WHO IS HOLDING THE STRING? Three Years After October 7 — Providence, Free Will, and the 50/50 World

In our Tuesday morning Safra Class, three years after October 7, we step

back from the individual headlines and ask a larger question: What happens

when we stop looking at each event separately and begin looking at the pattern?

From the extraordinary turns in Israel’s war to Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon’s idea of

the “Divine puzzle,” we explore a world in which every individual event may

have a perfectly reasonable natural explanation—and yet, when the pieces are

placed beside one another, we are left asking: Who is holding the string?

But Bereishit reminds us that Hashem created man be-tzelem Elokim,

with genuine beḥirah,

and therefore history can never be a simple story of puppets and miracles.

Drawing on the Rambam, the story of Kayin, Rabbi Asher Abittan’s unforgettable

teaching of the “50/50 world,” and the contrasting responses of Yitro