You are Free to Sin! Maimonides' Guide to the High Holidays

Every person was endowed with free will (reshut); so if one desires to turn oneself toward the good and become a righteous person it is within one's power to do so. And if one desires to turn oneself toward the evil and become a wicked person it is within one's power to do so. So it it is written in the Torah: "Behold, the person has become like one of us, knowing good and evil!" (Gen. 3.22), as if to say: "Behold, this species, humanity, stands alone in the world, and there is no other species like it - and this is why: humans can, through their own reason and thought, come to know the good and the evil, and to do whatever they desire, and no one can stop them from either doing good or evil. And, since that is so, [Adam and Eve are sent out of the garden], "Lest he put forth his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever'" (Gen 3:22.)

Do not let it cross your mind, that thing which the idiots of other nations say, along most of the fools in Israel say, that the Holy Blessed One decrees at the very embryonic state of every person whether this one will be righteous or wicked. The matter is not so. Every person is capable of being as righteous as Moses our Master or as wicked as Jeroboam, wise or foolish, merciful or cruel, stingy or generous - and so with all other tendencies. There is no one who forces things upon a person or to decree things against a person; either to pull someone one way or the other, but the individual alone, from their own inner consciousness, turns to whichever path they wish.

This is what Jeremiah said: "Good and Evil do not come forth from the mouth of the Most High." (Lam. 3:38) which is to say, the Creator does not decree that a person will be good or evil. That is why the sinner is responsible for their own demise. Therefore, it is appropriate for a person to cry and wail over their sins, over what they have done to their souls, causing themselves such harm. That is why the verse continues: "Over what does a living person complain? Every man over his sins." (3:39) And again, he continues in the next verse, saying that since we have free will, that means we did all the evil, of our own accord, and so it is upon us to do teshuvah and abandon our wickedness. For we have free will right now as well! And so: "Let us search and examine our ways, and return to the Eternal." (3:40)

This is a great and essential principle, the very pillar of the Torah and its precepts. As it is says: "See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil" (Deut. 30.15). And it is written: "See, I set before you this day a blessing and curse" (Deut. 11.26). This is to say, free will is in your hands. Whatever human activity a person wishes to do, they may do, whether it is good or evil. Because of this, it it said: "Oh, would that they had such a heart as this, to fear Me, and to keep all my commandments at all times!" (Deut. 5:26). This is to say, the Creator does not force human beings, and makes no decrees against them that they should do good or evil. Rather, it is all given over to them.

And if God had decreed upon a person that they be either just or wicked, or had there been a fundamentally inborn something to draw a person to either of the paths, or to any one branch of knowledge, or to a given tendency of the tendencies, or to particular act of all actions - as the stupid astrologists contend - then how did God command us through the prophets, to do thus and not to do such, improve your ways, and do not follow your wickedness, when a person in their embryonic state already has a decree of their conduct issued, or their inborn nature draws them toward a given path of conduct from which they can not deviate? And what need would there be for the Torah altogether?! And by what law, and under what system of justice could the wicked be punished, or the just rewarded? "Shall the judge of the whole earth not do justice?"

Now, do not wonder and ask: "How is it possible for a person to do what their heart desires, and have everything given over to them, when one cannot do anything in the world without the permission of one's Maker - as it says: "Whatever the Eternal desires, will the Eternal do, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all the depths." (Ps. 135.6)? Know all that everything humanity does is in accordance with God's Will, although our actions given over to us. How does this work? Just as it is the Creator's Will that fire and air ascend upward, and that water and earth descend downward, that planets revolve, and that other creatures of the universe follow their respective natural laws, as it was God's Will for them to be, so was it God's Will that human beings have the the power of free will, and that all their actions are given to them to decide, and they should be neither forced or drawn, but that human beings themselves, with the mind that God gave them, can do whatever is humanly possible.

A person is, therefore, judged according to actions; if one did good, one is rewarded with good; and if one did wrong, one is punished.

But maybe you will say: "Doesn't the Holy Blessed One know what will be before it will come to pass? Doesn't God know whether a certain person will be either just or wicked, or does God not know it? And if God knew that someone would be just, then it would be impossible for that person not to be just? If you say that God did know that this person would be just but that it is possible for him to be wicked, then isn't it the case that God did not know the matter clearly?

Know, that the answer to this question is longer in measure than the earth and broader than the sea, and many great principles and mighty mountains hang on this question. But you must know and understand this thing that I am telling you. In the second chapter of the treatise on the Fundamentals of the Torah it was already explained that the Holy Blessed One does not know of things with a knowledge which exists outside of Godself, like people do - for they and their knowledge are two separate things; but the God and God's knowledge are One. And is not within the power of human knowledge to fully understand this, just as it is not within the power of a human being to reach out and grasp the truth of the Creator - as it says: "For no person shall see Me and live" (Ex. 33.20)...

And so, it is not within our intellectual power to know in what manner the Holy Blessed One knows all the creatures and their actions, but we do know without a doubt that human behavior is in human hands, and that the Holy Blessed One neither pulls people nor stops people from to doing what they do.

(1) There are many verses in the Torah and in the texts of the prophets which appear to contradict this principle, and most people are stumbling thereby...

(3) In the course of time, Cain brought an offering to the Eternal from the fruit of the soil; (4) and Abel, for his part, brought the choicest of the newborn of his flock. The Eternal paid heed to Abel and his offering, (5) but to Cain and his offering the Eternal paid no heed. Cain was much distressed and his face fell. (6) And the Eternal said to Cain, “Why are you distressed, And why is your face fallen? (7) Surely, if you do right, There is uplift. But if you do not do right Sin crouches at the door; Its urge is toward you, Yet you can be its master.”