Avot200

5:
That man has free will is a basic premise of Judaism. Indeed, without that premise the whole fabric of Torah and mitzvot just ceases to have any meaning. For what would be the point of commanding us to observe commandments if we had no choice but to obey? Man either has free will to make his own decisions concerning his behaviour or he is some kind of automaton, pre-planned to behave in a certain way. And we do not need the Torah to tell us that we have free will: our own eyes and our own intelligence teaches us that basic truth.

6:
We have already established (in the previous mishnah) that man is possessed of a surpassing intellect – that which is an adumbration of the divine image. That intellect enables us, among myriads of other things, to note that as regards our behaviour we are different from other animals. When a lion kills its prey it is acting on pure instinct: it has been pre-planned to act in that way. That is why we cannot claim that the lion is acting wickedly: it is just 'doing what comes naturally'. But when a man kills his victim we apply moral judgement to that act, because that act of killing was not a natural built-in reflex but a conscious choice between possible alternative actions.

7:
Rambam encapsulates all this in his halakhic code as follows:

To be continued.

David Lobron writes:

I was troubled by Rambam's assertion that intelligence is what is meant by "made in God's image (tselem)", because one could use this to imply that people who are less intelligent, or who are totally incommunicative (e.g., very sick) are somehow less reflective of God's image. I know that Rambam's main point is to emphasize the incorporeality of God, but does he anywhere deal with the problems raised when intelligence is used as the only measure of what makes us distinctly human? It seems like a dangerous philosophical approach.

I respond:

I think that when Rambam equates the divine image that is in man with 'sekhel' he is referring to 'intellect' rather than to 'intelligence'. In other words what is divine about the human species is its capacity to intellectualize. This characteristic belongs to the species, regardless of the individuals in the species. Clearly, some members of the human race have a greater intellectual capacity than others; I have already mentioned that this capacity can be quantified as an Intelligence Quotient (IQ). Everybody has some measure of intellectual capacity, however minimal it may be. Not everyone can be an Albert Einstein. But however great or small our intellectual capacity it is derived – says Rambam – from the fact that we are created in the divine image.

And yet, having said all this, we must admit that for Rambam himself incapacity of any kind was certainly something that reduced one's ability to commune with God. He says:

I would also suggest that it is not our intellect alone that makes us human: our intellect is one of several characteristics that define our humanity, including physical appearance.

Amnon Ronel writes:

Yesterday I participated in a meeting of "Shorashim" (or something like that) in my daughter's school. We discussed various aspects of the "decapitated calf" from tractate Sotah, especially concerning our communal responsibility for acts of violence in our midst. This meeting, coupled with newspaper headlines, have made me very upset. In the light of this our discussion concerning our superior understanding and God's love for His chosen people, the light to the gentiles, seems contradicted and ridiculous and very inappropriate to our present reality.

I respond:

That man has intellectual capacity is beyond dispute. That man can also distinguish between what is morally right and morally wrong is also beyond dispute. The former characteristic was given us by God; the latter was acquired – according to the well-known story in Genesis – against God's specific advice. And we have been paying the price ever since. God will not interfere in our moral choices: only our intellect can do that. That is what the mitzvot are all about.