Freedom.
Everyone wants it – but what is it?
There is freedom of action, freedom of choice and freedom of self.
In essence they are all related.
Freedom of Action
Freedom of action — is being able to do what one wants to do without being constrained. This category also includes freedom of speech and thought.
Freedom of Choice – the right of a person to choose between right and wrong.
Freedom of choice is having two choices before person and being able to choose the right one. For instance if a moral choice is before a person and they choose in an intelligent manner. Choosing the proper thing, and the right and moral thing to do, they make a proper choice.
According to Torah, everyone has Freedom of Choice. G-d gives every person the opportunity to choose.
If one chooses the proper thing to do — he or she will be rewarded — either in this world or in the next or both. And if they make the wrong choice morally, they will be punished — but each individual has a choice to do what they want.
Choosing the right thing makes a person reach a higher level of freedom of self.
When a person has a moral dilemma – There are forces pushing him to do the right thing (Conscience – Yetzer HaTov / Good inclination) and forces pushing him to do the wrong thing (Yetzer HaRah – Evil Inclination – which pushes a person towards the bad). He or she must choose. Only a moral dilemma allows a person to achieve a higher freedom of self. Why? Because there are two forces pushing them in opposite directions. And one chooses between the two.
Freedom of self — is being in Control of Oneself – having freedom from dependencies and vices.
What is True Freedom?
What is true freedom? Of the three – freedom of self.
Why?
A person can have freedom of choice and freedom of action and still be an alcoholic. An alcoholic is dependent on his vices.
If a person has freedom of choice – One is not necessarily a free person.
One’s Job in the World
A person’s job is limiting his freedom of action to choose what is good according to Torah.
There is a window of actions that a person is able to do.
Some will never kill but will steal a person’s purse. Some will never steal a purse but will take office supplies from work. Some will not take office supplies, but will take hour “coffee breaks.”
Rabbi Aharon Heymann, a Rosh HaYeshiva of Yeshiva of Epinay in France, said on one of his French “D’var Torah” lectures “he would never steal a purse so he had no freedom of choice with respect to grabbing a person’s purse. But he would not be able to let himself die for God.“ The freedom of choice stands at the point between the two points of moral decision-making.
A person’s job in this world is to remove his freedom of choice for bad. How? By inculcating into one’s being proper values, making the right choices and by learning Mussar / Jewish Ethical Works to the point to — not to have “the choice” to do bad. For instance — to not steal, to not lie, to not cheat.
One’s Job is also to open their choices to good. — to observe Shabbat, to learn Torah, to keep kosher, to be a better person.
By this one becomes more free.
Who is more free? A person who needs to steal or needs to drink or needs to smoke or to overeat or one who can control themselves and abstain?
Freedom can only be proven in a choice between right and wrong. Choosing between pizza or spaghetti is not a real freedom of choice decision. It is choosing of a preference. It is freedom of action, but not really freedom of choice.
Animals do not have freedom of choice. If you put a a steak or grass in front of a cow – it will likely choose the grass. This does not mean it is free. It means it chose what it preferred. It is freedom of action but not freedom of choice.
Little by little a person, who limits their choices of right and wrong to do what is right, becomes a free man.
This is the the reason that Torah gives a person true freedom. A Person becomes a master over choosing what is right and a master of control over one’s self.
This is the explanation of what it says in Pirkei Avot / Ethics of the Fathers (chapter 6:2):
Rabbi Yehoshua son of Levi said ”Each day a Heavenly voice comes out from the Mount Horeb, and says ‘woe to the creatures, from the insult of the Torah’, for whoever does not occupy himself with Torah is called “reproached” [nazuf] …
and it says “and the tablets [of the Law – the ten commandments] they are the work of Hash-m (G-d) – and the writing is the writing of Hash-m – inscribed [charut] on the tablets ”
Do To not read [it as] “charut” [inscribed] rather as “cherut” [freedom]. For the only one who is considered to be a free man is one who occupies himself with Learning Torah . And who ever occupies himself with learning Torah Behold he is elevated as it says from “Matanah [gift] to nachliel [inheritance] and nachliel [heritage] to bamot [heights].”
(Bamidbar / Numbers 21:19 quoted in Pirkei Avot 6:2)
Meaning that through the gift of Torah, one has a personal heritage of it. When one occupies oneself with it they reach higher heights in self-actualization. It is through this process of choosing the right from the Torah, that a person reaches their potential.
Torah allows me to be free and to be me.