<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">R' Marty wrote: <div>Where is the free will here? Esav did not yet have a Yetzer Hara yet<br>he wants to go to Avoda Zara?<br>How do you understand this Maharal?</div><div><br></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Gill Sans'" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;">So why should this be any different from the whole problem of free will?</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Gill Sans'" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;">HaShem knows what you will choose even before you are conceived.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Gill Sans'" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;">I have taught that if we were given the answer to the whole problem of free will,</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Gill Sans'" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;">we would no longer have it.</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Gill Sans'" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;">The analogy I like to give is the following: If there was a video of your life up until</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Gill Sans'" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;">today and you watched it, would the fact that it has already been done, affect your</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Gill Sans'" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;">ability to have exercised free will? In the same way, God has a video of your life even</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Gill Sans'" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;">before you live it. For Him, past, present and future are all together. It is merely a </span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Gill Sans'" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;">construct for us mortals. Therefore, just as our video of our past had no influence on</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Gill Sans'" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;">our free will, neither does God's video of the future.</span></font></div></body></html>