My Rabbeim and Roshei Yeshiva never responded to this question saying there is no real choice and everything is predetermined. That would be an essentially pointless existence. HKBH has no need for robots, nor could the concept that the world was created for our pleasure in doing avodas haboreh, if we weren’t choosing to do so. Rather, one explanation which I found most understandable was that HKBH knows the outcome of every potential choice each of us makes – each alternate possible world that flows from each choice, but HKBH does not know which of those choices we will make until we do so. This fulfills the idea of omnipotence, in that all possible outcomes are known, but also allows for the critical element of bechira, because which of those potential outcomes will happen is not pre-known.
Menu