Question:
In the article “Unifying Our Post-Garden-Of-Eden Perspective,” it mentions Uzza and Aza’el fell from heaven and could not be rectified because angels have no free-will. If they have no free-will, what does it mean that they fell? Without free-will, how could they do something they were not supposed to?
Answer from HaRav Ginsburgh:
There are two different approaches for answering your question. There are statements in the Talmud that reveal that even though angels do not have free-will, they do have the power to exercise discretion and therefore can make mistakes. Case in point is when the angel Metat erred by not standing when Elisha ben Avuyah’s soul ascended into the heavenly court. At the time, Metat was writing the merits of the Jewish people, allowing him to sit. However, Elisha, who did not know this, interpreted the fact that Metat was sitting as a sign that there were two authorities—Metat and God Almighty. Metat was punished for his error in judgement. Metat is the ministering angel of the World of Formation. The angels referred to at the end of parashat Bereishit (Uza and Aza’el) originate in the lower echelons of the World of Action, where there is a much stronger sense of self, and thus an error in their judgment was grave enough to have them punished by being cast out of heaven.
A different approach to answering this question is that God indeed gave Uza and Aza’el an evil inclination that would corrupt them and they ended up succumbing to it and thus sinned. However, clearly, this is not the case with other angels.
The rectifications of errors in judgment and of the evil inclination are different. In the future, the Mashiach will rectify the faculty of knowledge (da’at) and there will no longer be errors in judgment. This is described in the verse, “For the earth will be filled with knowledge of God, like waters cover the oceans.” However, to get rid of the evil inclination, God Himself will have to act, as it says, “And I will eradicate the spirit of impurity from the earth.”
