Not So Free Choice Poem by gershon hepner

Some say: “You, too, can be like me, ”
a universal sermon,
it seems,
but so long
as what’s right and wrong
are themes
that only I determine
the choice you have is hardly free.

Shaul Magid (From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala [Bloomington,2008],292, n.22) , notes that although t. Sanhedrin 13: 2 states that “the righteous among the nations of the world have a share in the world to come, ” which sounds universal, Israel determines who is righteous.

9/9/08