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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>On Tue, Sep 23, 2008, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:<BR>: First off, believing in
free will doesn't mean believing that physics<BR>: has no effect on a person's
choices, just that there are also choices<BR>: that a person makes independent
of physics...<BR><BR><BR>>>Physics limits free will -- I can't choose to
fly just by flapping my<BR>bare arms. But within the domain of options physics
allows, my choices<BR>are free.<<<BR><BR>-- <BR>Micha
Berger <BR></FONT></DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV>>>>>><BR>I believe that most of the decisions we make are
actually forced decisions and not the product of free will. Hakol b'yedei
Shomayim chutz miyiras Shomayim. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>You decide to fly to New York but a million things can happen -- you get
sick, break a leg, miss your flight, flight is canceled, there's a blizzard in
NY and your flight is diverted to Washington, yada yada. You decide
to make fish but the fish is spoiled, the stove won't work, the power just went
out, an emergency comes up and there's no time to cook, you make peanut butter
sandwiches for supper instead.....</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The only sphere where you GENUINELY have bechira is in the sphere of Avodas
Hashem, choosing to serve Him or not. This is mostly mental. A
person can be paralyzed and unable to speak -- there is actually a man in my
shul who is in that matzav, a brilliant man, a talmid chacham -- but as long as
he can still even /think/, he has bechira. A lot of things happen as a
/result/ of your exercising your bechira, for example, you may decide to do a
mitzva and then actually do end up doing it. But it was equally possible
that your intentions would not pan out and would never come to fruition.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If you meant to do a mitzva and through no fault of your own you were
unable to complete the action, you still get schar, whereas if you meant to do
an aveira and it didn't work out, you don't get onesh for your thoughts.
But in any case it is only an illusion that walking, talking, doing, are
all dependent on your bechira. Only the thought, the intention, the desire
are dependent on your own bechira. Whether it all comes into actuality is
not up to you. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Once I made a kugel for a friend who had just given birth, and on my way to
her house, my car hit a bump and the kugel fell off the front seat and landed
splat, upside down on the floor of my car. That was "physics."
But physics is just the way that HKBH "hides" Himself in the
world. Famously, the word for world, olam, means "hidden." Physics is
another way of looking at Hashgacha. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>All this is moot in actual practice, because -- since we are not privy to
Hashem's intentions -- we have no choice but to proceed through life AS IF we
have free will in every area, including whether to get up or go to
sleep or make a kugel or call a friend or buy this house or take this job
or......whatever. The knowledge that ultimately your steps are guided from
Above makes no /practical/ difference.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I heard a great quote this past weekend from a guest, don't know who said
it, but here it is: "We have to believe in free will. We have no
choice."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><BR><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=============<BR><BR></B><BR></FONT></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? <A title="http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1209382257x1200540686/aol?redir=http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001" href="http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1209382257x1200540686/aol?redir=http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001" target="_blank">Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators</A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>