In thinking about what could I possibly share with you at this season, how I might help frame the issue of being alive, I thought naturally of Milk Bones. Milk Bones, for those of you who do not live with spoiled dogs, are the boxes of little dog bon bons that we purchase to lavish upon our pets. But I want to tell you not about new milk bones per se; I want tell you a story about very old milk bones. It's really a story about freedom.
When I was a kid I lived with a dog named Oliver, and Oliver was named after the kid who performed that role in the musical Oliver! back in the 60s. Those of you who are ancient like me will remember that he had a haircut like the early Beatle style. It was a mop-top, which more or less was what the dog looked like. So even though she was a she, she was stuck with the name Oliver her entire life. Oliver was very much a house dog, and she used to go into every room we were hanging out in and follow us throughout the house. And every evening of her life, she went through the biggest drama of her existence.
Every evening when we would put her to bed, we would take her downstairs through the kitchen and open the back door to the kitchen which led to a stone basement - dark and cold. That's where she had to sleep (I was not an adult, I don't know why). That is where she had to sleep, and the only way we could get her there was to take a milk bone and throw it down the steps into the abyss. And then we would watch Oliver wrestle with her doggy soul. She would rock back and forth on the top of the steps - and you know what was going on in her head was, Oh, that looks really good. I think I'm going to go for the milk bone, but if I do that then they are going to shut the door and I'm going to be stuck down here; but it smells so delicious but I don't want to go down there ... And every single night she would rock back and forth, until in a single instant, her doggy nature would take over, she would run down the stairs, and the door would close. Every single night for seventeen years!
And I wonder as a student of philosophy, in what sense can we speak of her as free. After all, nobody coerced her choice. She was allowed to do what it was she chose to do; it's just that her nature was rigged in such a way that given that scenario, a hundred times out of a hundred, she would do the exact same thing. And then I wonder how different she is than us. How often do we tell ourselves: "Okay, this time I'm not going to do that." And then we enter that scenario and find ourselves doing exactly what we had told ourselves this time we're not going to do. How many times have we broken the promise that we made when our parents were doing something distasteful to us, "Okay, when I grow up I'm not going to say that," only to discover our father or our mother's spirit controlling our voice as we tell our kids exactly what we had promised never to repeat.
We also wrestle with what does it really mean to be free. To what extent are we truly the captains of our own souls? And to what extent are we, instead, the sum total of all the choices that were made for us or upon us - our instincts, our nature, our history, and our parents - to what extent is our freedom illusory. To what extent is it simply our pretending something that is not actual?
There are a few possible way to understand freedom in the world. The first of them is a kind of determinism, the notion that everything that has existed will always exist. Whatever exists is the sum total of the laws of physics, and they are, the scientists tell us, unchanging. You can be an atheist or a theist in this system. But if you believe that the universe is what is out there materially, and you believe the physics and the laws of physics govern all, that everything is a motion of atoms and molecules that come together in a certain way that is rigidly prescribed by the laws of nature, the laws of God, if you will, then there are no real choices. The human being is simply determined by our biology, our neurology. Our thoughts are epiphenomena of our nervous system, so we do what we do because we must; because that expresses our biology, because it manifests our genetics.
In such a worldview, everything is determined and nothing is free. There are great theologians who have affirmed that determinism is true, and there are great atheists, primary among them our own landsman, Baruch Benedictus Spinoza, who also said that everything is simply the working out of natural law, and therefore everything is as we knew it would be. In this deterministic system, provided with enough information, in theory one could predict everything that was going to happen because it is all simply the working out of mathematics and probability. As shocking as it may sound, conventional religions contribute to that deterministic view. Let me ask you a question: If God can foretell the future absolutely, if God's being all-knowing means that everything that will be is already known by God who stands outside of time, then what remains of freewill? If God knows, as a matter of certainty, that in five more minutes, in the middle of my sermon you will be fast asleep ... Not know that the way we humans know things - we know things probably (It is likely that five more minutes of my talking will put you down). But if God knows it absolutely, then in what way is sleeping a free choice? Western religion, the way it is understood by classical theology makes us choose between God's all-knowing power, and our apparent freedom. And I will tell you that in the history of philosophy, human freedom does not do so well.
But I want to hold out to you a very different model; a model that comes out of Judaism and that has returned to Western thought in the contemporary period. The remarkable thing about our universe is that it is constructed on fixed natural laws and yet it continues to innovate unprecedented developments. The universe keeps spawning new forms of being that had never previously existed. Evolution in that sense is a scandal. Put in place a bunch of fixed, inflexible, unchanging rules, and out of that unfaltering regularity galaxies are spun, universes are created, and solar systems, and planets. And on some of those planets - this one in particular - life! And life does not just continue to replicate itself. Even though the mechanisms for life are fairly stationary, life generates ever new forms of being; new forms of living.
