AboutRabbi Ari Shishler Expertise As a campus rabbi, who teaches both religious and non-religious Jewish teens every day, I'm ready and waiting for your questions.
Experience I spent six years as the head of the Chabad House Young Adults' Division in Johannesburg, South Africa, before moving to learning director.
I am the campus rabbi at the Witwatersrand University and University of Johannesburg and was the campus rabbi at Boston City Campus in Johannesburg for six years.
I have worked closely with the South African Union of Jewish students since 1997.
For the past eight years, I have been a guest lecturer at the Johannesburg "Encounter" program for King David High Schools. I have also spent two years as guest rabbi at the "Encounter" program in Cape Town.
King David High Schools, Yeshivah College and Crawford High Schools invite me regularly to speak to various classes.
Since 1996, I have been teaching Talmud at a local religious high school.
Organizations Chabad-Lubavitch
South African Rabbinical Association
Publications Jewish Tradition, South Africa. Jewish Report, weekly newspaper, South Africa SAUJS annual Holiday guide.
Education/Credentials After completing high scool, I spent six years studying in Rabbinical seminaries in South Africa, Israel and New York.
Question Omnipresence is the belief that God is present everywhere in the world.
However this belief that God is everywhere; in the earth, the waterfalls, the
rainbows, the trees and everything; I believe contradicts one of the central
Jewish ideologies: Free Will.
I enjoy science very much, and am very interested in the study of the brain.
The brain, as I understand, works by electrical impulses in the nerves causing
effects in the cells of the brain. This is how we think. However, if God is
omnipresent, would he not be present within every electrical impulse, cell,
and atom? And surely if this is true, free will does not exist; humans do not
exist, for in essence we would all be part of God or otherwise God would be
controlling our every movement, as it is he who is the heart and brain and
everything inside of us, therefore free will would be impossible, as we are
God and God is us.
Could I hear your thoughts on this?
Yours faithfully,
Saul Aryeh Kohn, 17.
Answer Hi Saul
Now, that's a good question, nice to see you thinking!
On one level you could just say: Well, knowing everything doesn't mean that He influences the outcome (e.g. I might know for certain how my child will react to a certain situation, but that doesn't MAKE him react that way).
The truth is, your question goes beyond that. Considering that everything is part of G-d, He must be intimately involved in every detail of every action (and decision) that ever happens.
You've mentioned the term omniscient. The truth is there are other adjectives for G-d too- like Omnipotent or just plain Infinite. The problem is that we get caught up in trying to imagine what all these concepts mean and we often miss the point.
Some philosophers like to ask if G-d can create a stone that He cannot lift. What they're getting at is: If He can create such a stone, He's limited because He can't lift it. If he can't create such a stone, He's limited because He can't do it.
The correct answer to that question is He can create the stone AND He can lift it; and it doesn't make a difference. We, humans, are conditioned to think of things as "either... or...". Either He CAN create the stone, or He CANNOT. Either He knows everything because He is everything or He is removed from everything and therefore we can have free choice.
Well, that may be true for humans, but not for G-d. He can exist in multiple states simultaneously. He can do the impossible, be finite and infinite at the same time. In other words: He can be everything and at the same time allow part of everything (humans) to act independently- and make real choices.
It's a tough one to get the human brain around, but that's how it works.
If you have a Chabad rabbi near where you live, try get to study about "sovev" and "memale" or "da'as elyon" and "da'as tachton", the in-depth Chassidus on the two modes that G-d employs to run His world from the inside while allowing His world to see Him as being outside. This is deep stuff, and it needs a more thorough explanation than this answer will allow.
