And God said to Moses: “Come to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, in order that I may place these signs of Mine in his midst” (Exodus 10:1). In this opening verse of the Torah portion of Bo, God states his intention to harden Pharaoh’s heart as part of his plan of redeeming Israel from Egyptian slavery. This idea is repeated a number of times in the last five of ten plagues, the means by which God extricated Israel from exile.
The question is asked by many commentators especially Maimonides as to what the culpability of Pharaoh is inasmuch as it appears he had no free choice in the situation. The commentaries point out that in the first five plagues the language that is used repeatedly is that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Only after five plagues does the Torah recount that it is now God who is heartening his heart. Maimonides points out that free will is not open-ended, a privilege that can be abused or relinquished any time one chooses to not take responsibility for their actions. He explains that when a person acts in evil ways enough times, his or her free will can be taken away. According to Maimonides this is what happened to Pharaoh, who along with his advisers, initiated for their own reasons the slavery in Egypt when they feared Israel was becoming too strong. Not only did God at this point take away his free will but hardening his heart became the means of his measure for measure punishment.
The entire discussion of the parameters of Pharaoh’s use or disuse of free will is part of a much larger question regarding the great paradox between God’s foreknowledge of events, past present and future and His Divine Providence, in conjunction with man’s free will. Rabbi Akiva said: “Everything is foreseen, yet the freedom of choice is given. The world is judged in goodness and everything depends on the abundance of good deeds” (Pirkei Avot 3:19).
According to many commentators the greatest paradox in relation to man is that both free will and Divine Providence operate simultaneously. Most religions or philosophies tend to lean very heavily to one of these possibilities at the expense of the other, or totally negate one or the other, while Torah embraces not only this paradox, but in fact all paradoxes, as reflecting a deeper and truer reflection of reality. That both free will and Divine Providence and foreknowledge can both be true stretches the mind to comprehend that which is just beyond grasp. Yet stretching the mind is of great value and gives us deeper and deeper insight into how life unfolds.
Despite Judaism’s firm belief in free will it is not an absolute independent of other factors. As mentioned above, Maimonides, one of the strongest proponents of free will, states clearly that if one’s sins become very great the gift of free will is taken away (Mishnah Torah; Hilchot Teshuva 6:3). Free will is not open ended – if one abuses his freedom of choice enough times he in effect loses the privilege of using it.
Although each person has their own particular purpose in life, there is a much bigger picture we all fit into. Just as an individual is bound by many predetermined factors and circumstances of nature and nature, so too are the Jewish people, and in fact all mankind. Ever since the sin of Adam and Eve we are all bound by the results of the primordial exile from the Garden of Eden and the accompanying “curses,” or better stated, consequences. This creates the existential reality in which we live and die, the parameters over which we have no choice.
The Jewish people in particular are bound to a covenant with God and all that it entails. When God made the first covenant with Abraham at the “Covenant of the Pieces” he was told that his progeny would be afflicted by another nation in a land not their own for four hundred years but afterwards they would come out with great wealth (Genesis 15: 1-21). This prophesy became manifest in the slavery in Egypt and their ultimate redemption. The question becomes: what choices did they have during those four hundred years as to their fate? Was it not predetermined? And similarly, what choice did Pharaoh and all the Egyptians who conspired with him have when enslaving the people of Israel?