We believe that God is what makes novelty possible. That innovation and novelty are the consistent suggestions of God at a cellular level, at a preconscious level, that allow for innovation and creativity and change. It is God's persuasive - not coercive power - that makes possible the recognition that tomorrow does not have to be the mere recapitulation of yesterday; that we are capable of shaping our future. It is unique among all religious traditions in the world that the Talmud portrays God not only as a teacher, but as a student. God is not a dictator who imposes edicts; God is the great pedagogue. The Talmud says that God spends the day studying Bible, and learning Talmud, and managing the world. A God who learns is a God who teaches. And a God who teaches is not coercive. That God invites us to make good decisions; to perceive right from wrong because of what we intuit inside, because of the messages that God constantly allows to spill out of our hearts and our of our minds when we do align ourselves with Gods' right choices. My favorite Rabbi is Rav Saadia Gaon, 9thCentury Baghdad. Rav Saadia Gaon teaches in his Sefer Emunot ve-De'ot, "The Blessed Creator does not allow His power to interfere in the least with the actions of people, nor does God compel them to be either obedient or disobedient."
That message of radical freedom is what life is all about. Judaism is predicated on human freedom. Our ability to do teshuvah, to repent, would make no sense whatsoever if we were programmed like robots. If we were simply told what it is we were to do and then we did it without choice, there would be no occasion to repent. We would either be perfect, and do what the program instructs, or someone would take us out and rewire us. Human beings are not machines. We make free choices because freedom is built into the fabric of life, hence, of Judaism. The Mishnah teaches us, in the words of Rabbi Akiva, "Everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is given." Rabbi Akiva is telling us that our choices are our own. One only gives mitzvot - commandments - to creatures that are capable of choosing to disobey them. God tells us up front, you can choose to deny what I ask you to do; that is in your power. Liberated from Mitzrayim, we experience God as the one who set free those who were slaves. And God is explicit lest we misunderstand the implications of our freedom. God tells us through the Book of Leviticus: "They are My servants, whom I've freed from the Land of Egypt. They may not give themselves into any other servitude." You may not indenture yourself to wealth or fame or prestige or social status or habits. You have been set free.
So, my friends, I have some bad news and I have some good news.
The bad news is that we are free. There is no one who will clean up after us. There is no one who will prevent us from hurting each other or being harmed by other people's bad choice. We are on our own. The world has been given to us, and it is ours to determine how it will fare. Kohelet Rabbah, an ancient Midrash to the book of Ecclesiastes, tells a beautiful, beautiful story about our responsibility and our freedom:
When the Holy One created the first person, God took Adam and led him around all the trees in the Garden of Eden. Take a look at how beautiful are my works, how splendid they are! Everything that I made, I made for you. Take care not to despoil the world that I made for you, because if you do, there will be none after you to fix it.
The bad news is: we are free. We are responsible for our choices and our choices are untrammeled. Choose evil? You may. Choose sin? You may. Give in to your momentary impulses? You may. There are consequences to the choices, but the choices are ours to make.
But I did tell you I also have good news. And the good news is, we are free! We are capable of making good choices. We are capable of learning from the mistakes that we have made. We are not trapped by the decisions that were made for us, or by us. We are not trapped by our genetics. We have been given the gift of freedom. The future is ours to make, and that means there is an unprecedented tomorrow awaiting us. As Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra writes in the Medieval Period, "Going free is comparable to the renewal of the world." We are, all of us, capable of renewing the world. We are, all of us, in the process of going free.
If the future is open, then it is ours to make, and the choices that we make today will help shape and constrain our possibilities tomorrow. Use this day to know your freedom, to know your power, and to know that tomorrow is not some destiny awaiting you. It is what you choose and what we built. We can mend the wounds in our hearts; we can bring together our broken families. We can choose to grow closer together; we can choose to live lives centered on Torah and God. Consider the practice of Shemittah, the biblical remission of debt. Do you owe someone anger because of what they did to you or to your loved ones? Let it go. Remit the debt. Do you have rage or resentments about some wrong that was done to you a long time ago? Someone that was important in your life that you haven't spoken to because you are holding on to that anger? Because they owe you? Remit the debt. Act as though it is a Shemittah year. Let it go!
We can build a world of peace and justice and love. You say to me, "But Rabbi, it has never been done!" And I say to you: freedom means the fact that something has never been done before means it is waiting for us If we want a world of peace and justice, let us go get it!
And then all that has divided us will merge
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind
And then those men and women will be gentle
And then both women and men will be strong
And then no person will be subject to another's will
And then all will be rich and free and varied
And then the greeds of some will give way to the needs of many
And then all will share equally in the Earth's abundance
And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old
And then all will nourish the young
And then all will cherish life's creatures
And then all will live in harmony with each other and the Earth
And then everywhere will be called Eden once again
(Judy Chicago).
My prayer for us all is that we have the courage truly to be free; to rise in strength and gentleness, and to recognize that we are not bound by our own mistakes or by others', but that we have a great and a glorious tomorrow which is awaiting our energy, our optimism, and our hope.
G'mar Tov and Shanah Tovah!