Kabbalah and Free Will

Following a most laborious end to an otherwise pleasurable weekend, I woke to a brand new stern and my brain spinning. Thoughts of predestination, self determination, cowardess and free will scrolling like a looping marquee. I've tried to learn from each experience, tried to implement the rule of "aristocrats" to life, reveling in this "new beginning" i've forged...although it was galvanized by happenstance and luck - but all the while i'm making every effort to apply the 'law of the aristocrats' - forget about the bookends, it's the content between. but....what about when an individual is compelled to move in a certain direction, regardless of cliche "red flags" or alarms that the 'the law of aristocrats' is not a mutual system of belief. love, being undefinable, creeps in and has a way of messing up the plan. and what is love if not universal intervention? Old love, new love, it's all so different and pure and coincidental and beautiful. is there any FREE WILL in love? Love - It restarted the matrix in the "revolutions" cinematic debacle. It invades space only to create a whole new arena - and it can't be stopped. Why is it painful? Why do we suffer for peace and love? Is it necessary? Accepting the end of old love, and embracing new love is quite the challenge for many people, and some can't engage in the unruly emotion at all - it's always unknown. an anomaly? it's a risk without the option of calculation. It makes people want each other in animalistic ways and the result can predictably be pain, forcing each party to challenge themselves just enough to foster the discovered uniqueness of a cosmic connection so as to result in pleasures. Enforcing any rule, even if it's a rule of absenteeism, only tempts fate to barge in and regain it's reign over one's future. I turned to Kabbalah, trying to figure out more about free will and the inner teachings from the ba'al shem tov on the matter... and this is what i found:


Is there free will?

An ancient prayer says: “Lord! Give me strength to change the things I can change, give me courage to accept the things I cannot change, and grant me wisdom to know the difference”.
What exactly can we influence in our life? Do we possess enough freedom to change our destiny?
Why can’t we naturally obtain this wisdom?
Why, in spite of the fact that our nature is based on laziness and healthy egoism (desire to receive the maximum through minimal effort), unlike animals, do we perform thoughtless and ineffective actions?
Perhaps we act, where everything is pre-programmed, and our role must be a lot more passive?
Perhaps in most cases our life is pre-ordained, while we choose to believe that the course of events depends on us?
Perhaps we should transform our life and stop thinking that we are decision-makers, let it flow and remain passive, acting only when we can really change something?
Small children act unwisely, because their development occurs unconsciously, instinctively. An adult defines a goal, and the will to achieve that goal provides him with energy.
Evidently, we err in determining the limits of our abilities to achieve the goal. In other words, we wish to achieve the impossible or try to change what we can’t.
Nature doesn’t inform us in which of our actions we are really free. It allows us to make mistakes, both as individuals and as mankind. Its aim is to lead us to disillusionment in our own powers to change anything in this life and in ourselves. Nature wants to confuse and disorient us regarding how we should live on? Then we would stop and determine what we can really influ-ence.

FREE WILL

The essence of freedom

Generally speaking, freedom may be referred to as the law of nature, which runs through all aspects of life. We see how animals suffer in captivity. It testifies to nature’s protest against any form of enslavement. Mankind fought in wars for hundreds of years until it achieved some de-gree of personal freedom.
In any case, our idea of freedom is extremely vague, and if we delve deeper into it, almost nothing will be left of it. Before we demand personal freedom, we should presume each person aspires to it. First we need to make sure this or that person can exercise his free will.

Our life is between pleasure and suffering

If we analyze man’s actions, we’ll discover that none of them are free. Both his inner nature and outer circumstances compel him to act according to an algorithm of behavior rooted in him.
Nature placed us between pleasure and suffering, and we are not free to choose suffering or give up pleasure. With regard to animals man has the advantage of being able to see the distant goal, therefore he can agree to a certain amount of sufferings anticipating the future compensa-tion.

In fact, it’s nothing but a calculation, when, seeing the prospective benefit, we consent to suffer for the sake of possible pleasure. We agree to a surgical operation, even pay a lot of money for it; we are ready to work hard to acquire a good well-paying profession. Everything boils down to our reckoning, when we subtract suffering from the expected pleasure and receive a certain positive remainder.
This is the way we are designed. Those, who seem reckless, imprudent, self-sacrificing romantics are actually no more than calculating people, for whom the past manifests as the pre-sent so obviously that they are ready to accept anguish unusual for others, which we take as a heroic feat.
But in fact, even in this case our body makes a conscious or subconscious calculation. Psychologists know that each man’s priorities may be changed so that a coward will turn into a hero. The future may be so elevated in man’s eyes that he will agree to any kind of destitution for the sake of it.
From this it follows that there is no difference between man and animals; and if so, free and intelligent choice doesn’t exist.

Who determines our pleasures?

