#levoneh

a lot of what R' Dessler said about choice really resonated with me, both at the time i read it (about a decade ago) and in the years since. after all, bechira is an interesting issue in jewish philosophy--how do we have free will if Hashem knows the outcome of our choices? do we really have choice if the future exists in His eye? do we still live in present if the future is predetermined? is the future really something predetermined, or is it simply "knowable"--within His grasp, all the myriad of possibilities crystallizing into clarity as humanity exercises its collective options?

not really the time or place for those questions, but it really brings me to my point: the choices that we make are pregnant with possibility. every instant that we exist, we do something, not something else. we choose to breathe, choose to eat, choose to pray, choose to work, choose to sleep. we choose our friends, we choose our reactions, we choose our promises. 

and yet, there are many times in life that we don't make conscious choices to act a certain way. there are so many times in life that we just act automatically--on autopilot. and there are loads of reasons why, particularly because it would be exhausting to analyze each and every issue that comes about, and agonize over every breath we draw. and sometimes it's because we were raised to not even weigh the pros and cons of a certain situation (not committing murder, for example, in response to someone cutting you off on your way to work), or because we don't necessarily see that there are choices--there's just a derech, there's just the way.  

for much of life, we act thoughtlessly. we react. we exist without serious contemplation. 

there's a lot we can learn from an analysis of our own actions, for sure. you will definitely become much more self-aware if you sit and ask yourself why you do things, why you make certain choices, why it was obvious to you that you do "x" and not "y," and that analysis and reflection can definitely be a foundation for growth, but as i said, there are many reasons we choose not to analyze our own actions, and so i don't necessarily want to focus on that aspect of bechira. instead i want us to consider self-reflection as an important mechanism for social reflection, and for communal responsibility. 

one of my favorite lines in all of tanach is the following (שמואל א ,פרק טז or samuel #1, chapter 16, pasuk 7). the context is that Hashem is getting ready to select the new king to replace Shaul. they are looking at Eliav, and the following conversation is recorded:

ז ויאמר יהוה אל-שמואל, אל-תבט אל-מראהו ואל-גבוה קומתו--כי מאסתיהו:  כי לא, אשר יראה האדם--כי האדם יראה לעיניים, ויהוה יראה ללבב

a translation: And Hashem said to Shmuel: do not look at his looks and at his height--because i've [already] rejected him. because it's not about how man looks [at things]: mankind looks with their eyes, but Hashem sees into someone's heart.

it's a poignant passage. Hashem makes it clear that what is important to Him is not something that mankind can necessarily see in one another. we are faulty judges; we have a limited number of ways to perceive someone. we see who someone is at the moment that they stand before us--we cannot see what thoughts and feelings have brought them there, here, now, to this place. we don't know of their struggles and sorrows, and we don't know of their victories. 

a lot of people would very quickly agree with the notion that it's unfair to judge other people solely by their mistakes, their flaws, or even their successes. in fact, it's probably not very fair to judge people generally--we are not the high courts of heaven, and we too, on Yom Kippur, petition to both the advocate and the prosecutor to look kindly upon us. we start every year over and over and over again, and i am sure that i were the scales of justice, i would get sick of seeing the same mistakes. 

it seems heaven isn't as frail as i am. one of the most basic requirements of a jewish community in the Diaspora is the institution of a judicial system. and yet jewish law is a system that has rules so favoring lenity, so clearly bent to forgiveness and acceptance over punishment, that sometimes it seems perplexing why we might have certain rules at all. take the law of "ben sorrer u'moreh" -- the "rebllious son" who eats meat and drink and, we expect, will rob and murder people one day on highways if he isn't taken care of and put to death. and yet the law construes this rule until it becomes nothing but a hypothetical situation. it is a legal fiction, an impossibility, an example not of an actual prohibition, but a reminder that we are people filled with the possibility of change and to block out any possibility of growth or apology is to sentence yourself to the possibility that you will one day become someone who will make grave mistakes without even thinking anything of it. jewish law believes so strongly that people are filled with the potential for error, just as we are filled with the potential for greatness. in Masechet Sanhedrin, we learn from Rav Yonatan that we are not our mistakes--those are just choices.

i've wondered if we can apply the bechria point here, and ask whether a problem with judging others is that our scales simply cannot measure the distance from whence a person has come. bechira is a relative judgment--it's an analysis of who you are in the context of the place from which you've arrived. you may not be at the same level as someone who started many rungs higher on the ladder of life than you did, but you may have made more progress. some rungs are further apart than one another. some are easier to grab if you start from certain places on the chain. it comes back to privilege, after a fashion. it comes back to an accident of birth.

and Hashem reminds us with Eliav that, with our eyes, it's impossible to tell who has come from nothing to be a king.