evil. “Worse” is always a sweeping statement; in one respect it is worse. In another respect it is less bad. But in a certain respect there is an aspect in which it is—
[Speaker B] Worse than choosing evil. Fine? But the fact that you choose and that you choose the good—isn’t that basically forcing you to choose the good?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, because you can choose evil. It doesn’t force you; it only tells you what is right to do. And you can choose evil, so you have choice. What you just reminded me of—surely some of you have already heard this from me—I use this example quite a lot. There are three kinds of political elections in the world. There are elections in Switzerland, elections in Syria, and elections in Israel. What’s the difference? In Syria, a person enters the polling station in a free and democratic manner, chooses the only ballot there is, puts it in the box, and the one elected is Assad. Assad the father or Assad the son or Assad the Holy Spirit, but it will always be Assad, it doesn’t matter. Fine? Meaning, the principle is that you have free choice, but you have no options. So that’s not free choice, right? That is basically determinism. Okay? Then there are Swiss elections. What are Swiss elections? A person enters the polling station freely, and he chooses either whats-his-name or what’s-the-other-one, I don’t know. Fine? Either this one or that one. Okay? And freely he puts into the ballot box whatever he decides, and whoever the majority of the citizens choose will be prime minister or president or who knows what. In Switzerland they don’t even cheat, I think, so it really happens that whoever the majority chooses becomes prime minister. But there is only one small problem: no one cares who will be prime minister. Why does it matter? They have no problems in Switzerland. So what difference does it make who is prime minister? He is completely free; he can choose whoever he wants, but it has no significance. When you have no problems to deal with, then what difference does it make who will be prime minister? Let him do whatever he wants, let them make every decision by flipping a coin. It doesn’t matter. In a place where you are not dealing with problems, there is no value at all to the fact that you can choose between alternatives. Because choosing between alternatives always means dealing with problems—how to deal with them correctly and how not. Yes, elections in places where there are problems—and we probably know a few such places up close—such elections have two components. First, they are free and not like Assad’s, which is a big deal. On the other hand, a lot depends on it.
[Speaker B] I’m sitting here—in this country it doesn’t matter who you vote for, in the end the left will be in power.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, here it’s only pseudo-elections, doesn’t matter. But I’m saying, in the end the question is: there is freedom to choose, and the results depend on what you choose. There are prices. If you chose badly, you’ll take a hit. If you chose well, you gained. That is the meaning of freedom of choice. There is no meaning to freedom of choice in a situation like Switzerland. Now when people ask—often people struggle with this question—if the Holy One, blessed be He, tells me to choose the good, and also punishes me if I do not choose the good, then He leaves me no choice. That is a mistake. If He did not tell me to choose the good and also did not punish me, that would mean there are no prices. Then the choice would be like in Switzerland: I would be completely free to choose, but so what what I choose? There is no good, no evil, no prices, no nothing. Do whatever you want. So there is absolute freedom of choice, but it is valueless. The only meaning of freedom—freedom acquires meaning only when there are constraints not dependent on us, which set prices for every choice we make, and then we choose freely. Then our freedom of choice has meaning. Therefore when the Holy One, blessed be He, sets up these constraints, not only does that not deprive us of choice—it is what gives value to the fact that we have choice. Without it, it would have no value at all. In a world where there is no good and no evil, and everyone decides whatever he wants, freedom has no meaning whatsoever. It has no value and no point at all. It means nothing: do whatever you want, flip a coin. That is freedom, but it is not freedom with value. It is not liberty; it is mere freedom. Liberty is always “engraved on the tablets”—freedom through law. When the tablets fix limits on you, then there is liberty. Because the question is how you maneuver within the constraints, how you avoid the prices, how you act within the given constraints that are not in your hands. Only then does your free choice have meaning. If you are not acting within a system of constraints of good and evil, of reward and punishment, then what difference does it make? You live in a vacuum. Fine, do whatever you want. Yes, what is more creative—to escape from a guarded prison or to run in an open field? The one running in the field runs much faster, really fast. Even I could catch the world champion if he were sitting in some closed prison. So what’s the great wisdom? There are no constraints, I’m not dealing with anything, so I run—other than my own fat. That’s it. But you understand: the system of constraints does not contradict freedom; on the contrary, it is what gives it its meaning. Without confronting and paying prices, or producing moral, spiritual, or other benefit, the fact that I have free choice has no meaning at all, and it is completely valueless.
[Speaker B] And how does determinism fit with free choice?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t. Who said it does? Yes, those philosophers I mentioned earlier want to claim that it does, but that’s nonsense, simply empty words.
[Speaker B] How do they explain it? They don’t explain it, they don’t explain it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They say that everything is predetermined, but what you want is what is predetermined; you too are predetermined in what you will want, so you have free choice. You do what you want, but it is all predetermined.
