Indeterminate
Essentially, we cannot know, establish, or control many things. Both as individuals and as a collective, it remains factual that whereas we can manage our reactions to events, we are not in command of circumstances’ outcomes.
Per the personal realm, consider the terminals of birth and death. Whatever happens, specific times of occurrences and specific routes to these carryings-on continue to be hidden until they happen. In birth, for instance, there might be false labors as well as unanticipated short or long passages from womb to Olam HaZeh. Equally, in death, there might be false indications of demise as well as short or long passages to Olam HaBa.
I recall, viz., the births of each of my sons and daughters. At no time was I given a printout or other advanced notice for how or when they would arrive.
For example, my older daughter was born just days after Pesach. Nevertheless, early contractions had me changing our kitchen from Pesach-ready to chametz (Hubs and I felt that pregnancy ravings ought to be respected), back to Pesach-ready, and finally, after the holiday concluded, back to chametz.
My older son surprised us by surfacing in the morning. Most births take place in the quiet of the night, before sunrise.
My younger daughter was a hospital (!) (all of her siblings were intentionally birthed at home) birth given an inauspicious state of affairs. BH, to cut a long story short she was born healthy, anyway.
As for my younger son, his gestation necessitated sixteen trips to the hospital (I endured actual contractions with him beginning at three months of gestation. They ended only after he was born.) Ultimately, though, he was of more than sufficient gestational age (forty-two weeks!) to be born at home, BH.
Analogously, I recall my parents’ deaths. When my father died, I couldn’t believe he had passed. He suffered, for decades, from multiple sclerosis and its side effects. Sadly, accordingly, hospital admissions had become de rigor for him rather than alarming encounters. In fact, a large portion of my sister’s and my youth was spent visiting him in hospitals and rehab centers. So, when he failed to survive his final hospital stay, my mother, my sibling and I were not only devastated but shocked.
Likewise, recently, my mother, died in hospice. I was thunderstruck that she had been transferred to a place specializing in caring for folks with terminal diagnoses. Just weeks earlier, she was in a hospital then stepped down to a rehab facility, then back in the hospital and then stepped down to rehab, once more. Surely, her third hospital stay would have resulted in her being stepped down, again, to rehab. Plus, she was weeks away from her ninetieth birthday celebration. Unfortunately, that gala was not to be.
Similarly to our disempowerment as individuals, as a Klal, too, we are unable to predict or regulate the future. Consider that the final form of the State of Israel, the changeover that will occur before Moshiach’s arrival, in addition to the manifestation of the Messianic Era, itself, have been written about and spoken of but continue to be elusive. We’re mistaken, in the least, perhaps, even delusional, if we insist on believing that our modern day government or our contemporary standard of living index will mold the final form of these important matters.
Moreover, whereas we must do our hishtadlut in terms of fighting our enemies (e.g., my family boasts two champions, a son and a son-in-law, who have returned too many times, since October 7th, to miluim service), it’s still indisputable that only The Aibeshter knows the concluding shape that this war will take and whether or not its resolution will bring Moshiach. We pray for peace and for safety, but the time and form of such designs can’t be humanly ascertained.
All in all, at both the private and the public level, it keeps on being true that we can’t, in fact, influence the most significant goings-on with which we’re involved. Such happenings are and will forever endure as indeterminate.
