Is Everything from Hashem?

To the esteemed questioner,

Our faith is that Hashem’s providence extends over every creature in the world, and yet there are things that a person has the power to bring upon himself through his free will.

An example of this is brought in Sefer Chovot HaLevavot, in the Gate of Trust: A person decides to throw himself into the middle of the sea when the sea is raging, and explains it to himself like this: If it is truly now his time to depart from the world, then it makes no difference whether he is standing on dry land or in the middle of the sea; and if his time to depart from the world has still not arrived, then someone must surely save him.

The author of Chovot HaLevavot says that this is a mistake, because it may be that according to the truth in Heaven, his time to depart from the world has still not arrived according to Hashem’s providence, and yet every person has the power of free choice. And just as Hashem gave a person the ability to do physical things according to his will, so too a person can also kill himself. And the one who threw himself into the sea and afterward died as a result of this, not only is it not correct that according to providence he should have died now, for on the contrary, in truth he was still meant to live, but that person will also be punished for his death, since he is considered as though he himself took his life through his actions.

From this we learn that although there is providence over all of a person’s ways, nonetheless a person has the ability to exercise his free choice and do things that are not in accordance with the planned providence of Hashem upon him.

With blessings,

Rav Nachum