How Much Certainty Do We Need Before We Begin to Move?
How Much Certainty Do We Need Before We Begin to Move?
How Much Certainty Do We Need Before We Begin to Move?
Some people have been standing for years just before a decision. They want to change jobs, but first they need to know with certainty that the new place will be better. They want to open a business, but only after they can know that it will succeed. They want to begin studying, move house, suggest a match, launch a project, or have an important conversation, but before the first step they ask for something life almost never gives: an advance guarantee of the outcome. And so a person can be very careful, very responsible, and very calculated, yet discover after years that no mistake was made because no movement was made either.
There is an interesting halachic detail in the sukkah. The schach must create enough shade for the sukkah to be valid. The Mishnah rules: “If its sunlight is greater than its shade, it is invalid” (Mishnah, Sukkah 1:1). The Gemara discusses how the relationship between shade and sunlight is measured (Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 22b). In other words, the sukkah is not meant to be completely open. It needs schach, it needs shade, and it needs a structure that makes it possible to sit there properly.
On the other hand, the sukkah also does not become a house with a permanent roof. The Torah commands: “You shall dwell in sukkot for seven days” (Leviticus 23:42), and the sages established that schach must be made from material that is not susceptible to ritual impurity and that grows from the ground (Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 11b). Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, Maimonides, rules that one may not use for schach something still attached to the ground or something susceptible to ritual impurity (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Shofar, Sukkah and Lulav 5:1). We build a place to live, but we do not turn it into a sealed fortress.
These laws were not, of course, given as halachic instructions for making life decisions. What follows is a human reflection built upon the image. Yet the picture is intriguing: the sukkah requires enough covering to sit beneath, not total coverage of everything above us.
In life, this gap is very difficult for us.
We want to know.
Not merely to know enough to make a reasonable decision, but to know what will happen afterward.
A thirty-five-year-old receives a good job offer. The salary, people, conditions, and opportunities for advancement are examined, but the person still asks: “Who can guarantee that in two years the company will not change?” No one can guarantee it. A person preparing for marriage asks very important questions about character, values, compatibility, and the ability to build a life together. But at a certain point, the question can shift from “Have I checked what can reasonably be checked?” to “Can anyone guarantee that there will never be surprises?”
No human being can give that guarantee.
King Solomon sharply describes what happens when a person demands perfect conditions before acting: “One who watches the wind will not sow, and one who looks at the clouds will not reap” (Ecclesiastes 11:4). One who keeps checking the direction of the wind will never find a perfect moment to sow. One who keeps looking at the clouds will never find a completely safe time to harvest. Later it says: “In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not let your hand rest, for you do not know which will succeed, this or that” (Ecclesiastes 11:6). Lack of knowledge is not a reason not to act. It is part of the reality within which a person is required to act.
Pirkei Avot likewise teaches: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it” (Pirkei Avot 2:16). This is a structure for an entire life. You do not control the completion, but you are responsible for beginning and doing. One of our mistakes is to fuse these two together and say: if I cannot guarantee the ending, I am not willing to begin.
Proverbs says: “A person's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his step” (Proverbs 16:9). Notice the two parts of the verse. A person must plan. The Torah does not praise recklessness. One must think, investigate, consult, and examine. But after all the calculations there remains “his step.” Life happens in steps, and a step by its nature comes before we know exactly where the foot will be ten steps later.
Psychology uses the term intolerance of uncertainty for difficulty tolerating not knowing. This is not ordinary caution. Caution asks questions in order to make a better decision. Difficulty tolerating uncertainty can cause a person to continue checking even after the checks are adding almost no new information. Another opinion, another comparison, another test, another sign is sought, not because a critical fact is missing, but because the person wants the checking itself to eliminate the possibility of error.
No amount of checking can do that.
Research by Michel Dugas and others in the field of worry and uncertainty has shown the connection between difficulty tolerating uncertainty and persistent worry. When a person believes certainty must be achieved before calm is possible, the mere existence of a question mark becomes a threat. A paradox then emerges: the attempt to avoid one kind of mistake begins producing another kind, a life repeatedly postponed while waiting for information that cannot arrive.
There is an enormous difference between calculated risk and gambling. A person should not invest all available money in an unexamined business, marry without reasonable investigation, or make a medical decision without professional information. Wisdom requires data. But even after we have obtained the information that can reasonably be obtained, some element always remains unknown. One who demands to eliminate that element completely is no longer asking for more information. The person is asking to leave the human condition.
Abraham receives the command: “Go forth from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Nachmanides emphasizes that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not initially reveal which land Abraham is to enter (Ramban, Genesis 12:1). Abraham does not leave without any direction. He has a clear command. But he leaves without receiving in advance a complete map of the journey. Some things become visible only after walking begins.
At the splitting of the Red Sea, the Holy One, blessed be He, says to Moses: “Speak to the children of Israel and let them journey” (Exodus 14:15). They do not receive a theoretical lesson describing everything that will happen afterward. A moment arrives when movement is required. The sages even describe Nachshon ben Aminadav as the one who first entered the sea in the midst of the crisis (Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 37a). Not because there was no risk, but because a stage had arrived at which standing still was no longer the safe option.
This is a point we tend to forget: not deciding is also a decision, and not moving is also a risk.
A person remains for ten years in a job known to be unsuitable because of fear of the risk involved in change. Yet the risk of staying is barely calculated: another ten years of erosion. A person avoids a difficult conversation with a child for fear that the conversation will harm the relationship, without asking what will happen to the relationship if, for five years, no one speaks about the thing everyone knows is in the room. A person delays a medical test out of fear of the result, as though not knowing the result changes reality.
Sometimes it seems that the choice is between a risky step and safe remaining. In practice, the choice is between two futures, neither of which is completely known.
We can therefore place four questions before a decision: Have I clarified the central facts? Have I consulted the appropriate people? Is the risk I am taking reasonable in relation to what I hope to achieve? And is the additional information I am seeking actually capable of changing the decision, or am I only postponing the decision because it is difficult to live with the possibility that I will never know everything?
The last question is especially important. One person reads another article because information is missing. Another reads the twentieth article because there is a hope that this time a sentence will appear guaranteeing that there will be no regret. From the outside the actions look identical, but psychologically they are completely different.
Perhaps this is one of the gifts of the sukkah. Throughout the year we build another layer: insurance, backup plans, contracts, savings, forecasts, alert systems. All of these are important. Then one festival arrives and reminds us that a person needs covering, but cannot cover the sky.
Responsible living is not a life in which every question mark has been eliminated. It is a life in which we have learned to distinguish between a question mark that requires investigation and a question mark that requires courage.
There are decisions in which one more check can genuinely save us from error. But there is also a moment when we have already checked, asked, weighed, and consulted, and what is missing is not more information. What is missing is the step.
Perhaps this is the question the sukkah places above our heads: am I still investigating because there is something I need to know, or am I continuing to investigate because I am afraid to begin living before I know how everything will end?