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The Yishmael Kashya


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#1 taon

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Posted 16 July 2012 - 09:31 AM

In the Rav's shuir Yediah and bechira 1, he quotes the Shelah asking about the melachim asking Hashem to kill Yishmael because of how his descendants would act, etc. I dont see how this case would seem to preclude bechira. If it's Yishmael's bechira that's the issue, we know his teshuvah didn't prevent the tragedy. if it's the bechira of those descendants, we can just say that they saw that any of his descendants would do this, not necessarily certain people. What's the question I'm missing?

#2 Rabbi Shapiro

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Posted 16 July 2012 - 01:07 PM

Let's say Hashem would have killed Yishmael because of future choices - his or his descendants'.

Now that future will never happen, since Hashem prevented it.

But if that future will never happen, how did Hashem look into the future and see it? If the reason Hashem knows the future is because He is above time and the future is observable to him no less than the present or past is to us, then Hashem would not see Yishmael's misbehavior in the future since in the future it will never happen.

The only other option is that Hashem looks at Yishmael now - in the present, not the future - and sees his personality, and his "DNA" and is able to discern that this little baby is hardwired to misbehave. And his descendants will also definitely misbehave.

But if someone is hardwired to misbehave even before they are born (or even when they are just a baby) that means they have no bechirah because their choices are already locked in.

It doesn't say that Hashem knew Yishmael's descendants would likely harm the Jews but rather they will. If that knowledge was a result of looking into the future, then if Hashem would change the future, He should not have seen that; and if it is the result of looking into the present, then future choices are already predetermined.

The answer is, Hashem's "knowing" the future has nothing to do with knowledge, and therefore the above logic, which is true only because knowledge can only be obtained in the above two ways, does not apply.

#3 taon

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Posted 17 July 2012 - 09:04 AM

But since Yishmael already did something wrong, can't we just say that the effects of something he already did will come out in someone descended from him someday? Not that X will kill Jews, but that there will be bnei yishmael in X's time, whichever ones make this choice, who will, because the potential was already withing them. Or is that also a limit on bechira?

#4 Rabbi Shapiro

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Posted 19 July 2012 - 12:41 PM

Would the descendants have been able to choose not to not hurt the Jews? if so, how could Hashem see with certainty that they would?

If they would not have been able to choose to be good then they had no Bechirah.