What Will Tomorrow Bring?

Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

When God your God has cut down before you the nations that you are about to enter and dispossess, and you have dispossessed them and settled in their land, beware of being lured into their ways after they have been wiped out before you! Do not inquire about their gods, saying, “How did those nations worship their gods? I too will follow those practices.” You shall not act thus toward God your God, for they perform for their gods every abhorrent act that God detests; they even offer up their sons and daughters in fire to their gods. (Deut. 12:29-31).

When you enter the land that the God 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 a fortune teller, a soothsayer, an omen teller, a witch, 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 God your God is dispossessing them before you. You must be wholehearted with God your God (Deut. 18:9-13).

What is “abhorrent” about seeking to secure one’s future and future knowledge? It’s not the knowledge per se, as true prophets rightfully share the future. But it is the search that is evil, the insecurity, the assumption that without God’s involvement, foolish practices like passing children through fire pillars can secure the future, or people can tell you the future. It’s a denial of reality, a fear and an inadequacy to welcome the unknown of tomorrow and feel capable of addressing it as one should. But a wise man knows that reality has governing laws and patterns, that people have a limited emotional range, and that intelligence can navigate life with success, with God’s help. That knowledge provides man the confidence to tackle tomorrow. But one ignorant of these fundamental areas lacks the realization of what’s possible and manageable, and instead he imagines an uncontrollable and terrible future. He is incapacitated by his fears and resorts to any glimpse into the future.

The Egyptian Jews suffered 210 years of harsh slavery because they followed Egypt’s idolatry. They caved to the need for Egypt’s approval and followed their practices. This is why they were enslaved. Above, Moses repeatedly warns the Jews not to follow that same insecurity upon entering Israel. Man is not to be raised higher than God. But evidently, that is so common among people. Their need for ego satisfaction—societal approval—outweighs their knowledge of truth: God alone hears and responds to man, not lifeless idols, “They have eyes but don't see, ears but don't hear” (Psalms 115,135). God alone created all, and He alone provides for man based on his perfection. God alone knows and causes our future.

Moses warns the Jews they will soon encounter idolatrous cultures in Israel, whom, due to their distortion of reality and their rejection of the true God, God is dispossessing and giving their land to the Jews. But what exactly is the insecurity which drives man to false gods depicted in the above 2 quotes? 

Rashi: Walk before God whole-heartedly, put your hope in Him and do not attempt to investigate the future. But whatever it may be that comes upon you, accept it whole-heartedly, and then you shall be with Him and become His portion.

Moses identifies a major human insecurity: “What will happen to me in the future? Will I have health and success? What can I do to guarantee success? Perhaps other cultures have the answers?”

Why Seeking the Future is Wrong

The future has not yet happened; it does not yet exist. Just as a person cannot see a non-object as nothing is in front of him, a person also cannot know the future, for it is as non-existing as the non-object. Secondly, human knowledge is based on observation. And with nothing to observe, man has no ability to perceive. The future can’t be observed. Instead, man should trust God's system of Reward and Punishment and feel confident that what will unfold in his life will be based on his merits, trusting in God’s justice.

Moses emphasizes that the other nations fall prey to social insecurity, “Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to soothsayers” (Ibid. 18:14).  What does it mean that they “listen” to soothsayers? It means they depend on “people,” they “listen to others.” Man plays a significant role in a person’s life. Many have never abandoned the infantile need for the parental figure. Society becomes the parent (Rabbi Israel Chait). In contrast, God says, 

I will raise up for them from among their own people a prophet like yourself, in whose mouth I will put My words and who will speak to them all that I command. And anybody who fails to heed the words spoken in My name, I Myself will call him to account (Ibid. 18:18,19).  

God demands a person follows reality, that he follows God’s words which are validated only when spoken by a prophet. And a prophet is validated by sharing the future where all unfolds precisely: “If the prophet speaks in God’s name and the oracle does not come true, that oracle was not spoken by God” (Ibid. 18:22).

If God does not wish us seeking forecasts, but to accept life as it happens, why is the future that which validates a prophet? This shows that only God knows the future, thereby rejecting all other practices of forecasting as false. This categorically dismisses all fortune tellers as liars. 

So, in practice, God does not wish man to seek the future; man should trust that God’s governance is fully just with nothing to worry about, provided we follow Torah. But when God must intercede in human affairs to help man with divine direction, we must have a method of validating a true prophet. That method is 100% accurate predictions, something that is impossible without God's intervention, thereby dismissing all idolatrous fortune-telling as lies.