Q&A: Weakness of Will
Weakness of Will
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I recently heard a talk by the Rabbi in which he mentioned, in passing, two possibilities for understanding weakness of will. Possibility A: the very fact that a person wants A and does B indicates that his desire is not really where he thinks it is—or more accurately, that he has additional desires (for example, cravings) that are sometimes more significant than the desire he attributes to himself.
Possibility B: a person truly wants a certain thing, but he does B because of weakness—weakness of will (a weakness in carrying it out?).
Personally, I don’t feel that the first option is the correct one, although I also don’t understand the second option! From a purely logical point of view, if I don’t do A even though it depends only on me, then apparently I don’t really want it wholeheartedly! What goes wrong in the process?
I would be grateful if the Rabbi could explain to me (or refer me to an accessible source if the Rabbi doesn’t have time) the psychological and conceptual logic of the second option, and how choice operates according to that approach. What is the factor, if not an opposing desire?
I hope I was clear. Thank you, and good night.
Answer
You were completely clear. It’s hard for me to explain it here, because the matter is very subtle and hard to lay out in this format; all the more so since I myself do not have a complete grasp of it.
Briefly, I would say that a person has the choice whether to choose. What do we gain by that? Suppose, for example, that a person is facing the dilemma of eating pork. He chooses not to choose (or does not choose to choose), and now he is carried along by his impulse to eat pork. So it turns out that he did indeed eat pork, and he was not coerced into doing so, but it is still not correct to say that this is what he wanted. As such, he did not want to eat pork. But once he is in a state of not choosing, the decision is no longer made according to his will.