I Don’t Know
Teach your tongue to say, ‘I don’t know.’ (Talmud Bavli, Berachot 4a).
“I don’t know” is a difficult confession to make. We are trained to seek and provide answers. Kids look to parents for answers. Employers demand answers from employees. We ask doctors for answers to medical questions and religious leaders for spiritual ones. We are drawn to order, as if every question must lead to a satisfying answer. Admitting that we don’t know can feel like an admission of ignorance, particularly when the topic is so close to our heart and others seem so sure of their views.
“I don’t know” is an admission even more difficult for a nation like Israel, which prides itself on finding innovative solutions to difficult dilemmas. When pioneers faced dry, arid soil, Israel found an answer. When terrorists hijacked a plane and flew it to Entebbe, Israel found an answer. When at war against multiple Arab countries, Israel found an answer. When rockets from Gaza threatened life in Israel, Israel found an answer.
Yet in Gaza itself, the ultimate question Israel must answer – conquer Gaza in full or ceasefire with Hamas – resists a clean resolution. Neither is a true answer; rather, each choice trades one kind of suffering for another. And so, we must consider that we likely have no honest answer except “I don’t know.”
We all have opinions about how Israel should have done, as well as what she must do now. These “if only” opinions help us think that these intractable dilemmas have, in fact, simple solutions. “If only Israel had better PR,” is a common one. “If only Israel focused first on Hezbollah instead of Hamas,” is another one. “If only Israel held territory from the beginning,” we see commonly repeated now. Each of these have elements of truth. We may derive comfort from thinking that an easy answer to our problem is just one simple step away.
The world, of course, is not this simple, and in hindsight, everyone is a fantastic general and politician. Nor do these hindsight solutions answer the ultimate question of what comes next in Gaza. Each ultimate answer has its benefits, but also more questions that are unanswerable.
On one hand, Israel can continue its quest to fully conquer Gaza and crush every remnant of Hamas to reestablish deterrence and remove an enemy from its border. The proverbial eggs are already broken, so perhaps Israel should make the omelet. But would that be a pyrrhic victory? Is Israel willing to go home to home, floor to floor in urban warfare (like the Soviets in the Battle of Berlin), with a high rate of attrition? Is Israel willing to be as brutal as is needed to utterly crush Hamas (as Sri Lanka crushed the Tamil Tigers), at the cost of increased international isolation? For how long will Israel occupy Gaza and fight a guerrilla insurgency without a legitimate, alternative government in the waiting? And if Israel leaves before such a legitimate, alternative government is established in Gaza, allowing Hamas 2.0 to fill the power vacuum, what was the point of it all? But the most fundamental question is whether Israel is willing to abandon the remaining living hostages to be tortured, murdered, and buried in rubble?
On the other hand, if Israel negotiates an end to the war that leaves Hamas in power, the remaining living hostages may be spared. In return, Hamas will preserve and double down on its tunnels, infrastructure, human shields, and reliance upon hostage taking as a strategy. As PM Netanyahu has acknowledged, the idea that Israel will be able to “trick” Hamas into releasing all hostages and then reinvade Gaza is delusional. The cycle of violence and hostage taking will continue with never-ending war, suffering, and death.
In some respects, Israel has been avoiding this choice by distributing humanitarian aid through alternative channels, arming local militias, and increasing military pressure – all in the hopes of forcing Hamas to negotiate a temporary ceasefire and release a few more hostages. Israel recently accepted the most recent Witkoff proposal that reflects this approach. But as David Horovitz pointed out – what if Hamas does not blink? Why would suicidal jihadists surrender, abandon their opportunity for martyrdom and to kill as many Jews as possible, and “stain” their organization with defeat?
Eventually, a choice must be made. Which of these choices is best? I don’t know. And I’m comfortable with that admission.
Contrary to how we may perceive it, admitting “I don’t know” allows us to develop intellectual and emotional engagement with new and different ideas than those toward which we are naturally inclined, particularly on complex issues. These three words empower us to substitute curiosity for certitude and humility for rigidity.
