Parshas Bo - Agency
In this week’s Parsha the commentators struggle to explain why Hashem took away Pharaoh’s free will.
The underpinning motivation for this struggle is the ironclad rule that everyone has free will regardless of the circumstances as the Rambam (Hilchos Teshuva 5:2) explains that any person can be as righteous as Moshe or as evil as Yeravam.
The Gemara declares this no less than three times in Shas (Brachos 33a, Niddah 16b, Megillah 25a) R’ Chanina said, everything is in the hands of heaven with the exception of the fear of heaven.
Every human is Divinely endowed with agency. Even Pharaoh facing an onslaught of pressure to renege on his resolve to keep the Jews enslaved was able to chose refusal because, according to the Sforno (Shemos 9:12), Hashem gave him the strength to do so.
It seems like a simple concept. We have agency and are responsible for our actions as the Daas Tevunos says, Hashem created the world in such a way that we earn everything that we have.
However, in today’s day and age, this concept is not simple at all. If you ask someone if they believe that they have free will they will answer, yes.
But, then they will make a myriad of excuses for their lack of accomplishments. It wasn’t my fault they will say. So and so prevented me from doing this and that. All those types of excuses are a fractional denials of agency.
This is something that is incumbent upon us to inculcate within every fiber of our being, As R’ Elazar Ben Durdia said(Avodah Zara 17a), the matter does not depend on anybody else except for me.
As a matter of fact, the entire world was created for that one impactful choice that we will make some time in our lives the Mishnah declares (Sanhedrin 37a) a person is obligated to say the world was created for me.
