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Discussion on free will

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Hrvatski Noahid:
Thank you very much for giving me information I don't have access to. From my limited perspective, I'm not sure I agree. Tremendous Godly revelations don't necessarily imply the removal of free will, which is a fundamental principle of the Torah of Moses. Removing a fundamental principle of the Torah may create more problems than it solves. Also, if we follow Ramban's interpretation, free will would be removed only from Jews because all the new covenant prophecies are speaking about the covenant God made with the Jews.

Hrvatski Noahid:
Yehonatan repost: My pleasure ❤. I think the Rambam is right in the sense that we have no clue what things will be like. However, even though I do not understand it, I do believe the words of the Ramban, as these concepts are also found in midrashic and kabbalistic literature. I think that just like Angels do not have free will because of the level of awareness of truth that they have, so too at that time, the process of all of remaining man kind becoming "angelic" begins, including non-jews, in that the very fact that God will pour His spirit on all the earth, the level of awareness of truth, in it of itself, will uproot foreign desires from us and all we will crave is doing His will, where all nations too will go to Jerusalem to seek Hashem "and let Him teach us of His ways, and we will go in His paths," for out of Zion shall the Torah come forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." But, only Hashem knows. What will be, will be, and the reality of those matters, truthfully no one knows but Him, as it says "...no eye has seen except for you alone God, what He will do for those who wait for it" Isaiah 64:3.

Hrvatski Noahid:
I wish to add something. I note you believe the words of the Ramban as these concepts are also found in midrashic and kabbalistic literature. According to Rabbi Dr. Michael Schulman, Midrash are homiletic stories within the Torah tradition. As such, Midrashic stories themselves are never to be used as sources from which it is correct to derive decisions for what should or should not be done in practice. Certainly, established / accepted Torah Laws for practical observance (halacha) can never be overturned by a homiletic story that's found in Midrash. That is because the earlier Sages who ruled on and accepted the halacha certainly also knew the Midrash stories, and in fact understood them much more correctly and deeply than we imagine to understand them in our small way. Therefore we are obligated (and held accountable in God's judgment) to practice what halacha requires, and not what we imagine that a Midrashic story implies. It's very important to understand that Midrash is not Torah Law. The Midrash is telling you about a moral equivalency, not a Torah-Law equivalency. And many statements in the Midrash are actually metaphorical, for the purpose of teaching some lesson, and are not meant to be taken literally.

Hrvatski Noahid:
Yehonatan repost: Yes, all true, but in Judaism there is a differentiation between different types of Midrash, when I used the word midrash i didn't mean that type of Midrash where they bring many parables and stories which in our tradition we know are allegorical. Also often when we say midrashic literature it encompasses also texts that aren't midrashic in that previously mentioned nature, but they're called midrash simply because in them there are "Drashot" (expounding) of verses, that aren't found in the talmud, so for example "Sefer haBahir" attributed to the Tanna Rabbi Nechunia ben Hakana, one of our ancient kabbalistic texts dating very early, in the rishonim it was called simply "the midrash of rebbe nechunia ben hakana", even tho its not similar in any way to the classic "midrashic" literature of allegorical nature. It is strictly kabbalistic tradition in that book. Similarly the zohar, which is totally different than classic midrash, was originally just called "the midrash of rebbi shimon bar yochai". So when we find in any ancient text of ours that isnt the talmud, even if its not the allegorical midrash type, its still called "midrash" bc from the word Drasha, verses are expounded in it with teachings and traditions. And so in many of these texts they simply spell out traditions on concepts such as these of what will be at the end of days, or the style in which the end of day wars unfold, and in what order they will unfold, etc. Even within classical midrashic literature  within the text itself, its easy to distinguish between what is straight information being passed over VS cryptic esoteric allegory, which we know isn't to be taken literally. So these concepts are mentioned in the talmud and also in "outside of talmud" torah tradition.

Hrvatski Noahid:
Yehonatan repost: Also, to all of these different midrashic literature too, there are commentaries, like for example the Gra (Ga'on from Vilna) has a commentary on the entire Zohar. And in them they also bring a lot of things from tradition and expound traditions on different midrashim from all over our literature. So i meant, from the totality of our tradition (of what I was taught and have studied) from that, is why i do believe the Rambans commentary, even if i don't grasp at all what that reality would be like.

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