Why did Hashem create the world in such a way that free will is so essential?
Nothing is more central to our preparations for Yom HaDin than increasing our awareness of our free will — as a prelude for strengthening our ability to exercise control over our desires. Rabbi Netanel Wiederblank in his superb work Illuminating Jewish Thought: Explorations of Free Will, the Afterlife, and the Messianic Era, cites a fascinating experiment in which, prior to taking an exam, some students read an essay denying the existence of free will. Those who read the essay were more likely to cheat on the subsequent exam than a control group.
Conversely, Rav Dessler writes in Michtav MeEliyahu, the reason that so many today are attracted to deterministic doctrines that deny free will is that they have so little personal experience of overcoming their desires.
My Elul reading project is reviewing Rabbi Wiederblank’s sefer. His nearly 300-page treatment of free will reflects a comprehensive mastery of the varying positions of the Rishonim and Acharonim on the major issues connected to free will, along with an ability to probe the difficulties in each position and to sharply define the differences between them. Without a trace of exaggeration, Rabbi Wiederblank’s former rosh yeshivah in the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, Rav Aaron Lopiansky, describes him as “Harav Hagaon.”
He tackles the relevant issues: How did free will change with the sin of Adam? How can Hashem’s foreknowledge of what will occur be reconciled with man’s free will? What is the scope of free will? What does it mean that Hashem “hardened” Pharaoh’s heart? In an important final section, he shows how far from the mark is the denial of free will by some scientists. Science, he writes, has not accounted for human consciousness — our essential “I” or neshamah — that weighs options and chooses between courses of action, and which cannot be reduced to the substance or structure of the physical brain.
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