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Parent Post: Correct the cow. He doesn't understand it because he didn't imagine it himself.
tikvah
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9/20/2026, 9:16:18 PM
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My half dollar, rather than 2 cents, inflation you know? 🙂 \> \*\*No.\*\* I don't believe that human beings are puppets controlled by a supernatural being, and that is not how I understand Jewish belief. \> \> In Judaism, Hashem is the source of existence and the One who sustains everything, but that does not mean that He mechanically controls every human choice. In fact, the existence of \*\*bechirah chofshit — free choice\*\* is fundamental to the Torah's understanding of human responsibility. \> \> Kabbalah takes this even further. We live within a reality sustained entirely by Hashem, yet we are given the extraordinary capacity to choose how we respond within that reality. The question isn't simply \*“Who controls me?”\* but \*“What am I choosing to align myself with?”\* \> \> Worship, therefore, isn't surrendering one's will to a cosmic puppeteer. It is \*\*avodah\*\*—service, relationship, and conscious alignment with the Divine will. We can choose kindness or cruelty, connection or separation, humility or ego. Those choices matter precisely because they are choices. \> \> And there is a beautiful paradox here: \*\*Hashem is sovereign, yet human choice is real.\*\* Judaism has wrestled with that mystery for thousands of years. We don't have to reduce it to either “God controls everything” or “God has nothing to do with anything.” \> \> From a Kabbalistic perspective, perhaps the deeper work is learning to recognize the Divine within reality while still taking responsibility for what we do with the freedom we've been given. \> \> \*\*I don't worship Hashem because I am controlled by Him. I turn toward Hashem because I am free to choose where I place my heart.\*\*
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saarnok
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9/20/2026, 9:24:42 PM
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And I understood everything you wrote. The key word I was hoping to get unprompted is "alignment". Thank you for doing so. In theory a person could attempt to align their actions with Bugs Bunny, or rather their supposition of Bugs Bunny's philosophy. Your belief in "The Word" is absolutely irrelevant in the question of whether or not your actions are controlled by supernatural entities or not. From my perspective you have chosen to attempt to align your existence with what you have determined is the intention of the "most high", which as a non-believer I also aspire to. In this way we are both aligned together to large extent with each of us imagining that our alignment is better than the other's. Neither of us are in any sense under the "control" of anything or anyone other than ourselves. Thank you.
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tikvah
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9/20/2026, 10:06:30 PM
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Yes, we can call that alignment w/ a Creator, A Source, a Higher Power, but in the end, it's really all the same. Each one of us is different.
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