On a certain level history unfolded as it was determined to, yet the actual way and each person’s role in that unfolding was highly fluid. This holds true in general for how Divine Providence and free will operate simultaneously. Joseph when he finally revealed himself to his brothers who had sold him twenty-two years before said: “Therefore do not be sad nor angry with yourselves that you sold me here, for God sent me here before you in order to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5). Later Joseph said to them: “But as for you, you thought to do me evil, while God meant it for the good…” (Genesis 50:20). Free will once again is shown to be somewhat relative. The brothers made their choices and acted accordingly, yet Joseph reveals to them that in effect they were fulfilling a higher imperative unknown to them at the time. The mystifying manner in which individual choices and Divine Providence dovetail regardless of the choices made lies at the heart of the paradox. God is infinitely adaptable and no matter what choices a person makes God makes sure the individual’s ultimate purpose is fulfilled. This holds true for nations and all mankind as well. When needed, God intervenes in open or hidden ways so that a person stays somewhat on the right path. Whether it takes an individual one life time or a hundred is all adaptable in an accounting only God knows. The same holds true for how long it will take till the world to be ready for the Messianic era and the fulfillment of man’s ultimate purpose.
Returning to the Covenant of the Pieces when God revealed to Abraham what would occur to his progeny, the Torah states: “And He said to Abram, “You shall surely know that your seed will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will enslave them and oppress them, for four hundred years. And also, the nation that they will serve will I judge, and afterwards they will go forth with great possessions” (Genesis 15:13). On closer inspection we see that the actual description of who would oppress them and how severe the oppression would be is left undetermined. Therefore, many commentaries point out that the Egyptians, at least in their minds did not enslave Israel in order to fulfill God’s will or some pre-determined unfolding of events, rather they did it for their own selfish and evil reasons. The prophecy never even states who would oppress them. Thus, the punishments that were inflicted upon the Egyptians during the ten plagues were a measure for measure payback for their inhumanity and cruelty inflicted through their own choices.
Further it should be noted that this prophecy revealed to Abraham does not necessarily mean that the future was absolutely predetermined. Similar to how God grants a prophet a glimpse of a possible future in the present, God revealed to Abraham who was a prophet what the future would bring in general terms, as the four-hundred years mentioned never came to pass. Israel spent two-hundred and ten years in Egypt, of which according to tradition, the oppressive slavery occurred during eighty-six of those years. Retrospectively, the four-hundred years date back to the birth of Isaac who lived as a sojourner in the land of Canaan.
Similarly, all of the traumatic prophecies revealed to the great prophets of Israel were clearly not set in stone, and as the prophets told the people, if they changed their ways the prophetic predications would not have to come to pass. Unfortunately, in most cases the people did not heed the warnings and the prophecies were fulfilled. Yet, we are also taught that all of the positive prophecies will in fact be manifest at the given time.
At this point we can ask: if on some level God did plan that the children of Abraham should go through an exile, what was the purpose? According to Jewish tradition the Jewish people experienced four cardinal exiles: Babylonia, Persia, Greece and Rome. The obvious question is asked – why is the exile in Egypt not included? One of the answers is that the four exiles the Jewish people experienced were caused by their own misdeeds. Exile was the punishment, and in a sense, a needed rectification for the people’s own actions. The exile in Egypt was fundamentally different. It was not due to any misdeeds, rather it was determined by God as the prerequisite archetypal experience that would mold Jewish character and worldview in order to make them worthy of being a people chosen by God to be a light unto the nations. By experiencing suffering, exile and oppression the Jewish people would be sensitive to other people in similar situations and would act to heal, rectify and bring light wherever possible.
The Jewish people are told repeatedly by Moses that the covenant with God entails clear rewards and punishments and unambiguous laws of cause and effect. In a classic formula of free will he puts the choice before them: “I call heaven and earth today as witness this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse – therefore choose life that you and your children shall live…” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Despite this, Moses tells the people shortly afterwards that they will in the end rebel against God and the Torah lays out exactly how Jewish history would unfold. Anyone knowing even the basics of Jewish history can see that everything the Torah predicts has come true. This brings us back to our question as how does individual free will operate within the strictures of a people’s general predetermined history.
Perhaps the greatest advice as how to balance these two realities is given in Pirkei Avot (2:4): “Make His will your will, so that He will make your will His will. Nullify your will before His will so that He will nullify the will of others before your will.” According to this wisdom our ultimate goal is that our free choice should exactly reflect His Providence.
