In my recent article about teenagers and technology, I discussed the impact of smartphone usage and social media on mental health. Some of my students disagreed with my suggestion that parents should limit their teenage children’s smartphone use. They argued that they and their friends use social media without experiencing any negative effects. Their concern was not with the research itself, but rather with the omission of a crucial factor: agency. They believed that banning social media for teenagers based solely on data disregards their ability to make decisions, which is essential for all individuals, especially teenagers.
Many of the prayers in the Days of Awe raise a similar question. Last week, I taught my students the piyyut כחומר ביד היוצרת—“like clay in the hands of the potter,” one of the highlights of the Yom Kippur evening tefillah. Each stanza describes how we are mere objects while God is the subject controlling us through His actions. We are clay and God is the potter. We are stones and God is the mason. We are iron and God is the smith. We are glass and God is the glazier. Therefore, the refrain states that we should not be held responsible for our actions. Instead, the Almighty should “heed the covenant,” God’s promise to the Jewish people, and not listen to “the accuser” who wishes to blame us for our sins that have broken this covenant.
My students inquired about the role of human action in relation to the piyyut. They questioned the responsibility we have if Hashem is the one molding us. They wondered about the role of human agency in our world and whether we have any influence over our actions. Additionally, they pondered the significance of human choice when everything is predetermined by God through social circumstances and situations.
In response to their question, I cited J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. At the end of the second book, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” Harry Potter begins to realize that he shares many characteristics with his chief nemesis, the Dark Lord Voldemort. Despite being a powerful wizard like Voldemort and possessing the unique ability to speak the language of snakes, parseltongue, Harry was sorted into the Gryffindor house with his friends at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry instead of being placed in Slytherin, Voldemort’s house. When Harry asks his mentor professor Dumbledore why this was the case, Dumbledore leads Harry to the realization that the sorting hat placed him in Gryffindor because he asked it to. Dumbledore asserts, “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” (For more on the moral philosophy of Harry Potter, I recommend reading the book by my good friend, Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg, “Morality for Muggles.”)
Dumbledore was saying that no matter our upbringing or our current circumstances, we always have agency over our future. We always have a choice.
Similarly, the Talmud states in Berachot 33b: וְאָמַר רַבִּי חֲנִינָא: הַכֹּל בִּידֵי שָׁמַיִם, חוּץ מִיִּרְאַת שָׁמַיִם.
And Rabbi Ḥanina said: Everything is in the hands of Heaven, except for fear of Heaven. (Man has free will to serve God or not.)
We don’t choose what family we are brought into, what situation we are in now, or what innate abilities we are blessed with, but we always have a choice of what we do with these abilities. This is the central conflict in the Harry Potter series from the opening chapters of the first book when Harry speaks to a snake in order to embarrass his cousin Dudley until the final confrontation between Harry and Lord Voldemort in the seventh book. Will Harry follow the world he was fated to or will he use his agency, his free will, to overcome his circumstances? And this is the central conflict in life.
Steven Covey, in his bestselling book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” popularized the work of Victor Frankl, author of the classic “Man’s Search for Meaning,” with the following quote: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Even in the most unimaginable situations, Victor Frankl wrote his work after experiencing the tortures of Auschwitz, we can always choose how we wish to respond to the situation we are put into. The Rav, Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, a contemporary of Frankl, develops a similar construct in his classic work Kol Dodi Dofek. He describes how we have a Berit Goral, our fate as the Jewish people, which is not under our control. But we can transform this into Yeud, a Jewish destiny, in which we choose how we respond to our fate.
One of today’s true heroes is Natan Sharansky, a former prisoner of Zion who fearlessly challenged the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. His “crime” was simply asking to emigrate to the state of Israel, which led to years of imprisonment in the gulag, political labor camps. In his autobiography, “Fear No Evil,” Sharansky recounted that throughout his years in captivity, he refused to let his Soviet captors control him. Even as he prepared to finally regain his freedom through a prisoner exchange arranged by the United States, Sharansky experienced a powerful moment just before boarding the plane: “Where’s my Tehillim book?’ he asked. The commander in charge responded harshly, claiming that Sharansky had received everything permitted. Unfazed, Sharansky dropped to the snow and declared, “I won’t move until you give me back my Psalm book.” After a tense standoff, during which photographers captured the scene, Sharansky triumphed as he was handed his tehillim book. He then proceeded to walk in a zigzag pattern when instructed by the Soviets to walk in a straight line to freedom.
We can learn from these examples to embrace an active role in shaping our own destiny.
After Yom Kippur, we are given the formula for this through the celebration of Sukkot. During this holiday, we engage in two concrete mitzvot that require our active participation. First, we build the sukkah, a temporary dwelling where we eat and live for seven days. Second, we take the arba minim, which include the lulav, etrog, Hadasim and aravot.
In the Torah, there is a fascinating midrash about the first sin in the Garden of Eden. Our rabbis explore various opinions regarding the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve consumed. According to one opinion followed by the Ramban, the fruit was the etrog. The Ramban posits that the mitzvah of taking the etrog and joining it with the other minim serves as an atonement for this first sin. As we embark on a new year after the Days of Awe, we symbolically return the etrog to its place on the tree. This act represents our ability to transform our predetermined fate into a new destiny. It serves as a powerful reminder that we always have a choice and are not merely victims of our circumstances, even though they can undoubtedly influence us. We can choose to be masters of our own destiny.
When designing technology policies for our teens, we need to be cognizant of this, recognizing the potential harms these new technologies can cause, but at the same time giving our teens agency over their technology choices. Only then can we truly teach them to become thoughtful technology consumers with the ability to make healthy choices for themselves and their peers.
Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky is the director of educational technology at Yeshivat Frisch in Paramus. He is also the author of the Parsha Memes that appear weekly in The Jewish Link. You can email him at [email protected].
