📜 The mitzvot need it
A command is only worth giving to someone who can obey it or refuse it. Nobody commands a stone to fall. If people could not choose, the Torah's 'you shall' and 'you shall not' would have no point.
Jewish Beliefs about the Universe and Human Beings » Free Will and Its Limits in Judaism
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 1, 1.4 (Judaism)
- Why Jews believe free will is the basis of the mitzvot, reward and punishment
- The rabbis' teaching that everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is given
- What limits human freedom in Jewish thought
- Why Judaism has no predestination, holds people responsible and says they can always repent
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Unlock This Course'Choose life': free will in the Torah
The lesson Free Will, Determinism and Predestination set out the general ideas. Judaism's own answer is clear: human beings have free will, and the Almighty gave it to them on purpose.
The key text comes near the end of the Torah. Moses, the leader who brought the Torah to the Jewish people, speaks to them shortly before his death. Speaking for the Almighty, he says: 'I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse', and then: 'Therefore choose life' (Deuteronomy 30:19).
The choice is real, because both paths are open. The Almighty tells people which path he wants, but he does not make the choice for them.
Why free will matters so much in Judaism
Remember, the mitzvot are the commandments of the Torah. Jewish life is built on keeping them, and Jews believe that this only makes sense if people are free.
⚖️ Reward and punishment need it
Jews traditionally believe that the Almighty is a fair judge who rewards those who keep the mitzvot and punishes those who break them. That would be unjust if people had no choice. Nobody deserves a reward or a punishment for something they were made to do.
Maimonides, the great rabbi and thinker of the 12th century, made exactly this point. He called free will a great principle and a pillar of the Torah, and wrote that every person is free to become as righteous as Moses or as wicked as Jeroboam, a king the Bible blames for leading the people into sin.
Everything is foreseen, yet freedom is given
Jews believe the Almighty knows everything, including the future. If he already knows what you will do tomorrow, are you really free to do something else?
Pirkei Avot is a collection of the sayings of the early rabbis. In chapter 3, Rabbi Akiva teaches: 'Everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is given.' He states both beliefs side by side and gives up neither.
Jews have explained this in different ways.
- Knowing is not causing. Many Jews say that the Almighty sees a person's choice but does not make it for them. The person is still the one who chooses.
- It is beyond human minds. Other rabbis taught that the Almighty's knowledge is not like human knowledge, so people cannot fully understand how the two beliefs fit together. They are asked to hold on to both.
- A minority view. A few medieval Jewish thinkers argued that the Almighty knows every choice open to a person, but not which one they will pick. Most Jewish teachers did not accept this, because it seems to limit the Almighty's knowledge.
The limits on human freedom
Judaism does not say that people are free in every way. Jewish teaching names three main limits.
🌍 The Almighty's knowledge and plan
Jews believe the Almighty has a plan for the world that no human choice can wreck. In the Torah, Joseph's brothers sell him as a slave. Years later he is a ruler in Egypt and saves many lives in a famine. He tells them: 'You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good' (Genesis 50:20). The brothers chose freely and were to blame, yet the plan went ahead.
🎲 Circumstances
Nobody chooses where they are born, their health or their talents. The Talmud tells a story in which, before a child is born, it is decided whether the child will be strong or weak, wise or foolish, rich or poor. The Talmud also says: 'Everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven.'
🔗 The pull of the yetzer hara
Remember, the yetzer hara is the inclination to do wrong. It makes some choices hard, and habit makes them harder. The early sage Ben Azzai taught that one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, and one sin leads to another sin. Each wrong choice makes the next one easier.
'The fear of Heaven' means respect and awe for the Almighty, shown by choosing to do right. So the saying sums up the Jewish view. Much of a person's life is not in their hands. The moral choice, whether to do good or do wrong, always is.
No predestination
Remember that predestination is the belief that God has already decided each person's final fate. Judaism does not teach this. No Jew is born saved, and nobody is born condemned.
