Free Will for What?
On the Genealogy of Choice from Lot and Korach to Moses and David
But you, Israel, My servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen (bacharticha),
Seed of Abraham My friend—You whom I drew from the ends of the earth
And called from its far corners,
To whom I said: You are My servant;
I chose you (bacharticha), I have not rejected you. (Isaiah 41:8-9)You shall be free to set a king over yourself, one chosen (yivchar) by your God the Lord. (Deuteronomy 17:15)
[David] took his stick, chose (yivchar) a few smooth stones from the wadi, put them in the pocket of his shepherd’s bag and, sling in hand, he went toward the Philistine. (1 Samuel 17:40)
CHOSEN—Via a prophet or via the urim (Ex. 28:30). The point of the clause is you shall not choose him. (Ibn Ezra)
Then [Moses] spoke to Korah and all his company, saying, “Come morning, the Lord will make known who is [God’s] and who is holy by granting direct access; the one whom [God] has chosen (yivchar) will be granted access…Do this: You, Korah and all your band, take fire pans, and tomorrow put fire in them and lay incense on them before the Lord. Then the candidate whom the Lord chooses (yivchar), he shall be the holy one. You have gone too far, sons of Levi!”
Humanity is distinguished from planets, seas, stones, vegetative life, and the animal kingdom, by freewill (bechira). But possessing the Godlike ability to choose is not the same as as using our faculty for freedom optimally. Lot chooses to settle in Sodom and Gomorrah because it seems like a place of abundance. But its cultural problems will soon leave it a site of devastation. What good will the land be when Lot has to lock himself inside to avoid a vicious mob?
“So Lot chose (vayivchar) for himself the whole plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward. Thus they parted from each other…” (Genesis 13:11)
Lot is the first person about whom the Torah says explicitly “he chose.” The first choice is one that ends in near destruction. Perhaps Lot was tired of following his uncle Abraham and wanted a “room of [his] own,” but his choice comes at great cost. Lot has reshut, permission, to choose where to live—this is part of his human dignity—but we should not conflate the dignity of free will with the truth that some decisions are better and others worse. Lot optimizes for the quality of the land rather than the quality of its inhabitants. In the end, Lot will need Abraham’s help to bail him out.
If Lot chooses the abundant land that is, in fact, culturally rotten, Abraham, and his direct line, are assigned land that requires cultural greatness—and faith—to maintain. David faces off against Goliath by choosing a few stones as his weapon. The physical description of choosing stones contains an allusion to David’s existential choice to confront an adversary much larger than himself. David aligns himself with the realization that God will choose the victor, not David or Goliath. David exercises freewill in accepting his mission, and stepping into battle, but he leaves the outcome up to God. We are free in how we show up, but we are not free to control the consequences of our actions.
Sure, one can live in the world of probability theory and do one’s best to gain an advantage by following the historical average. Most of the time, one can win in the rational, apparently atheistic world, simply by doing what works within one or even two standard deviations of the mean. One can foreclose or minimize the possibility of both miracle and ruin (most of the time) by being average. But occasionally the world will present extreme circumstances—“acts of God”—in which David beats Goliath with a small stone and a lauded institution like Sodom and Gemorah go bust. This happens more than we think. Those who live in a state of faith are more likely to find the under-appreciated opportunity and those who live in a state of arrogance are more likely to get burned.
In this week’s parasha, Korach, understood by the Midrash to be a man of significant wealth, casts Moses as an illegitimate leader. Korach makes a handful of arguments to undermine Moses’s authority, one of which is that Moses is not a democratically appointed leader. He has put himself above others, but has not been elected. Claiming to represent the popular will, Korach suggests himself as the vox populi, and thus the vox Dei. Moses emphasizes that the choice of Israelite leader is not Moses’s or Korach’s or even the people’s to make, but God’s. Moses challenges Korach stand before a divine choice. Korach’s argument for democratic election is false on several levels. The most obvious is that it is self-serving and disingenuous. But Moses doesn’t attack Korach’s wily motives head-on. Instead he shows that the issue of “representation” is disingenuous. Moral leadership is not a popularity contest. To lead effectively you need a constituency, but to be a leader you need to have the courage to stand apart. Even if Korach were to win 99-1, Moses’s authority would stand—in just thee same way that David’s faithful slingshot is more authoritative than Goliath’s brawn.
The problem with theocracy in practice is that we cannot be certain that those claiming the endorsement of God are right. Thus we settle on democracy as a lesser evil and an acknowledgment of our epistemological limits. Democracy is a method for aggregating and triangulating the choices of the many, not a method for defining whether those choices will lead to human flourishing. But in the context of the Torah’s frame, the story of Korach is a cautionary tale against positivism—the belief that humanity can define and construct Reality with no pushback from Reality. You cannot put the laws of physics up for a vote. And you cannot put the terms of the covenant up for a vote. God’s choice of Israel as partner is likewise not subject to a poll or committee.
Ibn Ezra notes a potential discrepancy in the Torah’s command to “place a King” “chosen by the Lord.” Is the king placed by the people or chosen by God? For Ibn Ezra the answer is clear: the choosing is divine, but the placing is human. We are free to construct leadership however we want, but we are not free to worship consensus. Whether we are led by prophets, kings, rabbis, or public servants, their ability to win the popular vote or public affection is not the sole criterion by which we should judge their legitimacy.
Jeff Bezos distinguishes between reversible and irreversible decisions. Reversible decisions can and should be made quickly by the likes of Lot and Korach—they do not require executive oversight. But irreversible ones should be made deliberately and require [prophetic] intervention. Korach, in his rebellion, conflates the power to decide on reversible and irreversible decisions. Moses’s leadership in no way deprives the people of freewill or agency; it merely provides the contours for arena in which they can exercise their freedom. Recall that Moses delegated authority in Exodus, at the advise of Jethro. Moses is not a micro-manager who deprives others of exercising judgment. He is someone who understands that some decisions can only be made by one person at the top and need to be made by the person most qualified to make that decision. Is Korach the man for THAT job, or is he merely a good campaigner who focuses people’s discontent on Moses’s shortcomings and distracts them with diatribes against inevitable discrepancies in power and status between group and sovereign?
God chooses shepherds to lead, not career politicians. The core Biblical idea is not the importance of monarchy per se—in fact, the Book of Kings shows the darkside of royal rule—but the importance of being led by people who are not obsessed with power and self-gain and who are faithful, humble, brave. Korach is right that Moses is more powerful than everyone else. And he should be. We should fear those who make everything about power analysis, rather than about what they would use the power for. Freedom is a mere means. Whether we end up in Sodom and Gemorrah or reach the Promised Land is determined by how we use it.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins