Q&A: Engaging with the Issue of Free Choice
Engaging with the Issue of Free Choice
Question
I wanted to ask whether the Rabbi sees value in engaging with the topic of divine foreknowledge and free choice. After all the discussion and analysis, you still don’t arrive at any clear conclusion, as in the well-known words of the Raavad. So why do people spend so much time on it, and the Rabbi himself has also written quite a bit about it???
Answer
First, why do you think it’s impossible to reach a conclusion? I did reach a conclusion. Second, even if I hadn’t reached a conclusion, is there no value in trying to examine it? After all, I don’t know in advance whether I’ll reach a conclusion or not. Especially since others may go down the same path, and I can already update them that there is no conclusion at the end.
And third, there are other added values. An analogy would be NASA’s work on building rockets to the moon. Even if they had not reached the moon, that effort developed many technologies that proved useful elsewhere as well (for medical needs and the like). So too in our case. From this discussion one reaches conclusions about the plausibility of believing in logical contradictions, the description of the timeline, the distinction between questions and different kinds of claims, and more. Another analogy is engaging with the laws of sacred offerings. That is not relevant in our times, but even if someone studies only for practical conclusions, there are practical Jewish laws that can be decided through analysis of Talmudic passages dealing with sacred offerings.