[Speaker B] Roughly speaking, that’s how I’d put it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How does it happen chemically? Yes, somehow through the brain, whatever you want. I’m not a neuroscientist. Yes, at the Big Bang it was already decided that you would now speak, and it was also decided what I would answer you.
[Speaker B] Hard, very hard.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I agree too. Not hard—not true, simply. Anyway, so that is basically the meaning or value there is in being a chooser. Not only choosing the good, but being—the process, that energy of taking my fate into my own hands, taking my value decisions into my own hands, not being influenced by the environment, not just going wherever circumstances carry me, but being a decider. That is the meaning of choice, and that is what we need to return to. When a person sins, he is not there. He is influenced, he slides, influenced sometimes from within, not necessarily from without. He yields to his impulses, all kinds of things of that sort. Because if a person truly believes in what he is doing, and he chose what he is doing because he thinks it is the right thing, then he is not sinning—he is coerced. And is that a transgression for the sake of Heaven? No, that is not a transgression for the sake of Heaven; it’s not a transgression at all. A transgression for the sake of Heaven is a situation in which what you did is actually right—not just that you think it is right. Rather it is actually right, only it goes against the formal Jewish law. Here we are talking about a case where you did something wrong, but you thought otherwise. It was a conscious decision; you thought you were choosing the good, you chose the good, and it turned out you were mistaken—it was evil. He intended to eat lamb and ended up eating pork—sorry, he intended to eat lamb and it turned out to be pork. Fine? Then that’s okay, he is coerced; for that you do not repent. What can you do? Repentance is for something where you did something bad not out of choice, or where you chose evil—which is hard for me even to imagine, that someone would choose fully and choose evil.
[Speaker B] That’s a dispute between Socrates and Aristotle, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but still, I’m saying—I try to imagine it, beyond the question of who says what—I try to imagine how such a thing could even be possible.
[Speaker B] The Satan cult—they say that’s what they do. The Evyonim sect, on the other hand, said: just as an ordinary Jew serves God and wants paradise, we serve Satan and want hell.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but the question is whether that doesn’t count as him thinking it’s good.
[Speaker B] He’ll say it’s a tautology—that whatever you want is obviously good.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, that’s what I’m saying. No, I’m not talking beyond the philosophical definition—what does he think? Forget the philosophy. Philosophy will tell you it’s not a tautology, but what does he think? He thinks that this is the good thing; what the world calls evil, in his eyes that’s what should be done, that’s the good, the world is mistaken. He wants to do it. No, if he—so I’m saying, it’s a fine line, and I’m not sure he himself would know how to tell you. The question is whether he thinks—I don’t know.
[Speaker B] But if he thinks—but he knows that this is not what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —from him, then in that sense he goes against Him. Fine, because he thinks that one should not do what the Holy One, blessed be He, said. But if he knew…
[Speaker B] Can one repent from that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One can repent from anything, but this thing is coercion. He really thinks that way—what do you want him to do?
[Speaker B] No, but if someone thinks…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what if he knows? He knows that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded it, and he thinks he ought not do it. And that’s coercion? Certainly—complete coercion. Why? Because that’s what he thinks, if he really thinks that, not if his urges are carrying him away. If he really thinks that, then what can he do? The Radbaz, in a famous responsum—there was some wise Jew there, a nice fellow, who decided that Moses our teacher is God. Ultra-frum, a real religious guy. He decided that Moses our teacher is God. So they asked the Radbaz what to do with this heretic, and he told them: leave him alone, he’s coerced by his beliefs—what do you want him to do? That really is what he thinks, so what do you want him to do? Coerced in beliefs—there’s such a thing too. So the Holy One, blessed be He, said something—so what? The question is whether I understand that I also have to do what the Holy One, blessed be He, said. After all, it all starts with me. If I investigated and reached the conclusion that the right thing is to do the opposite of what the Holy One, blessed be He, said, then that’s the right thing to do. So I’m coerced in my beliefs even if I know that’s what He said. That really is my view; after all, I made my decision—what else can I do? Make your decision? Maimonides would define that as a heretic. I don’t know what Maimonides would define; I’m telling you what’s correct. I don’t know about Maimonides.
[Speaker B] Someone coerced in his beliefs is a person you can persuade otherwise. No, no—not in the sense of whether he’ll get punishment or reward. Someone coerced in his beliefs is someone you can persuade, so there’s no need…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Kill him and that’s it. He’s harmful, he’s a heretic—kill him, lower him into a pit.
