Where exactly is your free will? Can you identify where it is real and where it is an illusion?

This is actually a point of contention I have always had with Kabbalah since I began learning about it many years ago.

Kabbalah asserts that our only freedom of choice lies in the environment we choose to put ourselves in. But isn’t the available choices of environment also a consequence of forces beyond our control?

Even in the most optimal case, lets say a person is born and raised in the city of Tzfat where there is high concentration of individuals engaged in the pursuit of spirituality – is it not still up to the Creator for those people to be presented in that persons life? One hypothetically could seek the right environment for their entire life and still not find it! It seems that the right people are given to a person only by forces beyond his control, and thus the choice of environment also seems to be only another ‘false’ choice because we can only select from the options given to us from Above.

Maybe someone can chime in and correct my understanding. Thanks

My free will is only found in choosing an environment that will enhance what is already taking place that I have no control over.  I am guessing this can change over time.  Currently, I am separated from the city, living alone and learning much about life in my seclusion.  At some point, I will need to rejoin human society.  When it’s time.

Free will as I see it, (at this point in time), is in how we choose to react to whatever is going on around us. I don’t think this is absolute, because our conditioning predisposes us to react in various ways that reflect that conditioning. Then again, can we really operate outside of our conditioning? How does all of this influence our ability to modify our intentions? I have more questions than answers….

My illusion of free will comes from the apparent “hiddenness” of the Creator to my corporeal senses and the incorrect impression I have that I’m a separate, independent entity. This means I think I’m constantly exercising free choice, unaware that the Forces of Nature/Bestowal are causing me to react in pre-programmed ways that are entirely unconscious to me. Thus I can never be sure which of my choices are really mine versus predetermined for me. The only place I get to exercise any true freedom of choice is in the environment I gravitate towards, once I become aware that this can accentuate thoughts, words and actions that will lead me in the right way … to become increasingly like the Creator’s character and intentions. It’s like that old saying my Mum repeatedly told me: Show me your friends and I’ll show you who you really are! That’s why Kabbalists encourage us to carefully choose the right books, teachers and friends.