PIKESVILLE, Maryland — Once we understand that God, or, if you prefer to think, nature, is not manipulating us, and we have been given intelligence to use to make decisions, and free choice to act as we want, even if we act contrary to God’s will and the laws of nature, we will realize the importance of using our intelligence and making right choices.
The recognition that we are not puppets and must handle our own lives without divine intervention also helps explain why God did not interfere to save the six million Jews during the Holocaust and does not answer prayers. It explains that the many miracles mentioned in the Bible, such as the ten plagues inflicted on the Egyptian slave masters, were natural events. But, most of all, it prompts us to realize that we must take our lives and destiny into our hands if we want to be successful and create a better world.
Free choice is a power and responsibility that brings both opportunities and consequences resulting from the exercise of this freedom, including the creation of who we are and who we can be. We need to make decisions in life because we are humans and not plants or animals. If we choose not to decide, we will have made a bad choice; we have acted inhumanely.
We must be careful. We are free to choose what we want, but we are not free from the consequences of our choices. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Free will carried many a soul to hell.”
Viktor E. Frankl, who suffered in a Nazi concentration camp where his wife was killed, highlighted the importance of making a correct decision. While in the camp, his decision gave meaning to his life. It led him to act sensibly. It saved his life. He wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
George Elliot stressed that a proper choice can lead to improvement, “The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.” Denis Waitley focused on our responsibility, “There are two primary choices in life; to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.” The first is passive. It is as ineffective as a husband and a wife who spend their days on a couch watching TV. It left them practically, ethically, and humanely not a single step closer to where they should be.
Recently, I read a long, four-column op-ed newspaper article by an American university professor who addressed the issue of how to know if a behavior is ethical. He concluded his dissertation by saying, “We know that an act is ethical if it feels right.”
Have you ever heard anything so stupid? Hitler, thinking of taking control of a country that belonged to another nation and sacrificing millions to do so, felt he was doing what was right. Did that make it right?
The third weekly biblical portion of Deuteronomy, Re’eh, which means “see,” warns us not to think as the university professor taught his students and wanted to teach us with his op-ed. In 11:26, the Torah states, “See, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse.” In 30:19, it states, “I placed before you life and death, blessing and curse, choose life, that you can live, you and your offspring.”
The Torah warns that God is not involved in manipulating life; intelligence to choose was set in us. Only intelligent decisions assure a good life. In contrast, a wrong decision can ruin both the life of the decision maker and that of their descendants, such as a decision not to send one’s children to a Jewish school to learn about Judaism or a decision to stop learning after finishing school. Such choices are like death.
Rabbi Ronald D. Price tells us in his book Dvrei Halev that his teacher, Professor Halivni, stressed this Torah teaching; humans are informed of the existence of two things, blessings and curses, and are obligated to use their intelligence and then choose.
Intelligent choices enable individuals to live and navigate their lives to pleasant shores, to Gardens of Eden, to a blessed life. Conversely, relying on feelings, failing to think and choose, or making wrong, false choices leads to stagnation and fierce death.
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Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin is a retired brigadier general in the US Army Chaplain Corps. He is the author of more than 50 books.
