Redemption and the Cycles of Existence (2)

What Is Freedom?

Each one of us is the captain of a ship.  Yet we are both the captain and the ship.  The ship is tossed on a stormy sea, the sea of life, and we must bring it safely to shore.  We use maps to aid us in this purpose.  The captain's status is one of freedom; the map is truth.  We can sink our ship in the sea or bring it to shore, we can hit a snag by accident or on purpose, by force or by choice.  This is freedom.  However, we believe that there are maps.  We are free and we can alter reality, by building a new port, for example.  However, the maps exist; this is the truth.  To find our way we need maps.  Our relationship with the maps is described by the concept of autonomy. 

     Those of us who are not intimately familiar with the problems of the captain, like me, can translate the parable to a better-known model, that of driving.  Driving is a good allegory for life, because for driving we need three things: knowledge regarding the car and the roads, skill, and morality.  Knowledge and experience are not enough, we also need rules of behavior, so that we know which moral principles to apply when we find ourselves in difficult situations.  In other words, in addition to the technical skills we also need facts and values.  I used the example of driving because it can help us clarify the existence of different levels of autonomy.

     On the first level, autonomy gives expression to the fact that the driver must learn to drive without a driving instructor.  The driving instructor should sit in the car with the student for a certain amount of time, but the goal is that the student will eventually drive alone.  This is the most basic, primary level of autonomy.  Of course there are various stages within this level, however this is its essence.  Translated to our reality, the first skill is cognitive skill, in other words that the child be able to recognize and distinguish between good and evil on his own, without his mother or some other guide making decisions for him. 

     Beyond the first level there exists a different type of autonomy, which has ethical significance.  We expect the driver to stop at a stop sign, not because he sees a policeman, but because he knows that this rule is important; not only because it is an obligation, but because disobeying this law could have disastrous results.

     However, we have still not finished teaching our student freedom and autonomy.  We can teach him to use the car technically and to adhere to the rules of traffic.  However we must still teach him to make choices within the framework of these laws.  Autonomy in Judaism follows the same pattern.  There are paths from which man must choose to find his own way.  There are lanes that man must open for himself.  This is in essence the Hasidic idea expressed by Rabbi Zusha, that he will not be judged because he was not Moses, but because he was not Zusha.  This wise saying can be interpreted in perhaps a hundred and one valid ways.  However, the simple and basic interpretation is that every person in the world has his own path, his own vocation, and he must find that vocation.  Self-actualization is not collective, it is not the same for everyone.  Every person has his own purpose, and  God expects him to fulfill it.  The third level of autonomy means that each person has individuality. 

     Beyond all this, there is a fourth level of autonomy, a different level of freedom.  This is the freedom of sages and righteous people.  This is the autonomy of the person who can make halakhic decisions, who can decide with regard to very serious dilemmas, or even of the person who can, in a moment of danger, go against the stream, against traffic, and even transgress the laws of traffic in cases which deserve special measures.  This type of autonomy exists as well; however, the sages have taught us that it is absurd to think that a person who has not yet gone through all the prior stages of his development could achieve this type of autonomy.  This autonomy requires knowledge, self-control and self-criticism; it means that God makes man into a partner.  This is the greatest autonomy of the sage who renders an innovative halakhic ruling.

(This lecture was translated by Gila Weinberg.)