Who runs things here? Providence and choice

Two meanings of “providence”

“There is no chance in the world, everything is directed from above.” This is the most routine religious statement, and almost everyone who grew up with a religious education accepted it as self-evident. To examine it, we need to distinguish two meanings of the word “providence.” Passive providence: God knows and records everything that happens. This we have accepted, and it is what Maimonides counts among the principles. Active providence: God decides what will happen, and carries it out. This Maimonides did not count among the principles, and yet the popular belief assumes it, and it has many sources, mainly in the words of the Sages. Rabbi Chanina says in the Gemara (Chullin 7b): “A person does not stub his finger below unless it is proclaimed about him above.”

And here a request: to hear it through to the end before forming a position, because the picture becomes clear only from the whole.

The problem

If God brings about everything that happens, how are my deeds in my hands? Maimonides himself, in the Laws of Repentance (chapter 5), assumes as obvious that a person’s deeds are given over to him, and that if God decreed that a person be righteous or wicked, there would be no point in commanding him commandments, nor room for reward and punishment. And now think of a practical situation: Shimon decided to harm Reuven, and harmed him. If God “saw to it” that Reuven was harmed, who is responsible? And if Shimon is responsible, what exactly did God do?

To be precise, we need to understand what a “cause” is. A cause is a sufficient condition for the result: if it is present, the result comes. If Shimon’s decision was the cause of the harm, then God was not the cause. And if God was the cause, Shimon is not responsible, because the result would have come without him. One cannot hold both claims together: that God brings about everything that happens, and that human beings have free choice and responsibility for their deeds. This is not a “difficulty,” it is a contradiction.

This conclusion is surprising, and yet the truth must not be bent to any purpose: God does not bring about the deeds of human beings and their results. Human evil is the responsibility of human beings. It is true that everything is done “by his power,” since he gave the person this power, “for it is he who gives you the power to make wealth.” But once he gave it, the power is in our hands.

Sources that seem to contradict

Before we go on, we must deal with sources that seem to say the opposite: that God brings about what human beings do as well. True, we saw that on questions of fact the Sages have no authority, and so even an explicit source would not obligate us to accept their words. And yet it is right to deal with these sources and understand them, because it often turns out that they do not say what seems at first glance.

“A person does not stub his finger.” Rabbi Chanina says in the Gemara (Chullin 7b): “A person does not stub his finger below unless it is proclaimed about him above.” But it is worth reading the context. Rabbi Chanina says that even sorcery cannot act against a heavenly decree, and tells of a woman who tried to bewitch him and failed. And immediately Rabbi Yochanan objects: sorcery “contradicts the heavenly court,” that is, it has power to act against what was decreed in heaven. And the Gemara answers: Rabbi Chanina is different, because his merits are great. In other words, the Gemara itself says that ordinarily one can act against a heavenly decree, and Rabbi Chanina is a special case.

The accidental killer. The Torah says of one who killed a person unintentionally: “And he did not lie in wait, but God caused it to come to his hand,” that is, God “arranged” the incident. The Gemara (Makkot 10b) explains with a story: two men killed, one unintentionally and one deliberately, and neither has witnesses, so neither is punished. What does God do? He brings them both to the same inn. The deliberate killer sits under a ladder, and the accidental killer comes down the ladder, falls on him and kills him. Now there are witnesses to the new incident: the one who killed deliberately dies, as he deserves, and the one who killed unintentionally is exiled to a city of refuge, as the Torah prescribes for one who kills unintentionally. From this it seems that God arranges people’s deaths too. But notice what is being discussed: an accidental death. The one who came down the ladder did not choose to kill. He fell. In other words, the Gemara is speaking of an incident caused by a natural process, not by a human decision. And it says that in such processes God’s will is realized. It does not say that God decides in place of a person who chooses to murder.

