Q&A: Providence
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Providence
Question
- The Rabbi assumes that every intervention by God is a miracle. Seemingly, one could include intervention in a person’s arbitrary choice, where this is basically a mechanism determined neither by a law of nature nor really by a choice between certain values. The Rabbi brought, for example, in one of his books, the case of a person who is in a room and has to press a button whenever he feels like it. Is that possible?
- The Rabbi says, according to his approach, that God wants a person to mature like a parent who releases his child into the world for independent behavior. If so, there is no reason God could not intervene in a way that is not visible to the eye, since God only wants His “child” to live with an independent consciousness. On the other hand, the Rabbi says in the book that there is no reason at all to assume there is intervention that is not visible to the eye, but in light of this argument maybe there is?
Answer
- No. Because there too, there are physical causes for the pressing.
- What you have here is an explanation for why we do not see it, if for some reason we assume that He intervenes. But there is no reason here to assume that there is intervention.
Discussion on Answer
The donkey’s choice between the piles as well is an event that has a physical cause. There is no arbitrariness and no randomness in the world (except in quantum theory).
1. A person just sitting in a closed room and being told to press whenever he feels like it—that’s physical causes? That’s an arbitrary choice. The Rabbi tends to compare this case to the case of a donkey that sees two piles of hay and all the data are identical on both sides—in that case the donkey would get stuck and not know what to choose, because it has no reason to go to one and not the other.
2. There is a reason to assume there is intervention: every parent wants to watch over his child and also tries to help him, and yes—even after the child grows up the parent still tries to help and sometimes does so in a hidden way.