This part of the lesson expands upon the theme with which Tzofar the Naamathite opens his words: the unfathomable depth of the Creator's wisdom, which no human can fathom or grasp in its entirety. The Rambam himself, when describing the immense difficulty of the question of foreknowledge and free will, borrowed the phrasing of the verse in our chapter, writing that the matter is "longer than the earth in measure and broader than the sea":
אֲרֻכָּה מֵאֶרֶץ מִדָּהּ וּרְחָבָה מִנִּי יָם׃ - Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.
The question is straightforward and sharp: if the Holy One, Blessed is He, knows in advance what I will do, where is free will? For if it is already known that Reuven will desecrate Shabbat, how can Reuven choose not to desecrate it? We will present two answers here: the answer of the holy Ohr HaChaim, and the answer of the Midrash Shmuel and the Tosafot Yom Tov.
The holy Ohr HaChaim (on Bereishit 6:5) cites the words of the Rambam and the Ra'avad who critiqued him, writing: "And the Ra'avad, may Hashem forgive him, showed a lack of respect toward the Rambam regarding his statement on this, suggesting instead that it is better to say that His vision, blessed be He, is like the seeing of stargazers." Notice who speaks this way and about whom: the holy Ohr HaChaim, who lived some 250 years ago, regarding the Ra'avad, who lived several centuries before him - for the Ra'avad had written of the Rambam, "This author did not behave in the manner of the wise." Yet the Ohr HaChaim rules: "And the Rambam's words are the primary truth, for the nature of Hashem's knowledge cannot be grasped by us, and who can compare to Hashem to assume knowledge that resembles His?"
From here stems his novel insight: "And I shall enlighten you, that Hashem has the power to withhold the knowledge contained within His knowledge so as not to know it when the Master desires, something that is not in the power of man to do - for knowledge to reach him and yet he not know it." That is to say, once information reaches a human being, he cannot simply cancel it. If you learn that Reuven passed away, you cannot at that moment un-know it. There is no way to perform a "reset" or format your mind. Once you know, that is it. But the Holy One, Blessed is He, can know, and He can decide not to know; even after knowing, He can choose not to know.
This, explains the Ohr HaChaim, is the Rambam's intent when stating "and human intellect cannot grasp it" - for how could knowledge naturally be present and yet naturally negated, that He should know and yet withhold the knowledge? A proof for this is from the verse: "He has not beheld iniquity in Yaakov, nor has He seen perversity in Yisrael" - showing that when Hashem wishes not to know, the knowledge is withheld, even though the knowledge inherently exists.
He adds an explanation: there is a fundamental difference between human knowledge and the Creator's knowledge. With us, knowledge is something external to ourselves, so one cannot say, "I will now not know." With the Holy One, Blessed is He, "He and His knowledge are one," and He does not need to focus His mind in order to know. A person might not have known yesterday and knows today because yesterday he did not pay attention and today he reflected; with the Holy One, Blessed is He, there is no need to focus attention in order to know, for it is not an external matter requiring acquisition. And even so, despite the fact that He and His knowledge are one, He has the power to separate His knowledge from Himself, as it is written, "He has not beheld iniquity in Yaakov."
From here, incidentally, arises a major question regarding the Chafetz Chaim. In the laws of Shemirat HaLashon, the Chafetz Chaim rules that if someone told you lashon hara, and the story seems genuine, and the speaker is an upright and honest person who has never uttered a lie and is trusted by you like two witnesses - you are still forbidden to believe it and forbidden to accept it. And all this is after the fact (b'di'avad), if you happened to walk in and overhear it; but to listen in the first place (l'chatchilah), even with the intention not to accept it, is forbidden - one must certainly stop the speaker. The question is: how is this done in practice? A person heard the story from three or four reliable and upright people, knows all the details, and now is told, "Do not believe it." How? It is hard to know. Through so many cycles of studying the laws of Shemirat HaLashon, one still wonders how this can truly be done. But this is what the Chafetz Chaim writes, and evidently it is possible.
In simple words, the answer of the Or HaChaim is: Hashem is able not to know, and Hashem chooses not to know. Yet this answer is difficult to grasp. For how does the Or HaChaim himself define this? "He does not look at iniquity in Yaakov" - He actually knows, but He disregards His knowledge. To use an analogy: it is as if the Holy One, blessed be He, says, "In My ledger, everything you will do is written down, but I do not read the ledgers, I do not examine them, and therefore I do not know what you are destined to do, and I have the power to withhold My knowledge."
And what can we answer to this? If it is written in the ledger that Reuven will desecrate Shabbat, can Reuven not desecrate it? After all, when he desecrated it, he acted precisely according to what was written in the book of the Creator of the world. And as for your assertion that the Creator did not look at the knowledge - is it His looking that compels me? The very fact that the matter is known in advance in some aspect seemingly deprives me of the possibility to act otherwise! It is like someone coming to tell you something and you say to him, "I do not want to know" - does the fact that you do not want to know mean the event did not happen? It did happen. So too here: the fact that the Creator conceals His knowledge does not erase what is ostensibly written before Him regarding what the person is supposed to do.
There is an accepted answer to this question, and it is the answer of the Midrash Shmuel on Pirkei Avot, cited by the Tosafot Yom Tov in Masechet Avot (Chapter 3, Mishnah 15). Whoever wishes can step out of the confines of this dilemma and bask in luminous clarity - an answer that serves as soothing eye-salve and completely satisfies the mind.
And this is what the Midrash Shmuel writes: "From the outset, there is no question at all." Notice the approach: to begin with, there is no difficulty whatsoever. The Rambam magnified it enormously - "its measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea" - and then the answer emerged diminished, as the Ra'avad contended. And why is there no question here? "Because the knowledge of Hashem, blessed be He, is like an observer watching the deed that man performs; and just as a person's sight of another's action does not compel that action, so too the observation of Hashem, blessed be He, of man's action does not compel him. Nor is it applicable to say that He knows what man will do in the future and therefore man is compelled to do it, because before Him, blessed be He, there is no earlier and no later, for He is not subject to the laws of time."
Let us illustrate: If right now, on Shabbat at ten o'clock in the morning, I see you driving on Shabbat, could you argue that my watching you caused you to drive? Of course not. I saw it, I documented it, and I even told others what I saw - but my seeing does not compel your action. This is completely clear. In the same way, if on Thursday I say that Reuven is destined to desecrate Shabbat on Saturday at ten in the morning, I am not prophesying but documenting: I see him driving.
However, here you will ask: How can you document an act that has not yet been done? After all, your knowledge preceded his choice, and if so, he is compelled to act! And precisely here lies the answer. I am not describing the event before Reuven does it; I am present right now, on Shabbat at ten in the morning, simply filming Reuven driving. I, of course, cannot do this, because I am subject to the law of time: there is past, there is present, and there is future, and they do not merge with one another - the past has already occurred, the present renews itself moment by moment, and the future has not yet arrived. But the Creator of the world exists above time.
If so, where is He located: on Thursday at twelve-thirty, or on Shabbat at ten in the morning? Both. And if He is present on Shabbat at ten in the morning and sees Reuven get into the car, start the engine, and drive - is He documenting facts or causing them? Documenting. He does not "foreknow" that Reuven will drive; "foreknowledge" is a concept that belongs to you and me, who live at a single point on the timeline. The Creator is simply there.
Rav Dessler illustrates this with the parable of a map. Suppose you have before you a complete map of Eretz Yisrael, covered by a large sheet of paper with a small cutout window in it. You move the window - now you are in Ashkelon; you move it - Tel Aviv; move it - Jerusalem; move it - Eilat. Wherever you move the window, that is where you are, so to speak. That is man. But for the Holy One, blessed be He, there is no covering: He is in Ashkelon, He is in Jerusalem, and in Tel Aviv, and in Netanya, and in Petach Tikva, and in Bnei Brak - "the whole earth is full of His glory." I am here, and the Creator of the world is here just as He is at this very moment in Australia, encompassing all worlds and filling all worlds.
And just as you understand this in geographic space, understand it similarly on the timeline. You are currently at twelve-thirty in the afternoon; the Creator of the world is not confined to twelve-thirty. At this very moment He sees Adam HaRishon, and at this moment Avraham welcoming guests, and at this moment Mashiach arriving while everyone cheers him. Only we live each moment in a successive second; only we are under the timeline. But the Creator of the world surveys everything in a single glance - "He surveys them all in a single glance."
If we illustrate a timeline: here is Adam HaRishon, here is Noach, here is Avraham, here is Moshe and the Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, here is Yehoshua bringing Israel into the Land and splitting the Jordan, here is King Chizkiyahu, and here is the return from the Babylonian exile in the days of Ezra and Nechemiah. We are positioned down below, upon the timeline, and therefore a person can only be at a single point; the Creator of the world gazes from above, and therefore He is here, and here, and here. Even more: He also sees people who have not yet been born, and He sees them already in the midst of their deeds. He does not say, "I know in advance what he will do," but rather, "I see what he is doing," because for Him there is no future - He is already in the future. And just as it is inconceivable that my seeing you take your keys and drive on Shabbat compelled you to desecrate it, so too it is inconceivable that the Creator's seeing your deeds two days from now compelled you. He is simply present two days from now. The past, present, and future are all one to Him.
