Q&A: More on Free Will and Providence
More on Free Will and Providence
Question
Hello Rabbi, and thank you for the sharp answers.
A. I think Maimonides teaches us that “everything is by chance” is just as bad as “everything is fixed.” And therefore we believe in free will and providence (at least sometimes, at least a little).
Even so, it seems to me much easier to say that the Holy One, blessed be He (or any spiritual force), influences a random system so that it comes out in a certain direction, than to act against a deterministic system. But when I thought about it, I couldn’t find a logical reason for that feeling.
What does the Rabbi think? Is there something to it, or is it just a lack of logical depth?
B. This is a purely scientific question: thanks to an answer on the site, I think I understood better what the Rabbi meant — “coupling between quantum systems and classical systems exists only in artificial structures, or in liquids and conductors at very low temperatures, and not in nature.”
My question is: does the Rabbi mean that this does not happen in nature at all, or that it is just very rare? If it is only rare — does that mean it is so rare that it does not affect even systems like the weather, which are supposed to be affected by very small changes?
I apologize if the question is off point; we still haven’t gotten to the quantum material at the university yet..
(I hope the Rabbi doesn’t mind answering, even though he thinks the Holy One, blessed be He, is very careful not to intervene in random outcomes).
Answer
Hello.
When I hear “we believe,” my temperature usually goes up (figuratively, of course). It is proper for each person to speak for himself. Maimonides can say what seems right to him, and so can I. It may be that what I think would seem problematic to him, but that is at most a rebuke, not an argument that convinces me to change my worldview.
A lack of depth. Of course, in a random context He can do this more easily without our noticing than in a deterministic context. But His actual involvement is no different in the two contexts. The only difference is how much we would be able to notice it.
It can happen in a very, very rare and random way, just as a basketball can pass through a wall (without breaking it). Quantum theory allows that too (this is the tunneling effect). That is what is nowadays called in science “impossible.” In that sense, it is impossible to run the weather that way. In any case, this is randomness, not divine intervention.
Discussion on Answer
I still want to ask:
So according to the Rabbi, is the usual interpretation of the miracle of Elisha and the bears (that the Holy One, blessed be He, brought bears out of the forest to tear apart the children) equivalent to the interpretation that there were “neither bears nor forest” and suddenly everything was created?
I didn’t understand the question. Do you mean to ask whether the Holy One, blessed be He, brought out the bears or whether they came out on their own?
In biblical times there was a different mode of governance. Then there was prophecy and miracles, and so it is definitely possible that then the Holy One, blessed be He, was involved in reality.
I am asking about the time of the Hebrew Bible, whether there is any point in “minimizing” the miracles. I meant the Talmud in Sotah 47: “Rav and Shmuel: one said a miracle, and one said a miracle within a miracle. The one who said a miracle held that there was a forest but there were no bears; the one who said a miracle within a miracle held that there was neither a forest nor bears.”
The Rabbi explained that in essence, even causing bears (which exist) to come out of the forest (which exists) is a miracle against the laws of nature (say, several force fields were created in the bears’ brains so that they would come out). So apparently there is no difference between such a miracle and a miracle that creates bears and forests.
(Apparently, the whole difference is that in the first scenario we notice the miracle less).
Somewhere the analogy is mistaken, but it isn’t clear to me where…
And one last question, really:
“One does not cry out and one does not sound an alarm over any trouble [on the Sabbath], except for a food shortage, over which one cries out verbally on the Sabbath and not with a shofar. And likewise, if a city is surrounded by thugs or by a river, or a ship is being tossed about at sea, and even for an individual pursued by thugs or robbers or an evil spirit, we cry out and plead in prayers on the Sabbath.” (Orach Chayim, siman 288, se’if 9)
Today, when the Holy One, blessed be He, does not intervene, this Jewish law is void, right? Or is the permission to cry out not connected to saving life?
As I wrote, in the time of the prophets there was involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world, and I see no reason to minimize it. In general, there is no point in minimizing or increasing it. The question is what the truth is. The question in that dispute there is whether the miracle was more or less overt, and that is an interpretive question. I’m not sure there is some a priori agenda here to increase or decrease visible involvement. The dispute is about what happened there.
Even according to my view, involvement of the Holy One, blessed be He, is possible in exceptional cases (how can one determine that there is no involvement at all?! What I claimed was only about the world’s routine course of events). So it is not clear to me that one should not pray for that. What I do think is that this should be done only in truly exceptional cases (when there is no natural solution and the distress is severe).
Thank you, and sorry about the expression 🙂