One of the most discussed statements in Avot is Rabbi Akiva’s apothegm (Avot 3:19):
הַכֹּל צָפוּי, וְהָרְשׁוּת נְתוּנָה
In English:
“Everything is foreseen, but free will is given”.
There are
other ways of looking at this teaching that do not depend on our view of an
all-controlling God. For example, “everything is foreseen” can be taken as a
nod to collective human conduct. A clue to the basis for this approach comes
from the word “foresee” itself: the verb is formed from two elements: “fore”,
meaning “in advance” or “ahead”, and “see”.
English has another word that splits the same way, one that comes from
the Latin, and that is the verb “provide”.
We make
advance provision for human conduct in so many aspects of communal life. Thus,
in every civilised country, traffic proceeds on the same side of the road. It
doesn’t matter if that side is the left or the right, so long as everyone does
the same thing. No driver or pedestrian is deprived of the choice of which side
of the road to occupy and, while laws may criminalise travel on the wrong side
of the road, there is no physical or metaphysical barrier to the exercise of
personal choice. In 2020 no fewer than 6% of road accidents in India resulted
from traffic travelling on the wrong side of the road; the same practice causes
an average of 355 deaths annually in the United States.
Life in
human society furnishes countless further examples of provision that is made
for others, not just through laws but also through customary behaviour, but
which is somehow trumped by individual choice. Any parent who has thoughtfully
laid out cutlery for a child who snubs the knife and fork provided in favour of
fingers will know what this means. The desire to rebel against the foresight of
others exists in Torah scholars too. In Visions of the Fathers (at Avot
1:6), Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski tells a story of Rabbi Shimon Shkop. The renowned Rosh Yeshiva once
requested a sheet of writing paper so that he could write a letter. When handed
a piece of lined paper, he is said to have quipped: “Why must I allow someone
else to dictate where I should do my writing?”* The point is well made. Every
part of a blank piece of paper can be written on, but the mere existence of
lines will limit most people’s choice of where to place their pen.
So, literally speaking, Rabbi Akiva’s
problematic mishnah can be stripped of its apparent conundrum and made to apply
in even the most prosaic of circumstances. If we accept this view, we can
contextualise it within Rabbi Akiva’s own life under the Roman occupation: even
though the Romans provided for the banning of Jewish education, one still has a
choice as to whether to comply or not—as Rabbi Akiva did, at the cost of his
life. But this interpretation raises a fresh question: why would this teaching
appear in Avot in the midst of other teachings from the same rabbi that appear
to address humankind’s relationship with God and not with one another?
* For the
benefit of members of Generation Alpha, I should explain: there was a time
when emails did not yet exist and most personal correspondence was written by
hand, on paper, using a pen. Stationers sold a choice of plain and lined
writing paper, the latter for the benefit of purchasers like me who found it
difficult to write straight across the width of the page. The same principle is
used in the writing of gittin, Jewish religious divorces, where
lines are scored on to the paper before the scribe writes the Hebrew text.
