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Wonder if some of you watched the other.evening a
television programme callgéc"0hailehééh.
It was one of the
most enlightefiing and aléo one of the most frightenidg discussions_I have ever heard, conduied by some of the world's
leading scientists.
And the essential point which they made
was this: that séientists and others are.ca11ed upon more and
more to make decisions which cannot be made on scientific
grounds because they are moral decisions.
Incalculable harm
has already been done by wrong decisions.
The explosion of
nuclear devices has polluted the air we breathe and the soil
from which we draw our sustenance.
The imprudent use of
insecticides has killed beneficial as well as harmful forms
of life in our countryside and our rivers.
The unrestrained
‘exploitation of our mineral resources may before long lead
to disastrous shortages.
Thg indiscriminate use of antibiotics
has bfed more and more resistant bacteria which may in fihe end
become uncontrollable.
The premature marketing of drugs like
thalidomidé has produced the most tragic consequences.
Thé.
population explosion, resulting largely from advances in
medicine and technology, threatens starvation on an unprecedent-
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In all thése'greas; and'maq&~mbfiu, deciéions are
4
made daily by scientists, politicians, industrialists and
ordinary citizens which aré fraught with the most far—reaching
moral implications.
point of view.
Yet they are rarély viewed from a moral
Most often they are maae on grounds of expedienc
of commercial prof;t or national prestige.
Who stops to think
whether the astronomical sums of money spent on fifixfifi ghe
exploration of Space or the breaking of speed records is morally
justified?
Whether'it would nofi be better Spent on cancer
research or education or the prevention of landslides?
Yet to raise this issue is to raise an even deeper one;1
Are we human beings in fact free to make mbral decisibns?
Can we really choose or do we only thigk we can?
Are we able
to determine our own destiny or is if determined for us by
fofbes béyond our control?
Are we freé or are we fgttered?
This is an old puzzle, which has been debated by philosophers
and theologians sinée time immgmoria1.' In ancient times it
was commonly believed that Human freedom is illusory, that
what a man does, and what happens to him, is unalterably
HKXKKEXKKE predetermined by the gods or by some abstract
force called Fate.
This view, which is variously called
Fatalism, Predestihation or Determinism, is characteristic
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especially of Eastern thought. ~H;nfiuism and Buddhism teach
that human destiny is determined by ah inexorabie causal law
called karhia.
Confucian-ism too is fatalistic.
Christiénity
has been divided on thg subject, but has generally tended in
the séme diféction. [$1ready Paul taught that some men are
'%lected" and others are not, and it does not depend at all on
what they do but on their predestination.
X§XKKXK§XHX[§hus
he says, quoting the verse from Exofius, "I will have mercy mn
whom
I
will have mercy, and
I
will have compassion on whom
I
will have compassion" (33:19): "So it depends not upon man's
will or exertion, but upon God's mercy...He has mercy upon whom—
ever he wills, and he hardens the heaft-of whomever he willé"
(Romans 9:15—18):}
This doctrine of predestination became a dogma of the
Catholic Church, and features even more prominently in the
teachings of Luther and Calvin. [Thus Calvin declared: "The
seed of the word of God takes root and brings forth fruit
only in those whom the Lord, by his eternal election, has
predestined to be children and heirs of the heavenly kingdom"
(quoted by A.H. Silver, @3333 Judaism Differed, p. 246).
he goes on to explain that this tnuth is a mystery beyond
human understanding which must neverthelesé be acceptedé]
And
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Mohammedanism, too, after some controversies on the
subject, plumped for predestihétion'énd made it an essential
part of its orthodox teachings.
In modern times Determinism has re-appeared in a number
of new guisée.
There is, for example, the doctrine of Marx,
that what men think and say and do is predetermined by the
economic structure of the society in which they live.
And
there is the doctrine of Freud, that human behaviour results
essentially from his sexual drives and his childhood exper—
iences.
_/—
|
Thus there is a formidable body of opinion arrayed on
'the éide of Determinism of one kind or another.
Where, then,
does Jédaism stand?
The Hebrew Bible takes it for granted tgab man is free,
not only to make the ordinary, relatively insignificant,
decisions of every day, but above all yo choose between
right and wrong, between good and evil, between obeying.
I
and disobeying the will of God.
Without this assumption,
neither the commandments of the lawgivers nor the exhortation
of the prophets would make any sense.
They presuppose that
man is able to obey the commandments, XKHX and to respond
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to the exhortatimn{EE thai is; to repept} and to change his
way of liféi]
.
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Sometimes, indeed, man's freedom of choice is explicitly
affirflfiéémuigifcfijfij?g“fpr example, in the story of the Garden
of Eden, wbefé Adam and Eve are free to eat or not to eat the
forbidden fruit; and most eloquently in the book of Deuterbno—
my: "See, I have set before you this day life and good, and
death and evil...therefore choose lifeL that you and your
descendants may live" (30:15,19).
[inere are, it is true, some contrary instances. [#eremiah
exclaims, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard
his spots?" (13:23); but that is only a cry of despair gnd
not to be taken as doctrine.
Ecclesiastes maintains that
"what is crooked cannot be made straight" (1:15); but then
his book is anything but typical; it is more Greek than Jewish
in its tenoré] Above all there is the éurious statement, which
occurs nine timgs in the book of Exodus, including our Torah
portion, that God "hardened Pharaoh's heart".
But this top
is relatively exceptional, and while Paul, as we have seen,
took it at its face valuezlthe Rabbis were greatly perturbed
by it afid did their best to exDlain it away.
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For example:"Rabbi Yochanan said,,This verse gives the
heretics a chance to say; "It wés'nbf in his power to repent'
[gin other words, he was nét a-firee agenyj. But Rabbi Shim'on
ben Lakish replied: 'Let the heretics hold their tongue, for
this-verse has to be understood in the light of what it says
in the Book of Proverbs (3:3h), To the scorners God is scornfu
but to the humble 6e gives grace.
Fér this means that God
warns a man once, twice, three times; but if he still does not
XKEKKX change his Ways, then God closes IK§I§ his heart against
repentance, so as to exact from him punishment for his sin.
In the same way, God warned Pharaoh five times, but he paid
no attention.
only then did God say;to him: You have stiffen-
ed your neck and hardened your heart; now therefore I will
reinforce your iniquity."‘ And the péssage goes
a pub, based on the fact that fihe
on to
make
Hebrew word for 'hardenad'
is related to the ward ggzgg, which means 'liVer'.
So it
says that Pharaoh's heart was like a liver which, if it is
boiled a second time, acquires such a tough outer skin that
no fUrther moisture can ehter into it (Ex.R. 13:3).
The essential poibt therefore is that even the most wicked
of men has ample opportunity to repent; but if he persistently
v
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refuses, if he becomes a hardened or hard-bpiled sinngr, then
repentance becomes progressively more difficult, and dgééfiggéry practically impossible;
As the Rébbis said in anothef
context, mitzvah goreret mitzvah va—averah goreret averah,
"A good deed leads to another, and a transgression to another"
(Avot u32).
That is to say, our past misdeeds, and our past
bad habits, create a stranglehold from which it becomes in—
creasipgly difficult to extricate ourselves.
By pointing to this psychological fact, the Rabbis sought,
on the one hand, to explain the
Pharaoh's hardened heart, and
Scriptural réferences to
on the other
hand to safeguard
their fundamental belief in the freedom of the human will;]
This belief is succinctly summarised in the Rabbinic epigram,
[Fakol bidey shamayim chutz miyir'at shamayimJ "Everyfhing is
in the hand of God except the fear of God." That is to say,
however much human freedom may be cifcumscribed by uncontroll—
able circumstances, in the last resort he is free to decide
whether he will do God's will or not.
This saying occurs
three times in the Talmud (Ber. 33b, Meg.25a, Nid. 16b) and
is always followed by the proof—text from Deuteronomy,
"And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from
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you but to
fear- the
Lord
,
Iyo’ur 'God...‘"-‘(1©:12).
.
r
"And Rashi,
the 11th century French—JeWish commentator;lexplains: "This
is the one thing Which God demahds from you, for everything
else depends on him, but this depends on you" (Nid. 16b).
And again: "Although it lies within God's power to determine
even the disposition of the human héart, he deliberately
refrains from doing so" (Meg. 253).
