Voltaire once asked, "If a man is locked in a room without a key, does he have freewill? The Jewish answer is clear: yes. Freewill is not about manipulating the universe, controlling space; it is about being and choosing to live to one's ultimate potential.
The Gemarah in Masekhet Nida teaches that before we are born, we are made to take an oath. An angel makes us swear, "I will be a tsaddik [righteous person] and I will not be a ra`sha [wicked person]."
Any student of logic will recognize and immediate problem with this oath, for it contains what is called in philosophy, a "contradictory middle." A contradictory middle occurs when one is given two opposites poles, "it is this and it can not be that" wherein our mind can come up with a third category, namely the middle ground. The category this oath does not address is the situation between. What happens, you might ask if I am neither a tsaddik nor a ra`sha? Have I fulfilled my oath? The rabbis even have a category for this middle-ground, and they call it benoni, one who does just "okay." Masekhet Rosh HaShanah even tells us that if we can manage to live our lives and approach the Yom HaDin [Day of Judgment] at the end of our days as a benoni, we're doing quite well. It's considered a "pass" on our life's report card. So the category exists, that's clear.
If so, what is this Gemarah trying to say? In actuality, the Rabbis use this "contradictory middle" quite often. By using it, they are telling us that, while our mind can conceive of this middle ground, it doesn't really exist, and that if one does not meet the criteria for the first part, then the second part becomes the effective state. In other words, one who is not a tsaddik, is a ra`sha.
But wait a minute; didn't we learn that there is a middle category? Namely, that of benoni? How can these ideas be reconciled?
We learn from this a beautiful point. God out of His love for us created a non-existent category, so that when we're facing that final Day of Judgment, we can get the pass. God is always pulling strings to help us get by, to help us succeed. However, the category of benoni is only valid "after the fact."
In reality, the category does not really exist. In other words, no one comes into the world in order to be mediocre. No one comes into the world to simply "pass." We are instead, created to be, created reach our maximum potential. We are created to get an "A."
There is another Gemarah passage, in Masekhet Yoma, that teaches, "A poor person, a rich person, and a wicked person are all asked the same question when they reach Heaven: Why didn't you spend more time learning Torah?" Why are these three types of people brought? How each answers, and is answered comes to teach us something.
The poor person will say, "I was busy earning a living, I didn't have time to learn." The prosecutor will then ask, "Where you as poor as Hillel the Elder?" Hillel was a woodchopper, and earned one coin a day. Half of the coin went to support his entire family, and the other half went to pay the guard at the Bet Midrash (study house). The Bet Midrash was a distance from town and it was necessary to pay a guard to protect the students. Each student had to pay the guard one half of this coin. To place things in perspective (we don't know what poor is today, Thank God), the guard was not exactly on the high end of the social and financial ladder, and he earned half of this coin from each student every day. Generally there were about fifty students or more in the Bet Midrash daily. Now, remember, Hillel supported his entire family on only one single half coin. Hillel was poor. In fact, he was so poor that one day, he was unable to earn even that one coin, so, in order to learn from his teachers, he climbed up on the roof of the Bet Midrash (he didn't have anything to pay the guard) and put his ear to the skylight to listen to his teachers. That evening it snowed and the next morning when his teachers noticed there wasn't any light in the Bet Midrash, they looked up to see the figure of a man. They hurriedly pulled Hillel down from the roof to thaw him out so he wouldn't die. So the prosecutor will then ask, "Where you as poor as Hillel the Elder?"
The rich man will say, "I had property and a business to run. When you have things, you have to take care of them, so I didn't have time to learn." The prosecutor will then ask, "Where you as rich as Elieazer ben Hyrcaneus?" He owned 1000 ships and several villages. He was so wealthy that he had to travel incognito just to be able to learn. So, the prosecutor will then ask, "Where you as rich as Elieazer ben Hyrcaneus?"
The wicked person will say, "There was so much temptation in the world, so many pleasures, I couldn't resist? The prosecutor will then ask, "Where you tempted as much as Yosef the Tsaddik?" We are all familiar with the story of Yosef in the Torah, and how he resisted Potiphar's wife. She was an exceedingly beautiful woman, who knew all the arts of seduction. In addition, she threatened Yosef's very life if he refused to submit to her whiles. And Yosef was a seventeen-year-old boy with all of the yearnings of a seventeen-year-old boy today. We are even taught that Yosef came back to the house; ready to give in, when he saw an image of his father before him and restrained himself. So the prosecutor will then ask, "Where you tempted as much as Yosef the Tsaddik?"
Yet, you will argue, "I'm not Yosef! I'm not Hillel!" " I'm not Elieazer!" Don't judge me on that kind of scale, compare me with "Fred or Biff or Sue." "It's not fair to put me on that scale.
And this, teach the Sages, is where we err. Great people were not great people upon birth. Hillel was not the sage "Hillel," at the time that he climbed up onto that roof; he was simply the woodchopper Hillel, who did all that he could to reach the top. He took a few steps, and God helped him the rest of the way up. There is no such thing as "great people," only people who do great things and thus are regarded as "great people."
God does not judge us against "Hillel," or "Elieazer," or "Yosef"; he judges us against "Us," and everything we can and could be. We swore an oath (granted against our will, but nonetheless) to be a tsaddik and not to be a ra`sha. Yom HaKippurim is a time to take stock, to determine where our scale sits.
A tsaddik, teach the sages is a person who has one more merit than he has sin. We should always act, always be in a state of mind, that at any given moment, we are equally balanced, and our very next action can tip the scale in either direction.
And how to we live up to our potential? By becoming a "master" of life, by learning how to live the right way. The way one becomes a master at anything is through training. Through discipline one becomes a virtuoso. If one wants to be able to be "free" with one's body, one's instrument, or one's craft one must enslave oneself. Amongst teenagers, there are two types of guys who buy guitars; those that want to learn how to play guitar, and those who want to be seen with guitars. Those that want to be seen as a guitarist are on the street the very next day, with their new instrument, strumming away. Those that want to learn to play guitar become prisoners of their bedrooms, and are not seen for two years. But when they emerge, boy, can they play.
To learn to dance one must spend hours standing in "first position," one must stretch one's muscles until they are beyond sore. By training oneself that each muscle responds exactly as one wishes, exactly as it is meant to, as perfectly as it can, only then, can one soar across a stage, flying "free."
The same goes with life. If one wants to become a master of life, if one wants to live truly "free," one must enslave oneself and learn the mastery of living, so that one is able to respond exactly as one is designed to, as perfectly as one can. This mastery comes from learning Torah, the Book of freedom, the Book that teaches the mastery of Life written by the Creator of Life.
Voltaire once asked, "If a man is locked in a room without a key, does he have freewill?
The answer is yes. Freewill, living "free," is not about being able to manipulate the universe. Freewill is being able to respond to every situation, to everything that life has to offer with Torah. True freewill stems from being a master of life. Being free means being able to respond exactly and perfectly, not a slave to one's passions or environment, but a person in complete control. Exercising one's freewill is like soaring across the stage of life. It appears effortless to the audience, but it requires training.
When we arrive in Heaven, we will be asked why we didn't learn more Torah, why we didn't become masters of life, why we didn't live up to each of our individual potential.
Shabbat Shalom!
Shanah Tovah!
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