Not only have we hardly any free choice, but the character of pleasure is not our prerogative either. It doesn’t happen according to our free will, but is dictated by other people’s desires. We don’t choose fashion, a way of life, hobbies, leisure, food and so on – all this is imposed on us by the tastes and desires of our surroundings.
We prefer to behave simpler desires without burdening ourselves too much, but our entire life is constrained by manners accepted as the norm in society, which turn into the laws of human behavior and existence. If this is so, where is our free will then? It turns out that none of our ac-tions are rewarded or punished.
Why does everyone perceive himself as an individual? What is so special in each of us? Which of our properties can we independently change? If one does exist, we must by all means bring it to light, distinguish it from the rest of our properties and develop it.

Four factors

Each created being is determined by four factors:
1. The basis is a primary material of a particular being, from which it emerged. The un-changing properties of a basis are the order of its development, i.e. a decaying wheat grain calls forth a new sprout of the same kind. A grain rots – its outer form completely disappears, similar to our body, which disintegrates in the ground. However, the basis remains and gives birth to a new shoot, like our soul that compels a new body to be born so as to dress in it.
2. The unchanging properties of the basis. The basis (in our case a wheat grain) will never take the form of other cereals, say, barley, but only the previous form of wheat, which it lost. Depending on the environment (soil, water, fertilizing and the sun), certain quantitative and qualitative changes of the sprout are possible, but the form of wheat (i.e. the original essence) undergoes no changes at all.
3. The properties that change under the influence of the outer forces. Affected by external factors the outward form of the essence goes through qualitative changes – a grain remains a grain, but its outer shape gets transformed in accordance with the environmental conditions. Ad-ditional external factors joined with the essence and together they generated a new quality under the influence of the environment. This may be the sun, soil, fertilizers or water relative to a grain, or a society, a group, books and a teacher with regard to man.
4. Changes in the outer forces. Man needs the surroundings that develop and constantly af-fect his development. While evolving, man in turn influences his surroundings, compelling it to develop. Thus they develop simultaneously together.
These four factors determine the state of each created being. Even if man spends all his time in research, he will not be able to change or add anything to what the four factors include. Whatever we think or do exists within these four factors. Any addition will be purely quanti-tative, whereas qualitatively it will remain the same. These factors forcefully determine our character and way of thinking.

1. Man cannot change his essence.
2. He cannot change the laws according to which his essence gets transformed.
3. He cannot change the laws of transformation of his inner properties as a result of the outer influence.
4. The surroundings, which man totally depends on, can be changed!

Being able to influence his surroundings now, man determines his future state. The only fac-tors his surroundings can affect are the speed and the quality of man’s advancement. He may either live through pain, fear, anguish and endless bloody conflicts along the way or move forward quietly and comfortably, because man himself aspires to the goal. That is why the Kabbalists urge us to open educational centers so as to form groups – the ideal surroundings for all those, who wish to achieve the purpose of creation.

Free choice

Regardless of the fact that we can’t determine our basis, who and how to be born, we can influence these first three factors by choosing our surroundings, i.e. friends, books and teachers. However, having chosen the environment, we let it shape our future conditions.
Initially there is an opportunity to freely choose such teachers, books and friends that will inspire good thoughts. Unless man does that, he will naturally find himself in bad surroundings reading useless books (there are plenty of them and they are much more pleasant), and, as a re-sult, will definitely receive a poor education and fail to act correctly in life.
From this it follows that reward or punishment is sent to man not for his bad thoughts or actions, in which he has no free choice, but for not choosing a good environment, since here man undoubtedly has an opportunity to freely choose. Man should be judged and punished so that he would see: he is not judged for his misdeeds, but for choosing the wrong environment.
Hence, the person, who makes an effort and each time to choose a better environment, succeeds – not for his good thoughts, but for his persistence in improving his surroundings that lead to these good thoughts. Such a person is awarded with a better, more advanced state.
The Book of Zohar gives an example about a poor wise man, who was invited to move to a rich man’s house. He refused saying: “On no condition will I settle in a place with no sages around!” – “But you are the greatest sage of the generation!” – exclaimed the rich man. – “Who else will you learn from?” The wise man replied: “Even the greatest sage will turn into ignora-mus, if he surrounds himself with stupid people”.
Hence, we should follow the well-known advice: “Make yourself a Teacher, buy yourself a friend”. In other words, we must create our own environment, because only this factor may lead us to success. Having chosen our surroundings, we become totally dependent on it, like clay in a sculptor’s hands.
We are all captives of our egoistic nature. Freeing ourselves means to overstep the limits of our world and enter the upper reality. Since we are entirely in this world’s grip, we can get free only if, in spite of our natural egoistic environment, we artificially surround ourselves with people, who share our views and aspirations, and fall under the power of the envi-ronment ruled by the laws of the upper world. Freeing ourselves from the egoistic bonds and revealing the property of bestowal is our realization of free will.

Protection against the remaining three factors

Man automatically acts under the influence of the internal and external factors, just following their commands.
If he wishes to get out of nature’s control, man has to expose himself to the influence of the environment he chose. He should choose a Teacher, a group and books, so that they would dictate him what to do, since he is always a derivation of the four parameters.