[Speaker B] And there’s an example there from Rabbi Hillel in the Talmud, who thought that Israel has no messiah—they didn’t punish him because he was coerced by his beliefs.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right, ideally, not—
[Speaker B] Just leave him alone.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What can you do? He really is—think logically, gentlemen. Forget all the stigmas we’ve lived with. Think logically: he really is coerced, no? Don’t you agree? Someone who really and sincerely is a genuine heretic, not someone letting his urges carry him away. Suppose we had some X-ray machine that could tell us: this is a real heretic. He truly thinks that way. He is completely coerced—what do you mean? I don’t understand. There’s no greater coercion than that.
[Speaker B] About that, Rabbi Chaim said in Beit HaLevi… about that he said—no, about—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On that basis he really said—
[Speaker B] Also a person who arrives at—about—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what he said, and therefore he is exempt, of course.
[Speaker B] No, he was talking about whether he has a share in the World to Come or not; he said no.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the World to Come is a different question, but all the—
[Speaker B] legal
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] laws of a heretic—there are also other laws of a heretic there, like “one lowers him and does not raise him,” and all kinds of things like that. He’s exempt—what do you mean?
[Speaker B] That’s simply not correct, and it’s a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) whether, say, if someone thinks that according to the Torah God has a body or something like that, and he thinks that is what the Torah says and he’s mistaken—then according to Maimonides, for example, and Abravanel, he has no share in the World to Come.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because they assume that listening to the tradition was in fact something that was right in his eyes—that he understood it was right—he just decided to go against it, a kind of choosing evil.
[Speaker B] Or maybe if he didn’t know—what do you mean? According to Maimonides, what determines whether you have a share in the World to Come is your beliefs; if your beliefs aren’t correct, you don’t get there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s because Maimonides understands that one can arrive at the correct beliefs, or understand who holds the correct beliefs—
[Speaker B] In his eyes it was kind of self-evident—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Self-evident, meaning whoever—
[Speaker B] No, but it’s not a matter of punishment, as though you did something wrong and therefore—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You have no share in the World to Come. No, no, I don’t think you’re right. That’s exactly what I disagree with. I think it is a matter of punishment; the only point is that he thinks such a person really deserves punishment. Because he thinks that every person who thinks like Rabbi Elchanan in Kovetz Ma’amarim expresses such a view very clearly. He asks: why would they demand of the Eskimos that they keep the seven Noahide commandments? Did they ever hear of Noah? What do you want from the Eskimos? So he says: what do you mean? A person who sees the world and all that is in it ought to understand that someone created it and wants something from him. Now he doesn’t know? Let him go search, let him start sailing around the world searching, until he gets to Baranovich, and in Baranovich Rabbi Elchanan will sit him down on the bench and explain to him what he needs to do, and then immediately he’ll be convinced, he’ll understand that here is the truth, and he’ll keep the seven Noahide commandments in the most meticulous way. And if he didn’t do that, then he’s wicked and they should roast him. That’s what he says. And again, it’s the conception that says that someone who lives in error—it’s always his own fault. There’s really no such thing as being coerced in one’s beliefs. That’s what underlies this whole conception.
[Speaker B] You don’t know that according to Maimonides it’s like that. In Maimonides it’s explicit: even if a person simply didn’t arrive at the correct beliefs because all his life he was in poverty and illness and so on, then he simply did not build that share in the World to Come. It doesn’t matter whether he’s guilty or not guilty. It’s not reward; it’s like a person who didn’t exercise, so he’s not fit.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think so. I don’t understand it that way.
[Speaker B] That’s also how Shilat explains it regarding… no, Maimonides says that all the doctrines written in the Torah are for what purpose? So that… so that it will be easier for you to serve God. Fine, so what? But if the main thing is the effort and all that, then it doesn’t really matter whether you arrived at this exact precision or that one. So he says that in practice, if you didn’t reach the correct beliefs, it doesn’t matter whether you were coerced or guilty or whatever—you didn’t reach it, so you don’t have the share being discussed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you didn’t reach it because it’s your fault—that’s how I… I don’t think that’s right. You didn’t reach it through your own fault.
[Speaker B] But according to Maimonides it’s simply a different framework. What? Like a positive commandment: if a person, under coercion, did not fulfill a positive commandment, he doesn’t receive reward for not fulfilling the positive commandment, even though he was completely coerced. True, important—but he is not liable for neglecting a positive commandment. He is not liable for neglecting a positive commandment. Here too, he is not liable for the fact that he worshiped idols, but as for the World to Come—reward, certainly you won’t receive for deeds you didn’t do. Right, right. So I would say, if so, they should have to reincarnate him again. I’m not sure Maimonides would sign off on that statement.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, but Maimonides says—
[Speaker B] He doesn’t say that this person will go to Gehenna, but he also has no share.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so he doesn’t… no, that’s fine by me. That’s possible. Reward—you don’t get if you didn’t do it; there’s nothing to be done, because reward… yes, that I can understand. But certainly you don’t deserve punishment as a heretic. That’s not the—anyway, in short, next week we’ll continue already. I see this is…