Avi K – I definitely did not misunderstand the Rav. I questioned him at length about it after the shiur.
I am not sure if you understood what I wrote. The sources that you brought do not contradict it (at least the way you phrased them). You wrote:
“Hashem “allows” peopole to sin in the sense that He gave us free choice. However, how we use this is totally up to us (see Berachot 33b and Rambam Hilchot Teshuva 5:1)”
I did not write that we don’t have free choice (c”v). I wrote that the result of our aveiros is from Hashem. That is not the same thing.
As for the quote from the gemara about weather conditions, if I’m not mistaken, that is brought as the exception to the rule that: הכל בידי שמים.
It’s possible that you did understand what I wrote, and you just didn’t phrase your arguments well. If so, I know that it’s a difficult concept to understand and to accept. That is precisely why I discussed it with the Rav at length afterwards. After thinking about it for a while, I did understand the point at least to some extent.
In any case, that exact example is not so relevant to the topic at hand. I was just using it as an extreme example to show how הכל בידי שמים