Free choice is deepest when the qualities of what you choose are not what make the choice happen.
If you choose something because it gives you more pleasure, makes more sense, or feels more meaningful, then something about that option is pulling you toward it.
Chabad Chassidus describes a deeper kind of freedom. You choose because the choice comes from you. Not because the other option is worse, and not because this option earned your choice.
The choice expresses something deeper in you than preference, logic, or pleasure.
How does free choice help explain compassion?
This also helps explain compassion. Most compassion has a reason. You feel for someone because you relate to them, feel close to them, or see their pain and want to help.
But there is a deeper compassion that is not based on closeness, distance, what you have in common, or some quality in the other person that causes the compassion.
It has no basis outside the giver. The compassion comes from who you are.
Chabad Chassidus connects this kind of compassion with the deepest level of free choice. In both cases, the deepest cause is in the giver or chooser, not in the person or thing receiving it.
Were the Jewish people chosen as a reward for holiness?
This also helps explain the Creator choosing the Jewish people for a unique mission in the physical world, including being a light unto the nations.
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What does being light mean? Psychology explained
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His choice was not a reward for Jewish holiness. If holiness caused the choice, then something about the Jewish people would be explaining why He chose them.
Instead, the choice comes from the Chooser Himself [from deep in His Essence].
Why does Chassidus connect free choice with Atzmus?
This helps explain why Chassidus connects free choice with Atzmus [His Essence]. At one level of Atzmus, Chassidus gives a metaphor, opposites like awe and love, distance and closeness, can become united like inseparable friends.
At a deeper level of Atzmus, even this metaphor is too limited. No words can describe Him.
What did being freely chosen give the Jewish people?
Because Hashem [the Creator] freely chose the Jewish people, they were given the ability to freely choose Him from the deepest level of their own souls.
That relationship has been expressed through extraordinary Jewish loyalty across more than 2,000 years of exile and persecution [mostly in Europe].
The prophets describe the Messianic [world peace] era as a time when this relationship becomes clear to the rest of humanity. Zechariah says people from the nations will say to a Jew, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that G-d is with you.” [that’s one way a person becomes an expression of love].
In that sense, the Jewish people are the deepest expression of His free choice and compassion within creation. In the Messianic era, that relationship becomes more openly revealed, helping the rest of humanity recognize His presence too.
Why was a body made from dust given free choice?
His compassion is not limited to what looks spiritually high. He chose that even a human body formed from physical dust could have a place in His purpose and be made in His image, given intelligence and real free choice.
From Adam onward, humanity was given instructions for how physical life can become more united with His Essence.
That purpose is intimacy, what feels separate from the Creator becoming deeply united with His Essence.
As a person develops emotional skills that allow the body and soul to live through awe, love, joy, and pleasure in the Creator, physical human life can become more deeply united with Him.
His choice to give even physical dust a place in His purpose is an expression of His infinite compassion and free choice.
How can anyone bring deeper freedom into ordinary life?
This does not mean everyone is supposed to become Jewish. Every human being has a purpose in the world the Creator made for humanity, and each person and nation can become a deep expression of a quality of His.
That expression becomes real through the choices a person makes. When you choose compassion even when someone has not earned it, give tzedakah [righteousness] beyond what feels required, do teshuvah and return to relationship with your soul, or stay in relationship even when your emotions are not pulling you toward it, you bring that deeper freedom into ordinary life.
Chassidus explains that this kind of compassion awakens a matching response from above. We show compassion that goes beyond merit, and we ask the Creator to relate to us with compassion deeper than anything we could earn.
The deepest relationship is not built only on what each side deserves. It can come from the freedom to choose the relationship itself.
Based on idea from this talk by the Rebbe: Vismati Kadkod 5730 [1969–70].
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Related guides:
Visit nextself.ai/blog
Why is suffering built into creation?
How to feel awe and love consistently: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19gsyGRayD/
Healing from narcissism: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1H1PgN815i/
#NextSelf #chassidus #biblestudy #torahstudy
“The Creator’s compassion is so deep that even a body made from dust was given free choice, the freedom to choose to become part of His purpose.”
Explore the NextSelf Blog. Start with this post explaining the world of souls. And my Youtube. Content is published to this facebook first and a few days later, to the blog.
The blog lists all the difference patterns to study, understanding patterns is how one can develop 'Daas' [felt knowing].
Update: As awe, trust, and love deepen, they can allow greater openness and intimacy with the Creator. That intimacy can include sadness when you notice how much more of His goodness can be revealed.