Consider the current media landscape, which promotes intellectual certainty over intellectual curiosity. An endless stream of influencers and celebrities confidently share pithy answers to perplexing problems on social media. Reporters often slip their opinions (or rely on less-than trustworthy sources to reinforce their opinions) into purportedly unbiased news articles, thus giving their own opinion an air of authority. Algorithms promote endless emotional reactions, which hamper our ability to reflect upon and synthesize contrary viewpoints. Under the influence of this media landscape, our brains become addicted to what trauma therapist Malka Shaw describes as the “sensation of certainty.” Rather than embracing curiosity and skepticism of easy answers, we instead “concoct descriptions and narratives of reality in ways that fit the binary to maintain the sensation of certainty.” (Shaw, Malka, The Encampment Mindset, Sapir 2025.)
In other words, the media landscape encourages us to stifle our intellectual curiosity and escape into moral and intellectual certitude, where we have a comfortable misperception that complex issues can be easily resolved. Admitting that some answers are too complex for easy answers, while uncomfortable, empowers us to embrace intellectual curiosity.
If afflicted with this sensation of certainty, we find it harder to admit when we were mistaken or misinformed. As Friedrich Nietzsche famously put it, “When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us.” By declining the opportunity to develop sensations of certainty, we avoid this “inconvenience” that others may cause us when they challenge our opinions.
This inconvenience is even more pronounced on issues of grave importance and personal passion, and on which we have expended countless hours (e.g., Gaza). Amanda Knox and Sam Harris explored this “sunk cost” psychological phenomenon in a brilliant 2023 episode of Sam’s Making Sense Podcast. Amanda, as many recall, was a prisoner in Italy for years after being wrongly accused and convicted of a murder she didn’t commit. Many people spent hours following Amanda’s trial, reading salacious tabloid articles, convincing themselves of her guilt, and loudly and publicly sharing their opinion of her. Counter-evidence of her innocence, in turn, created a psychological discomfort or cognitive dissonance; they could not concede that they had a “monstrous misperception” – not just about Amanda, but about themselves. Their error wasn’t abstract; it implicated their identity, self-image, and their belief in their own judgement. It was easier to believe that Amanda must have done something to deserve her suffering rather than accept the full weight of being so catastrophically wrong.
In a more sinister and harmful example, students who participate in pro-Hamas encampments will likely experience a greater cognitive dissonance as we confront and attempt to convince them that their opinions about Israel were mistaken. Student who fully commit to the cause – chanting for a global intifada, barring Jewish students from buildings on campus, and vandalizing property – have already evidenced their moral and intellectual certitude on the topic. Many of these students, if presented with compelling evidence that counters the false narrative that they have been fed, will have difficulty conceding that they had a truly “monstrous misperception” about the conflict and Jewish students on campus. This evidence implicates them and who they imagined themselves to be as people – smart, immune to propaganda, and on the right side of history. Dismissing evidence that contradicts the encampment mindset is easier than admitting they could be this wrong and cause such harm on this important issue.
We must avoid falling into this same (though considerably less harmful) intellectual trap as we weigh Israel’s options in Gaza. The more vocal we are, the more confident we appear, and the more often we voice our certainty about how the war must end, the harder it is for us to empathize with a contrary perspective and accept the benefits that it confers. We have all suffered, some dramatically more than others, for the last 612 days, and we all want the suffering to end. We wish we had an easy, obvious answer. But we do not.
Eventually, a decision about Gaza will be made, and that decision will leave many disappointed, angry, and shaking their heads that the “obviously” correct decision was not made. For the 99.9% of world Jewry who are not members of PM Netanyahu’s security cabinet (and maybe even some of those members), we have no control over this decision.
But we can control how we approach and embrace this decision. We can choose intellectual certainty and moral rigidity, which will leave us unable to accept contrary opinions and drive further wedges in the world Jewish community. Or we can choose humility, curiosity, and empathy, which will allow us to understand that we are all struggling with a question for which we have no easy answers. All it takes is three simple words.
