To What Extent Does Religion Make Us Fatalistic?

Many observant Jews, as well as Christians and Muslims and others, believe that G-d has a plan for each and every one of us. In my experience, this way of thinking leads people to become more passive, because they conflate faith with helplessness – a “Jesus Take the Wheel” approach to life’s challenges.

In other words, religion can indeed be the opiate of the masses – if it makes mankind resigned to fate. But perhaps this is not the way it is supposed to be?!

After all, there are many observant Jews and Christians and Muslims who find ways to take risks, relying on divine blessing to be successful. Out of the same person’s mouth I have heard, in rapid succession: “I am doing everything I can,” and “G-d has a plan and I have to rely on Him.” It might be cognitive dissonance – or might it actually be entirely theologically consistent?

“Israel” was so named because Jacob “wrestled with man and with G-d and has prevailed.” This is at least a description of Avraham and Jacob and Moses, all men who disagreed with G-d and sought to change His mind. But is it also a prescription? Are we supposed to seek to imitate Avraham and Moses by arguing with G-d? Or is that ridiculous hubris: after all, they were truly great men. Who are we to think that we are somehow qualified to emulate them – that we can contend with G-d as they did?

The answers are not easy. And G-d does not make them easy! On the contrary: Life is hard. The path for each of us is not clear.

What I think is clear enough is that our lives, like the lives of our forefathers, are meant to follow an arc. We start life helpless and entirely reliant on other people. As we grow and become more independent, those other people gradually withdraw. As any parent of a teenager can attest, this is rarely a smooth and entirely pleasant process. But we want it to happen: children who rely on their parents when they are 30 or 40 have a serious case of arrested development.

To parents who are trying to “launch” their children, discipline often takes the form of withdrawal, of letting children figure things out for themselves and suffer the consequences for those decisions. Inevitably, good parents want their children to write their own stories, to forge their own paths. Sometimes that means pushing them out of the nest. It does not mean that we don’t want to remain connected to our children – we very much do! But the relationship ideally morphs over time.

I think G-d is very much the same. The time in the wilderness was transitional – a national adolescence, wherein G-d took care of everything, and we complained about it anyway. And then we were supposed to transition into an adult nation, connected to G-d, yet making good, independent decisions. Reading the text, it is apparent that the process reasonably approximated the adolescent issues of a teenager.

Fast-forward to today. I’d like to posit that the absence of manna and open miracles is not evidence of absence, but can instead be seen as evidence that G-d continues to treat us like adults – ideally as a spouse. This suggests that the interactions between us are ideally similar to those of a married couple: there can be arguments and disagreements. But if a man and woman ultimately seek to be together, then they will find a way to make it work. Fundamentally, the G-d of the Torah seeks partnership, and that requires a full range of inputs from both sides – from obedience to disagreement.

I think the Torah’s specific use of language reinforces this approach.

The word yasar means “remove” – Jacob removes (yasar) sheep from Lavan’s flock (G. 30:25), Pharaoh removes (yasar) his ring to give to Joseph (G. 41:41). A later Pharaoh begs Moses to remove (yasar) plagues (E. 8:8, 10:16).

The Torah uses the same word to suggest discipline:

Bear in mind that your G-d disciplines (yasar) you just as a householder disciplines (yasar) his son. (D. 8:5) The same word is used for the same purpose in three other verses as well! (L. 26:18, 23, 28)

And lastly, Moses explains to the people that this same word for removal and discipline is also used to mean a lesson:

Take thought this day that it was not your children, who neither experienced nor witnessed the lesson (m-yasar) of your G-d—G-d’s majesty, mighty hand, and outstretched arm. (D. 11:2)

Yasar is the same root as mussar, which means to learn from experience and contemplation. In other words, some space from G-d is where we gain our independence and grow into our role within the partnership. Because ultimately, G-d craves partnerships.

Consider the following verse from Exodus:

[God] said: I hereby make a covenant. Before all your people I will work such wonders as have not been wrought on all the earth or in any nation; and all the people who are with you shall see how awesome are G-d’s deeds which I will perform for you. (E. 34:10)

Except that this is a mistranslation – one echoed by most translators! That last word, “for you” is eemach – which clearly and consistently means “with you.” The future of our relationship with G-d is meant to be truly great – but it is a partnership with active inputs from both parties, not one where we stand by and enjoy the show.

What can we take from all of this? That the G-d of the Torah understands that each of us starts life as children, and most grow as children do – action precedes understanding, naaseh v’nishmah. But as we grow and reach adulthood, G-d ultimately craves a relationship in which it is through the joint and shared efforts of man and G-d that unprecedented wonders will occur in the world. Which means that the more we mature, the more G-d wants us to take responsibility for our own journey. That does not mean that we are alone – far from it! – but it means we are meant to be full partners in our relationship.

G-d really wants the same things we want from our own children: to grow up and seek to invest in ourselves and our surroundings. G-d wants us to write our own story. Parents are most proud when our children grow to surpass even our own expectations.

The challenge was true then, as it is now. America was built on concepts like homesteading: if you built it, you got to own it. G-d clearly wants the Jewish people, then and now, to own our own futures. But this only works if we have the space to create, to imagine, to commit, and to invest. G-d gives us that space. It is up to us to grow into it.

P.S. The m prefix in the Torah shows the essence of the thing. Mayim, water, is the essence of yam, sea. Mikdash, tabernacle, is the essence of kodesh, holy. And mussar, instruction, is the essence of yasar, removal. G-d removes Himself to instruct us – either with negative feedback, or merely to give us room to grow.