Free- will means deciding about morality

How Free Will Works: The Blueprint to Take Charge of Your Life, Health, and Happiness by Dovid Lieberman, Feldheim Publishers, New York;  ISBN 978-1-4675-6353-6 ©2015, $19.99, p. 324, plus glossary

By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.

WINCHESTER, California — Judaism has a theological problem with regard to free will. People have a sense of self-agency and self-determination; that is, they believe they have free will. Judaism, however, maintains the notion of hashgacha, divine providence, implying that God not only knows what is transpiring on earth, but takes an active role in directing it. According to the Talmud, God is responsible for the world, “from the horns of the wild oxen to the tiniest louse” (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 3b).

Medieval Jewish scholars could not come to a consensus on the existence or nonexistence of free will and modern science, by arguing for a subconscious that drives our behaviors, and neurotransmitters, which activate shortly before we are conscience of our desire to act, all but deny free will. Yet, if there were no free will, why did God give the Torah with commandments pointing to proper behaviors and verses like, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.” (Deut. 30:19).

How Free Will Works, the newest book by award-winning author Dovid Lieberman, declares that free will exists and operates in “a framework of clearly defined rules and parameters.” For Lieberman, “free will is the moral essence of choice;” decisions of right and wrong made by the psychological drives creating our state of mind. Lieberman calls on certain Jewish sages to explain why free will must exist; thereby showing that there is no chasm between free will and God. On the contrary, God designed free will in order “to prepare us for a world that is beyond our own.” The quality of our choices not only affects the worth of this life, but also our next.

Lieberman offers a clear and compelling analogy of how free will exists even under the knowing mind of an omniscient God, which goes something like this: parents give their child two items and ask that he/she select one. For all intends and purposes free will is active. The parents offer no advice; there is no interference. Nonetheless, the parents understand the nature of their child and know the selection that will be made in advance. So it is with God.

High self-confidence and self-esteem leads to good choices, whereas a damaged ego through defense mechanisms, fosters flawed behaviors, creates self-imposed suffering, produces failed relationships, and offers only poor alternatives. Lieberman also cites psychological studies, showing that one’s social environment and peer group influence the decisions one makes to a considerable degree.

How Free Will Works does not specifically enumerate the rules, but they are easily inferred from the text. There are psychological rules, such as: “Perception can suppress reality” and “Belief is truth.” There are emotional rules: “Happiness is in our own hands” and “Context gives reality meaning.” The rules making How Free Will Works uniquely Jews are the faith-based tenets, such as “Imitate God,” which means one should be a giver by showing loving-kindness and not be a taker, and “Mazel affects life.”

According to Lieberman, God interacts with humanity through three divine paths. The first is Mazel, often translated as luck or fate and at first blush seems to annul the idea of free will. Lieberman defines mazel as “the confluence of attributes and circumstances that is required to complete humanity’s … perfection of oneself and of the world.” It is our obligation to channel our desires and talents to the betterment of the community and in doing so, be the best we can be. The second and third fall under the rubric of providence: general group providence and individual providence. The former “means that God has set in motion predetermined rules that facilitate the continued existence of every species.” In the latter, “God supervises an individual and either punishes or rewards him [measure for measure] in accord with his deeds.”

Quantum mechanics, the physics of the atomic and subatomic worlds, posits that multiple realities exist in nature simultaneously. Only when the experimenter takes a measurement of the system do all of the possibilities “collapse” and only one of the possibilities emerges. In an analogy, Lieberman says that when a person is confronted with a moral dilemma, multiple options exist, implying that there are many unwritten futures, but only after the decision is made and steps taken to carry it out, do all of the other possible possibilities collapse and one future unfolds.

Free will means freedom to create one’s own reality, destiny, and eternity. Having to choose which fruits to eat for dessert is not a free-will decision; a free-will struggle must have a moral component. “Sin damages the soul” is another rule, and when we fail to rise above our nature and opt for the wrong choice, our only alternative is to ask for forgiveness and make atonement. There is a big difference between faith in God and trust in God. A salient point of How Free Will Works is to trust God under all circumstances. If this trust is made part of the psyche then authentic atonement—repentance, prayer, and deeds of loving-kindness—will follow.

Revising God’s heavenly decree is within the grasp of every person. Changing one’s attributes and/or circumstances alters one’s mazel, which leads to another rule: “Fate is flexible.” Lieberman enumerates various ways problems appear in life, sometimes coming from God to foster spiritual growth and sometimes from “self-inflicted wounds.” He then takes the last chapters motivating the reader to change and suggesting alternative remedial actions; ideas found in the Torah and Talmud.

The Godly message of reward and punishment in How Free Will Works will strongly reverberate with traditional Jews. That is not to say, however, that others will not discover value in this book since, in addition to the findings of modern science, Lieberman concisely offers thousands years of Jewish wisdom on coping with one’s internal struggle of right and wrong from which much meaning can be extracted. How Free Will Works offers strong arguments for free will’s reality and is a superb road map for identifying and correcting corrosive attitudes and destructive behaviors within the model of a Torah-centered life.

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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and a fiction book, Reclaiming the Messiah. You may comment to the author at  fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com, or post your comment on this website provided that the tone is civil and you add to your comment your full name, city and state of residence.