The Jewish future depends on the selection of a suitable bride for Isaac. Unable to travel, Abraham places his legacy in the hands of his trusted assistant. Because local women aren’t morally suited to mother Isaac’s progeny, a bride must be chosen from a distant land. Abraham’s servant is charged with a decision that will affect Jewish destiny.
Surprisingly, instead of selecting Isaac’s future wife, his servant arranges a contrived method for identifying the proper woman. Entirely removing himself from the process, he casts the decision into the hands of fate, hoping for divine intervention. The first girl who offers refreshment to him and his herd of camels will become the mother of our nation. Instead of deliberation and decision-making, he suspends his reasoning and leaves it to Providence. Fortunately, God did not tolerate a random process and delivered Rebecca to Isaac.
Despite the gravity of this decision and the long-term consequences of his mission, this servant defaults to chance rather than plot a more careful and conscious path. By spotlighting this gimmicky solution, the Torah effectively critiques his abandonment of the decision.
Unlike the servant, Abraham was a bold decision-maker. During his dramatic career, he faced numerous weighty decisions but never balked or flinched. He immigrated to a foreign land, twice relocated in the face of a stymieing famine, went to war against fierce chieftains, and twice made the excruciating decision of dismissing undesirable family members. His boldest decision was silently following divine instructions to sacrifice his son, even though they clashed with his own moral instincts.
By contrasting Abraham’s decision-making skills with his servant’s inability to face decisions, the Torah highlights the religious importance of free will.
Monotheism and free will
In the ancient and dark world of paganism, human beings weren’t afforded special status. Many different gods were responsible for creating different parts of our world, and the absence of any all-powerful God dismissed any notion that man was a selected creature.
Abraham spoke of one, all-powerful God, responsible for all of creation. Having created everything, that one God carefully crafted man in His image and in His likeness. Man was endowed with free will and freedom of conscience, and was similar to God. The emergence of monotheism introduced the concept of human free will, and Abraham’s ability to shoulder the weight of decision-making reflected his religious beliefs.
By contrast, Abraham’s servant from a foreign land is not part of this monotheistic tradition. His avoidance of decision-making is a throwback to a pagan culture in which man is lost in the chaos and uncertainty of nature, frightened for his future and unwilling to shoulder the burden of decisions.
Twins
Ultimately, Rebecca marries Isaac and bears twin boys. In describing this pregnancy, the Torah repeatedly emphasizes that they incubate within one common womb. By stressing their identical genealogy, the Torah further reinforces the power of free will. Though their DNA is 100% identical, they each possess and exercise free will about their future. One becomes righteous and pious, while the other becomes violent and confrontational. Their fates aren’t predetermined but are solely a product of their own decision-making. In the Book of Genesis, those who belong to the legacy of monotheism author their own decisions, while outsiders balk in the face of decisions. Free will is a crucial byproduct of monotheism.
Abdicating freedom of thought
Sadly, over the past few weeks we have witnessed large-scale abdication of freedom of thought as opponents of Israel line up to condemn us for “moral crimes” while celebrating deplorable acts of torture and monstrosity. What is happening to the human race, and why are people reflexively supporting butchers and murderers while accusing us of fictitious crimes? Has the world lost its marbles? It certainly seems that way. What is happening to human freedom?
Hate
In part, people have abandoned clear thinking because they are consumed with hate. Hate is a powerful emotion which clouds our judgment and muddles our moral assessments. It leads to confirmation bias by which we accept only the facts that confirm our preexisting hatred. Opportunistic antisemites are always waiting in the wings, prepared to join whatever group or movement preaches hatred of Jews and violence toward Jews. The particular agenda or platform of antisemitism makes no difference, as long as Jews are vilified for fabricated crimes, and hatred is fomented. In medieval times, blood libels preceded pogroms. In 2023, first came the pogrom, and afterward the blood libels commenced. Many of our haters are lost in a cloud of hatred which has fogged their minds.
Social pressure
Groupthink, or herd mentality, has also caused many to abandon reason and moral clarity while naively joining the anti-Israel parade. We assumed incorrectly that modernity would afford greater freedom. After all, the modern world delivered us political freedom, economic freedom and, most recently, freedom to independently acquire information. However, by exponentially swelling the information flow, social media induce group thinking. Sheeplike, people subscribe to popular opinions, mistaking popularity for accuracy or for morality.
Without possessing even a smidgen of knowledge of the October 7 events or those of the past 75 years of our history, people denounce us while mindlessly supporting subhuman animals who committed and continue to commit unspeakable crimes.
My favorite but sad story involves an anti-Israel protester who was asked to describe which land “from the river to the sea” Israel should abandon. He responded that the Palestinians deserve all the land from the Nile River to the Red Sea. Effectively, he was protesting against Israel about land in Egypt, with no knowledge of the situation but only frenzied rage and indignation. Israel bashing has become a popular fad.
Supporting the “oppressed”
Additionally, the politicization of morality is causing moral confusion. As moral values decline, morality has become politicized. Ideally, morality is defined through personal conduct toward individuals with whom we live in contact. Virtue signaling is gradually replacing actual moral behavior, which is in sharp decline. Seeking to compensate for actual morality, many desperately adopt moral “causes” such as planetary conservation or animal rights.
Searching for broad moral causes, people adopt simplistic formulas to determine virtue. In the modern world, the most simplistic formula is the David and Goliath narrative, where those who have power are always criminal, while the oppressed suffer in virtuous silence. Though the narrative sometimes pertains, in our instance it is completely specious. Our people have faced religious violence from Islamic extremists for centuries, and our state has been under siege since its inception. Thank God, we are no longer helplessly weak and oppressed but are powerful enough to defend our lives. However, the David and Goliath narrative offers an easy but false formula for determining the criminal party.
Enter the foolishness known as intersectionality, which asserts that all oppressed parties possess one common agenda. All aggrieved parties share the common enemy that was recently termed “the constellations of power,” which look to discriminate against the weak. Based on this distorted logic, if you are aggrieved, you must automatically bash Israel. It is ludicrous to witness gay people supporting Hamas murderers who would gladly toss them off a roof and drag their bodies through the street. But to people who are blinded by intersectionality or muddled by false virtue signaling, facts don’t matter. They make no difference.
Goodbye freedom, hello madness.
The writer is a rabbi at Yeshivat Har Etzion/Gush, a hesder yeshiva. He has smicha and a BA in computer science from Yeshiva University, as well as a master’s degree in English literature from the City University of New York.