While it’s generally true that our free will only endows us with the ability to intend to do or not to do something, and even then only in the realm of mitzvos and aveiros, it appears that we are also free to set the parameters of our imagination. Just as Hashem leads us in the way we choose to go in the context of our deeds, He also signs off on the borders with which we have circumscribed our horizons. In the way one thinks that’s how his life will be determined. We write our own ticket as to how far our vision will extend and Hashem punches it.
Some of us tend to overestimate our abilities, be it in learning, business etc., while others err in the opposite direction. In each case Hashem goes with the flow which results in the first group suffering the consequences of their miscalculation and the second group never quite reaching their inherent potential.
There is a third group, probably the majority, which more or less accurately takes account of their individual positives and negatives and endeavors to construct a workable life within the limitations that are part and parcel of their existence. Just as above, Hashem will allow this group to operate within the limits it has set for itself on an individual basis.
Even so, everyone will get what is allotted for him irrespective of his own myopia or overconfidence. That’s Hashem’s Hashgacha, but that’s a discussion for another day. We’re talking Teva here, meaning that we are relating to the natural order of things that we observe with our own eyes.
Being that it’s not a hefker velt, there is a set procedure that we are required to follow in order to activate the chesed with which Hashem wishes to grease the wheels of our world as we have imagined it. It necessitates thought, speech, and deed.
Rav Shimshon Pincus, zt”l says that ”we must think thoughts of emunah, yirah, and ahavah. We must speak words of Torah and Tefillah. And we must perform deeds of mitzvos.” This is how we earn the “right,” so to speak, to all of the aforementioned chesed that Hashem wishes to shower upon us.
Having said that, he then plays the E word in an end run around Teva as we understand it, and introduces us to something truly miraculous. He informs us that Hashem goes above the rules for a person who has a desire for spiritual greatness and whose emunah is so strong that he believes that Hashem has both the ability and the will to transcend the normal order of things in our day. Such a person does not question Hashem’s ways just as the Avos did not question Hashem’s ways and he does not feel thwarted by the fact Hashem created him with great limitations. He also realizes the limited natural capabilities that he was endowed with cannot stop Hashem from bestowing spiritual greatness upon him.
Rav Pincus, zt”l tells us that if a person believes that his limitations do not limit Hashem’s ability to do good, Hashem will deal with him beyond his limitations by widening his parameters thereby giving him the ability to break through his ersatz self-limiting horizon to the gadlus that is now within his reach.
And even here, when Hashem allows us to catch a wave that crests high above “Nature’s” boundaries we write our own ticket as to how far our vision will extend and He punches it.
