Automatons can’t serve God. This is the message I got from the following passage about free choice (Hayei Moharan 197)
The paragraph begins: “Ikar ha’avoda she’yesh be’kol dava ma she’manichim la’adam al ha’bechira shelo.”
One translates reads: “The hard part of anything one has to do for God is the part left to one’s own free will.…”
My translation is a bit different: “Divine service is primarily a matter of exercising choice…”
Words have layers of meaning. .Ikar means primary, main, most important and central.
In addition to ‘service’ another meaning of avoda is ‘work.’ Hence the translation ‘the hard part of the work.’ Even so I questioned whether this was what the author had in mind.
My intention is not to criticize the translation. Everyone knows translation is interpretation. I didn’t feel this translation captured the essence.
The translator chose the words ‘hard work’ because this is the difficult aspect of the work. It’s easy to follow instructions. It’s a lot harder to be left on one’s own. Decision making is fraught with anxiety. – “Am I doing it right? Is this what you had in mind?” Autonomous choice requires the ability to grasp the instructor’s intentions. It also requires self-confidence, the need to trust myself. Moreover I have to develop a relationship with the one I’m doing it for.
The translator was basically saying mostly what’s hard about the work of serving God is exercising one’s free choice.
My translation is basically saying what serving God is mostly about is exercising our free choice.
The author wants to establish the nature of Divine service. We might mistakenly presume that Divine service consists of following explicit instructions. The author wants to point out that divine service consists mainly of choice.
A relationship requires devotion (a word the translator uses later on). There can be no devotion to someone else if there is no freely choosing self. Furthermore only human beings, who have the gift of free choice can be in relationship to God. If authenticity and autonomous decision making are absent there is no relationship.
Rabbi Nachman’s point is: If we think that ‘doing for God’ means ‘not exercising free choice’ and ‘exercising free choice’ means ‘not serving God’ we are mistaken.
Exercising free choice does not contradict divine service. More importantly, free choice is the main expression of divine service! I have to access my autonomous power of choice so that I can be-in-relationship-to. Divine service demands free choice because the ultimate being-in-relationship-to is being in a relationship with God.
There is no difference between religious and atheist or between different religious viewpoints regarding two things: Doubt and choice.
As human beings we have to live with doubt, always unsure of what is the right thing to do. It’s hard to be in doubt when what I want to do is serve. It’s easy when I know my son Avi likes seitan, so I serve seitan when he’s home. But what does God want from me? To answer that I have to know God, I have to know God’s will, and I have to develop a relationship with God.
Doubt is experienced by religious and secular alike. The difference between them lies in how each a) formulates the question, b) seeks the answer and c) has intention when taking action.
The religious person has to constantly ask: “What does God want from me right now?” Furthermore the religious person seeks to understand ‘God’s mind’ so to speak. Finally once he arrives at a decision the religious person does it as an act of devotion.
Doubt comes together with freedom of choice. Despite our doubt we have to authentically choose. This is a lifelong process. For this process we need to develop our awareness of self and other, our capacity for autonomous choice and our ability for authentic being-in-relationship.