NOTES for Gen 45:1-16
So who is right, after all? Joseph's brothers, who were sure that by getting rid of their own brother and selling him into slavery they were carrying out their own plan, or Joseph, who was sure that in this way God, through Joseph's brothers, was carrying out His plan for His people? The second answer may look obvious, and a religious person will certainly choose it. Yet sometimes such a person fails to notice that here God turns out to be simply a chess player moving pieces on the board as He sees fit. And so that the pieces, which after all are aware of and understand something, will not object, He strings them along, creating an illusion of freedom. Indeed, it would then turn out that if you refuse to take God into account, you will have no real freedom: do what you want, everything will still turn out as God has decided, and you will find yourself deceived.
But on the other hand, how could it be otherwise if we are speaking about the great world, about God's world? After all, God is not going to give up His plans simply because some people He created do not like them. But what, then, becomes of the freedom of those who do not like God's plans and prefer their own plans to His?
The answer here appears to be the very infinity of the world God created, including the form of it called bad infinity. It appears that, if one wants, God's great world can be broken up into an infinite number of little worlds, each with its own master. True, the being of such a little world will be quite relative; it will exist only conditionally, insofar as its master exists. But the master himself will be absolutely free in his little world. And he will be able to carry out any plan of his own. And God will not interfere with him, though of course He will not help him either, because it is not His plan.
Of course, as soon as such a master of a little world steps beyond its borders, or as soon as God's great world breaks into the little world separated from it, it will turn out that his plan is a chimera and its fulfillment is an illusion. But nothing can be done about that: there is only one real world, God's world. And the plan being carried out in it is also one. God's, not man's.