The name of our portion this week means "and I appeared." It derives from a history lesson. By what name, the introductory verses implicitly investigate, did God appear to the patriarchs? Our tradition derives from the answer an important doctrine concerning the nature of the Almighty. Our concern is with a different problem: Does God always appear to people who seek him?


An unexpected response to this question is found in our patterns of mourning. When,

God, where are You when I most need You?

God forbid, a dear one dies, we have two immediate stages of bereavement. First, one is an onen. After the funeral, one is an avel. The onen is exempt from Jewish observance; e.g., praying with t'fillin if one is a male. Normal practices are resumed when one is an avel.


One explanation is that the onen is engaged in arranging the funeral and must concentrate on that sacred task. Looked at more spiritually, however, the rule reflects the anger one feels in the immediate aftermath of the death. "God, why did You do this to me?" we ask. "God, where are You when I most need You?"


Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik explains that it is not that God is not there, but we are so taken up with rage that we cannot speak to Him normally. When Job says, "I will speak in the anguish of my spirit" (Job 7:11), there is a danger that he will go overboard in his accusations. Yet, says Rabbi Soloveitchik, "The halachah has never tried to gloss over the sorrowful, ugly spectacle of dying man.... It understood man's fright and confusion when confronted with death. Therefore, the halachah has tolerated those 'crazy' torturing thoughts and doubts. It did not command the mourner to disown them." (From J. B. Soloveitchik's Eulogy for the Talner Rebbe)


Being an onen allows a person to be angry. It tells them to be angry. But then comes the closing of the grave, throwing in the shovelfuls of earth, standing up and saying Kaddish. There is a time to be angry, and a time to get control of one's emotions and get on with living. It is not that God was not there, but that now one is ready to say to Him, "Let us find our way back to each other."


How Much Free Will?
The story of the ten plagues is punctuated by references to Pharaoh's heart being hardened, by himself, by God. When he hardens his own heart, that is his free will at work. But when God hardens his heart, that is no human free will. Some say that Pharaoh made such a habit of hardening his heart that, in the end, he could not longer control himself; he had effectively abdicated his free will and it hardened by itself - in Biblical language, God hardened it.


The sages say that sin starts like a casual traveler; it becomes a welcome guest; in the end, it takes over your house. Another view is that it starts like a spider's web, which is soft enough to be removed by a tiny touch; eventually, it becomes as tough as a cable that cannot be broken. If this is the case, then the hardening of Pharaoh's heart is never anything other than his own doing.


Nonetheless, the philosophers are all exercised by the problem of how free will and determinism can co-exist. A major statement of the dilemma is the rabbinic saying in the name of Rabbi Akiva, "Everything is determined, but free will is given."

The sages say that sin starts like a casual traveler.



One of the many answers is that both parts of the dilemma are valid and what creates the problem is the mathematical one of the relationship between them: How much free will do we have, and how much is determined?


There are thinkers who point out that the answer depends on who you are. The amount of free will given to a person differs according to their background and experience. No two people have the same genetic inheritance, nor are they have influenced by the same factors. Nor do they respond to events and influences in precisely the same fashion.


The Mussar ("ethical instruction") movement teaches that life and free will begin where heredity and education leave off.