Is There a Future?
Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim
When you enter the land that your God is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. Let no one be found among you who consigns a son or daughter to the fire, or who is an augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead. For anyone who does such things is abhorrent to God, and it is because of these abhorrent things that your God is dispossessing them before you. You must be wholehearted with your God. Those nations that you are about to dispossess do indeed resort to soothsayers and augurs; to you, however, your God has not assigned the like. (Deut. 18:9-14)
Rashi comments on 8:13:
Walk before him whole-heartedly, put your hope in Him and do not attempt to investigate the future, but whatever comes upon you, accept it whole-heartedly. And then thou shalt be with Him and become His portion (Sifrei Devarim 173:3).
Rashi says “do not attempt to investigate the future.” What is so abhorrent about doing so?
To “investigate the future” reveals the following 4 crucial fallacies about such a person’s thinking and beliefs:
1) The future exists now,
2) it can be discovered, and more importantly,
3) the future is that, for which to make preparations. Why prepare? Because one also believes
4) the future is determined and fixed, and it could be bad, or something disliked.
These 4 elements underlie the belief that the future is a reality now.
Assuming one can learn the future means one believes there now exists a destined series of events. This opposes God, as one feels the future is fixed: it is unrelated to man's sinning and repenting, where according to God, reward and punishment continually adjusts man’s fate. Therefore one who seeks forecasts believes the future is fixed, thereby denying God’s system of reward and punishment. That's why it is abhorrent.
Rashi says more: “Whatever comes upon you, accept it whole-heartedly.”
This means one must not reject or fear how reality unfolds each day. Rather, accept how God designed the world. Of course, plan properly naturally to secure safety and all your needs, and trust in God’s help. But do not feel dissatisfaction at God’s design of the world’s operation.
Rashi adds: “And then thou shalt be with Him and become His portion.”
Living properly, intelligently, following Torah, one must be confident that our good God knows what He is doing, and it is for man’s benefit. “Becoming God’s portion” means we will deserve a good fate; He will apportion to us a lot befitting our deeds.
There is a difference between God's rule, providence, and intention in reference to all natural forces, and our rule, providence, and intention in reference to things which are the objects of our rule, providence, and intention. This lesson is the principal object of the whole Book of Job; it lays down this principle of faith, and recommends us to derive a proof from nature, that we should not fall into the error of imagining His knowledge to be similar to ours, or His intention, providence, and rule similar to ours. When we know this we shall find everything that may befall us easy to bear; mishap will create no doubts in our hearts concerning God, whether He knows our affairs or not, whether He provides for us or abandons us. On the contrary, our fate will increase our love of God; as is said in the end of this prophecy, “Therefore I abhor myself and repent concerning the dust and ashes" (xlii. 6), and as our Sages say, “The pious do everything out of love, and rejoice in their own afflictions" (Tal. Shabbos 88b). (Guide, book II, chap. xxiii)