Who’s Really Making Your Choices? You or the Algorithm?

Are you truly in control of your life, or are others making your choices for you? How much of what you think, feel, and do is genuinely yours—and how much is shaped by outside influence?

One of the deepest frustrations in life is the sense that our choices are being made forus. This feeling clashes with something core to our humanity: the innate desire to be free.

In today’s digital world, this struggle is more intense than ever. Algorithms, notifications, and endless streams of content compete for our attention and subtly shape our opinions, habits, and desires. The result? Many of us no longer choose—we react. We scroll, consume, and conform, often without realizing how much influence we’ve surrendered.

But the Torah gives us a powerful counter-vision.

This week’s portion introduces us to Noah, a man who lived during one of the most corrupt chapters in human history. The entire culture around him had rotted. Violence, self-indulgence, and moral decay were the norm. And yet—Noah stood apart. He refused to be swept away by the trends of his time. While the world drowned spiritually long before it drowned physically, Noah chose a different path. Because he stood for something, he withstood everything.

Here lies the Torah’s challenge to us:

How does one person stand against an entire world?

Viktor Frankl, the famed psychiatrist and survivor of Auschwitz, taught that everything can be taken from a person except one thing: the freedom to choose one’s response to any situation. That inner freedom—our ability to choose—is the essence of being human.

As Jews, we are not meant to be passive products of our environment. Our mission is not to absorb the world, but to influence it. The moment we stop choosing, we stop becoming. Identity erodes. Purpose dissolves. And the image of G-d within us—our freedom—fades.

Noah reminds us that greatness is born from resistance. From swimming upstream. From saying: I will not be defined by the feed, the trend, or the crowd. I choose my values. I choose my purpose. I choose who I am.

In a world overflowing with influence, the question is unavoidable:

Are you influencing the world—or is it influencing you?

There is no neutral ground.

Every scroll, every click, every conversation, and every moment is a choice. Noah chose—and lived. Our task is to do the same.