How the ultimate flexibility is erroneously imagined as the ultimate inflexibility

If I asked you – is God flexible – I am sure you would say no

God is absolute – his commandments are absolute

But of-course you would (well not of-course but) you would be wrong

You see, the reason people perceive God to be inflexible is as the Chovois Halivavois, Rabbeinu Bechaya writes, regarding the people whom God gave the Torah to, that they were on such a low spiritual standard – for we know that apart from their outer appearances their cultural behavior was as was their religious ideas, pagan.

The pagan deities obviously had no moral fiber – they didn’t care what you did as long as you sacrificed to them (or so people thought, going as far as sacrificing their own children!)

So as our sages teach, there are three two thousand year periods, from immorality to morality – the first two thousand years are called chaos – for that is the state of paganism – a dog-eat-dog world – the next two thousand years are Torah where the value system of justice over abuse took hold (at least in ancient Israel and then spread through the Bible to the entire world – in fact all legal systems currently, have Biblical origins as it was the first legal system) but finally there comes the two thousand years of redemption – you see to be just against one’s will is sort of repressive (which is why there was the enlightenment “a scientific revolution” primarily caused by people’s desire to free themselves from God so their libidinal instincts can have free reign) you see, ultimately as a parent, God’s objective is simple (in fact this is the two primary desires of all parents) a. you should be happy b. you should be noble