The conspiring witnesses. A somewhat longer explanation is needed here, because the concepts are unfamiliar. In Torah law, if two witnesses testified that a person murdered, the court executes him. But if afterward two other witnesses come and say: “The first witnesses were not there at all, they were with us somewhere else,” then the first witnesses are declared liars, “conspiring witnesses” (edim zomemim), and they receive the punishment they wanted to bring on the accused. And now the strange point: halakha rules that conspiring witnesses are punished only if the accused has not yet been executed. If he has already been executed, they are not punished. Why? That is a worse situation! Nachmanides explains: God is with the judges and protects them from error. So if the accused has already been executed, that is a sign that he really was guilty, and that the first witnesses told the truth. In other words, Nachmanides assumes that God guarantees that a court will not execute an innocent person. But this explanation is very difficult. The Torah itself warns the judges again and again: “You shall do no injustice in judgment,” “you shall not pervert justice.” If God guarantees they will not err, why all the warnings? Clearly judges can err, and even pervert justice deliberately. In other words, Nachmanides assumes here a conception in which God brings about the results of human actions too, and that conception does not fit with what the Torah itself says.

Sources that support

And on the other side, there are sources that say explicitly what is said here.

“Some are swept away without judgment.” The Gemara (Chagigah 4b-5a) brings the verse “Some are swept away without judgment” (Proverbs 13), and relates that a person can die without it having been decreed. Rabbenu Chananel explains that this happens only when another person, who has choice, kills him. That is, one who has choice can act against God’s will, and that is precisely the crime of murder.

Reuven and Joseph. When the brothers wanted to kill Joseph, Reuven proposed throwing him into the pit, and it is written: “And he saved him from their hand.” The brothers said: “And we shall see what will become of his dreams,” that is, we will see whether his dreams are true. The “Or HaChaim” explains the logic. In the pit there were snakes and scorpions, but animals have no choice: they cannot kill a person whose death has not been decreed. So if Joseph’s dreams are true, he will survive in the pit. But the brothers, who are human beings with choice, can kill even one whose death has not been decreed. And so Reuven saved him “from their hand”: from the hand of those with choice. And indeed, had the brothers killed Joseph, it would not have been proof that the dreams were false, because their choice could have canceled them.

“Everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven.” The deeds that depend on our choice leave the control of Heaven. That is exactly what is said here.

Reservations and questions

Can God nevertheless intervene? Certainly. It may be that sometimes, at this or that point, he takes the reins into his hands. What is said here concerns the ordinary course of things, not exceptional cases. But we have no way to identify when this happens, and so we cannot build on it.

And what about the sources that speak of God running history? There is a beautiful Gemara that offers a balanced position. The Gemara (Bava Kamma 60b) says about the destruction of Jerusalem: “The Holy One, blessed be He, said: It is upon me to pay for the fire I kindled. I set fire to Zion… and I will rebuild it with fire.” To understand the image, one needs to know something from the laws of damages. Whoever lights a fire, and the fire spreads and burns a neighbor’s field, must pay. But he did not burn the field himself, like someone who shoots an arrow. The fire went and burned by its own force. And yet he is responsible, because he lit it. That is indirect responsibility. And now the application: God did not burn the Temple himself. Human beings did. But he created them, with the ability to harm and the freedom to choose, and so he has a certain responsibility for what they do, like someone who lit a fire. That is why he “pays”: he promises to rebuild. In other words, the Gemara rejects both the position that everything is the direct work of God’s hands, and the position that he has no responsibility at all. The destruction was an act of human beings, and God has an indirect responsibility, which will be expressed in a future repair.

And from this a first consequence, to which we will return: one cannot draw theological lessons from history. Whoever concluded from the Holocaust that one must be a Zionist, and whoever concluded from it that one must oppose Zionism, are equally mistaken. Not because both conclusions are wrong, but because both try to draw conclusions about God from events in which there is no necessity that he is involved. If the Holocaust was not a punishment from his hand but a decision of the Nazis, there is no point asking for what he “punished.”