Look again at the Talmud's story. One thing is left out of what is decided before birth: whether the child will be righteous or wicked. That is for the person to decide. Jewish teachers have firmly rejected the idea that the Almighty decides at birth who will be righteous and who will be wicked.
Even a judgement is not final. A well-known prayer said at the Jewish New Year and on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, declares that repentance, prayer and charity can change a harsh decree. A person's future stays open.
Responsible, and always able to return
Because the moral choice is free, Judaism holds people responsible for what they do. They cannot blame the Almighty, fate or the yetzer hara. Jewish law treats a person who kills by accident very differently from a murderer, and it does not punish someone who was forced to act. Responsibility goes as far as freedom goes.
The same freedom means that no one is trapped by their past. Remember, teshuvah is repentance. Jews believe this choice is open to everyone, at any time.
- Through the prophet Ezekiel, the Almighty says that he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but wants them to turn from their ways and live (Ezekiel 33:11).
- Rabbi Eliezer taught: 'Repent one day before your death.' His students asked how anyone can know which day that is. His answer was that nobody can, so a person should repent today.
Jews differ in what they stress. For Orthodox Jews, the mitzvot are binding, and the freedom is whether to obey them. Progressive Jews (Reform and Liberal) put extra weight on personal choice: each Jew studies the tradition and makes an informed decision about how to live it. Both agree that people are free, responsible and able to change.
Common mistakes
Do not write that Jews believe the Almighty decides who will be good or bad: circumstances may be fixed, but the moral choice is free. Do not say that the Almighty's knowledge removes freedom in Judaism: Rabbi Akiva's teaching keeps both.
Exam-style question
Paper 1 style. (a) and (b) test AO1; (c) and (d) test AO1 and AO2.
(a) Identify three things that may limit a person's freedom to choose. [3 marks]
(b) Choose one religion. Outline two teachings about free will in this religion. [4 marks]
(c) Choose one religion. Explain why followers of this religion believe that people should be held responsible for their actions. [6 marks]
(d) 'If God knows everything, human beings cannot be free.' Evaluate this statement, showing you have considered different points of view. In your answer you should refer to at least one religion. [12 marks]
Model answer
(a) 1. Upbringing (1). 2. Circumstances such as poverty (1). 3. Addiction (1).
(b) Judaism. The Torah teaches that people must 'choose life' (1), which shows that the Almighty sets out two paths and leaves the choice to each person (1). Rabbi Akiva taught that everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is given (1), which means the Almighty's knowledge of the future does not take away a person's freedom (1).
(c) Judaism. Jews believe people are responsible because the Almighty gave them free will. In Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people to 'choose life', so the choice between right and wrong is their own.
The Almighty gave the mitzvot and rewards or punishes people for how they keep them. Maimonides taught that this is only fair if each person is free to be righteous or wicked.
Judaism has no predestination. The Talmud says everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven. This means a person's circumstances may be fixed, but their moral choices are not, so they must answer for them.
The yetzer hara pulls people towards wrong, but it does not force them, so they cannot blame anyone else.
(d) Plan. For: if the Almighty already knows what a person will do, it seems they cannot do anything else; a few medieval Jewish thinkers felt the problem so strongly that they said the Almighty does not know which choice a person will make; a hard determinist would say every choice is fixed by earlier causes in any case.
Against: Rabbi Akiva taught that everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is given; knowing a choice is not the same as causing it; many rabbis teach that the Almighty's knowledge is unlike human knowledge; 'choose life', the mitzvot and reward and punishment would make no sense without real freedom; many non-religious people believe in free will without any God.
Possible conclusion: judge each point as you go, then pick a side. For example: I disagree. Knowing is not causing, so for Jews the Almighty can know a choice that still belongs to the person, even if nobody can fully explain how.
Exam tip
In part (d), deal with both halves of the statement. 'God knows everything' is about knowledge, and 'cannot be free' is about cause. The strongest answers ask whether knowing something in advance is the same as making it happen.