What is so remarkable about this answer is that Rabbi Moshe Almosnino writes that this is the view of the Rambam himself, and if one examines the Rambam's wording carefully, one sees that this is precisely what he writes. The Rambam says, "His knowledge is not like our knowledge," and adds that this is something man cannot comprehend. And what does "His knowledge is not like our knowledge" mean? It means that our knowledge is fixed at a single point along the timeline, whereas the Creator's knowledge sees everything simultaneously.
And what is the part that man cannot comprehend? That the Holy One, blessed be He, is above time - that is clear. That we exist within the timeline - that is also clear. What we cannot grasp is how the connection between a world living along a timeline and a Creator who is above time takes place: when the Creator sees what I will do two days from now, for me that moment does not yet exist at all, whereas for Him it is visible right now. How is this possible? This is a point beyond our capacity to grasp, because we are bound by time.
To bring the matter closer to human understanding, though the analogy is imperfect: a person sits and watches a film, but lacks patience, so he fast-forwards two days ahead on the recording and sees exactly what the actor does. Now he rewinds to the beginning of the film - did he determine what the actor would do two days later? He did not determine it; he merely observed it. So it is with the Holy One, blessed be He. And why is the analogy imperfect and incomplete? Because when I fast-forward the film, I am still standing here, merely peeking ahead, whereas with the Holy One, blessed be He, it is not so: He is already present there just as He is present here. Just as He records what you are doing at this very second, so He records at this very second what you will do two years from now. For Him, everything is "now."
It is worth noting that today it has also been scientifically proven that a reality devoid of time exists; this is not mere abstract theory. Einstein discovered, seven hundred years later, what the Ramban had already stated explicitly in his commentary on Sefer Bereishit: wherever there is matter, there is time, and wherever there is no matter, there is no time. For this reason, there is no room to ask what the Creator of the universe did before the world was created - because before the world was created there was no matter, and wherever there is no matter there is no time, since the concept of matter is intrinsically bound to the concept of time. Einstein merely translated this into scientific terms.
According to his findings: take a newborn baby who has a twin brother; leave one here on Earth and place the other in a spaceship traveling at the speed of light. After ten Earth years, bring the ship back down - you will be astounded to find a newborn baby alongside a ten-year-old twin, for at the speed of light, time stands still. Today this is known as an empirical fact through atomic clocks: for those traveling through space at high speeds, clocks begin to lag, and the closer one gets to the speed of light, the slower time passes. Based on these principles, particle accelerators and nuclear reactors are constructed, where particles are propelled at immense speeds; and Einstein demonstrated that at the speed of light, matter transitions from mass into energy.
Therefore, no one is actually planning to build such a spaceship - it is not practically possible. Today speeds of Mach two or three have been attained; and even if one could hypothetically reach the speed of light, the spaceship would no longer be physical matter but a wave. Not only would it cease to be physical matter, it would occupy no space whatsoever. For all discussion of spatial dimensions and of time applies only to the realm of physical matter; when there is no matter, there is no space and time has no meaning. It emerges, then, that it is clear to us - even scientifically - that there exists a reality devoid of time: the Creator of the universe exists within that reality, the entire spiritual realm exists within it, and we exist within the reality of time.
We have presented two approaches to the question of divine foreknowledge and free will. The holy Or HaChaim, who aligns with the Rambam, innovates that the Creator possesses the power to withhold foreknowledge from Himself - "He has not seen iniquity in Yaakov" - and thereby free will is preserved; yet this is difficult, for the knowledge does exist, and He is merely overlooking it. In contrast, the Midrash Shmuel and the Tosafot Yom Tov maintain that fundamentally there is no contradiction at all: the Creator's knowledge is that of an observer watching at the moment the deed occurs, and mere observation does not compel the action, "for before Him, blessed be He, there is no earlier or later, as He is not subject to the law of time." The Holy One, blessed be He, does not know today what will happen two days from now; rather, He is already present two days from now and witnesses the deed in its time. This is the true meaning of "His knowledge is not like our knowledge," and this is also what man cannot comprehend - how a timeless reality exists. The Ramban taught us that there is no time without matter, and modern science has likewise confirmed that such a reality exists. Consequently, the Creator's knowledge does not compel man in any deed he performs.