You’re right, too.
Once, in a small town, there were two old friends who were engaged in a bitter and long-standing argument. What the exact subject of the argument was is not important, nor does anyone now remember. However, the argument was not only impacting their friendship, but the rest of the town was pulled into choosing sides. Finally, a mutual friend persuaded the two to bring their argument to the rabbi. The three proceeded to the rabbi’s study, where each side laid out their case. After the first friend had presented her argument, the rabbi nodded sagely and said, “You’re right.” The second friend, somewhat indignant, laid out his version of the case, in which version the details led to exactly the opposite conclusion. Again, the rabbi nodded sagely and said, “You’re right”. Exasperated, the mutual friend of both said that the arguments were diametrically opposed, and that it was impossible for both to be right. The rabbi nodded sagely and said, “You’re right, too.”
This summer, while I was on faculty at URJ Eisner Camp, we took the opportunity to teach the older units in a beit midrash. Each faculty member, and a few staff, picked a favorite subject, and taught a quick ten minute lesson several times, as the campers selected which sessions to attend. I sat under a tree with the words, “You’re right, too” over my head, and I taught about how I believe this story is fundamental to understanding Judaism (and also the impetus for writing this Temple Topics’ series on canonical stories in Judaism).
I told the story and then gave two examples. The first is from the Torah. I asked them to remember the first two chapters of the Bible. Chapter one and chapter two each tell a creation story. The first story details how the world was created in six days, and humanity was created - male and female - as the last act of creation. The second story has a single human being created first, no time mentioned, and the story ending with God separating the first human being into male and female individuals. Many commentators have attempted to reconcile the two stories, but the simple fact is that they are different and contradictory. How interesting that our most sacred text, that we read through, over and over again, each year, begins with such a contradiction. There must be a lesson.
Second, I pointed out the statement from Pirke Avot (the foundational document of Rabbinic Judaism, found in the Mishnah) that states - הכל צפוי, והרשות נתונה- hakol tzafui, v’hareishut n’tunah - everything is known in advance, but free will has been given. In other words, there is predestination and we can make our own choices. “And” and not “but” - two mutually exclusive theological understandings. On the one hand, God, who is all-knowing and created the world, knew and knows everything that will ever happen, and therefore set each action at the beginning. On the other hand, we as human beings have the ability to make whatever choices we may will; we are in control of our own destinies.
Some faiths would attempt to reconcile these statements - and even in Judaism there are attempts. Rather, however, let us ponder the nature of a religion that accepts at its core that there are fundamental dichotomies in the world, and then moves on. Self-aware compartmentalization is not a rationalization, but endemic to the Jewish understanding of the world. Sometimes, two opposite things are true. We can imagine that God - like a computer with infinite computing capacity - can have seen all the variables of each neuron firing from the beginning and therefore created that first moment with the end in sight. Yet, we cannot live our lives without the equally important knowledge that our own individual choices matter, that we have the ability and responsibility to change the world that we live in. We can both acknowledge the omniscience of God in the same moment as we celebrate our right to choose.
Sometimes arguments which fall apart in logic class can be better illustrated by stories. Obviously, the being that could exist before time and could create this universe would know what would happen in each and every case. That’s right. Just as obviously, we feel the import of every path taken and not taken, every choice made and every disaster averted. That’s right. Two ideas incompatible with each other - and yet they are both true. That’s right, too.
