the world at large
and for each individual in his peculiar destiny, a conviction that divine
Providence is concerned with the welfare of each individual, and that the
joyous or bitter lot of each man forms a link in the moral government of
the world. The first clear statement of this comes from the prophet
Jeremiah in his wrestling and sighing: "I know, O Lord, that the way of
man is not in himself, it is not in man that walketh to direct his
steps."(500) Special Providence is discussed still more vividly and
definitely in the book of Job. Later on it becomes a specific Pharisaic
doctrine, "Everything is foreseen."(501) "No man suffers so much as the
injury of a finger unless it has been decreed in heaven."(502) A divine
preordination decides a man's choice of his wife(503) and every other
important step of his life.

4. This theory of predestination, however, presents a grave difficulty
when we consider it in relation to man's morality with its implication of
self-determination. While this question of free will is treated fully in
another connection,(504) we may anticipate the thought at this point. The
Jewish conception of divine predestination makes as much allowance as
possible for the moral freedom of man. This is shown in Talmudic sayings,
such as "Everything is within the power of God except the fear of
God,"(505) or "Repentance, prayer, and charity avert the evil
decree."(506) Thus Maimonides expressly states in his Code that the belief
in predestination cannot be allowed to influence one's moral or religious
character. A man can decide by his own volition whether he shall become as
just as Moses or as wicked as Jeroboam.(507)

5. The service of the New Year brings out significantly the Jewish
harmonization between the ideas of God's foreknowledge and man's moral
freedom. This festival, in the Bible called the Festival of the Blowing of
the Shofar, was transformed under Babylonian influence into the Day of
Divine Judgment. But it is still in marked contrast to the Babylonian New
Year's Day, when the gods were supposed to go to the House of the Tablets
of Destiny in the deep to hear the decisions of fate.(508) The Jewish
sages taught that on this day God, the Judge of the world, pronounces the
destinies of men and nations according to their deserts. They thus
replaced the heathen idea of blind fate by that of eternal justice as the
formative power of life. Then, moved by a desire to mitigate the rigor of
stern j