And, even more expliéitly
Rashi remarks: "Everything that happens to a man is determined
by God, for example whether he is tall or short, poor or rich,
ifitelligent or unintelligent, white or black...but whether
he is righteous or wicked, that does not depend on God, that
depends on man himselffléfor God has placed beforé him two
ways, and it isygg; man to choose the way of the fear of
(Ber. 33b).
.
Gé§j
But the best summafy of the characteristic and authentic
Jewisg view is to bé found in the Mishneh Torah, that master—
piece of the 12th century philosophér and codifiefl, Maimonides.
ineiine
"Every man," he says, "has been given the power to fixxnnxn
clown
KXEKKXX tafiurée the path of goodness, and to be righteous,
(Limes
if he wéshes; but if he wishes to choose the path of evil,
1,.
and to be wicked, the power is likewise in his hand...Do not
Pm"
en er t amh t h e idea advneuésd by the fools among the Gentiles
1;
TH‘E
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and most of the iggoramus;es among the Jews that God decrees
before a man's birth whéther he will be righteous or wicked.
It is not so,-but ever§.mén is capable of being righweoqs
'xlike Moses or wicked like Jeroboam, learned or ignorant,
merciful or cruel, niggardly or generous, and so forth.
And there is no force which compels him, or predestines him,
o
pulls hifi one way or the other; but he himself, by his own
volition, chooses the path which he desires...And this is
a great prinéiple, the very foundation of the Torah and of
the commandmentah'(Hil. Teshuvah 5:1—3).
hope I have not wearied you with too many quotations;
[1;
but 1 was anxious to demonstrate how clear and how emphatic
Judaism is on thms subjectéj]Almost alobe among the religioné
and philosophies, Judaism has chasistently through the ageshmfi
that man is a free agent, in spite of all appearances to the
conthary, free above all to make moral choices, moral decision
[End that nothihg can rob'him of this freedoj.
It is true, of coursg, that our
freedom of enemas and
action is cmrcumecribed, and in ways which our ancestors
in pre—scientific times could not fully appreciate.
We know
more than they did about the limitations imposed upon us by
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our physiological make—up, by our childhood experiences, by
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our social environment, by gur chltufal heritage, and by other
1
Indeed that is fihy,today determinism is so fashionneceSSary
But that mAkes it all the more KNEEKXKKX to insist and
factors.
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able.
to re-emppasise that, in spite of all these limitations, there
is an are? of human life, and that the most important, within
whiph freedom of choice remains open to us.
is vitally important for two reasons.
[if
the diggitx of man depends on it.
vman
First, because
is not in any sense
his own master, if he is entirely at the mercy of forces within
himself and Without over which he has no control, then he(®es
ndt differ essentially from other animals, and there is no
transcendentél meaning or value éithér in the individual's
Vlife or in human history.
,As Rabbi
Abba Hillel Silver has
said, "Because man is free, his life can be heroic or tragic.
Without freedom of decision his life could only be fortunate
6r pathetic" (flflggg Judaism Differed;
p.
252).
And secondly it is important to stress man's freedom
because from that freedom issues his resgonsibilitg. [Both
themes, man's dignity and man's respgnsibility, are e10quently
stated in the 8th Psalm: "What is man that Thou art mindful
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of him,
anéthe
son or
1‘1
-_.
‘
m6 that
‘)
.Thbu thinkest of him? Yet
Thou hast made himVlitile lesé thah divine, and hast crowned
him with glory and honbfif. >Thou haét nade him to have
.
dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast pht all
things under his feet."
"Thou hast put all things under
his feet" - that is more true today than the Psalmist could
have dreamtg] Man has achieved almost unlimited power over
his environment, and the great question of our time is whethe
he will learn to use that power responsibly.
Will he use it
merely to satisfy his immediate material cravings? and im
so doing pollute the earth and poison the
atmosphere and
congest the cities and thereby bring doom upon the generation
to come? Or will he devote his energy and ingenuity to the
KKKKXIKKXEZ establishment of justice and peace and the
creatibp of welfare and beauty?
Nobody knows; but this is
certain, that whateQer hope there may be for the future
_depends on man's rediscovery that he has the freedom and
the responsibility of moral choice.
And if that is so,
does not Judaism have, on this score alobe, a claim to be
heardand heeded” not only by its own adherents, but by
.
mankind?:3
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