Q&A: Free Choice
Free Choice
Question
1) I listened again to the second-to-last lecture (#5), and I didn’t hear any reference to the Hasidic approach that not even a leaf falls unless the Holy One, blessed be He, decreed it.
2) The Talmud in Yoma says that Hillel obligates the poor, etc. But why? My point of free choice is not on Hillel’s level.
Answer
I generally don’t address unfounded approaches (in my view). By the way, this appears in midrash and in the Talmud, not only in Hasidism. But one must distinguish between a natural event and an act of free choice, and in the lecture we were dealing with acts of free choice.
The Talmud apparently assumed that Hillel’s advantage was due to his effort, not because his starting point was different. You are begging the question when you say that he started from a different point.