The Obligation of Uncertainty

Two weeks ago, I sat at my dining table with my friend and SVARA-nik, molly block, who is also a Kohenet in my community. The morning felt easeful and sweet as I transitioned from a meeting to coffee with this loved one. Within a few minutes, that easeful feeling shifted as our phones buzzed with notifications, which indicated the second ICE raid of the morning was unfolding just a mile from our home. People were being called to come witness and protest a raid taking place at a local taco shop. Almost instantly, molly and I decided to grab our things and walk out the door.

We didn’t know if we could stop ICE. We didn’t know who else would show up. We went with nothing but our bodies, hands empty and hearts full. We had no certainty about whether it would be effective. We walked out the door, got into a car, and trusted our own svara that this was the right choice to make.

Svara, moral intuition, is not the same as certainty. I believe our ancestors, the Rabbis, knew how immensely uncertain we find ourselves on a daily basis. They knew what it felt like to question your own svara. Because uncertainty is the stage on which human lives play out. So they built out a tradition that could hold all of that uncertainty and still compel us to act. The Rabbis gifted us a tradition that says “you cannot know if that life is in mortal danger, so act like it is,” which in that moment I heard as “you can’t know if this protest will be effective, but act with the hope and trust that it will be.”

Our Work in the Face of Doubt
In Shabbat 54b, the Talmud delivers a teaching that speaks directly to this moment:

כָּל מִי שֶׁאֶפְשָׁר לִמְחוֹת לְאַנְשֵׁי בֵיתוֹ וְלֹא מִיחָה — נִתְפָּס עַל אַנְשֵׁי בֵיתוֹ. בְּאַנְשֵׁי עִירוֹ — נִתְפָּס עַל אַנְשֵׁי עִירוֹ. בְּכָל הָעוֹלָם כּוּלּוֹ — נִתְפָּס עַל כָּל הָעוֹלָם כּוּלּוֹ

Anyone who can protest against something wrong that is being done by members of their household, and does not protest, is held accountable with the members of their household. If one can protest against something wrong that is being done by people of their city, and does not protest, they are held accountable with the people of their city. If one can protest against something wrong that is being done by the whole world, and does not protest, they are held accountable with the whole world. (Shabbat 54b)

Notice what this text does not say. It does not say “protest if you are certain your protest will succeed”. It does not say “protest if you can guarantee the outcome.” It says only, “if you can protest, you must protest.” 

The Hebrew word used here is אֶפְשָׁר (efshar), meaning “it is possible.” Not “it is certain.” Not “it will definitely work.” Simply, “it is possible.” The obligation to protest against wrongdoing is not contingent on efficacy. It is contingent only on capacity and possibility.

It didn’t take long for nearly 100 other people to act with the hope and trust that we might be able to stop masked men from kidnapping our neighbors. Whistles were blown, alerting more neighbors to come. We hollered at cars passing by to stop and join us.

A friend approached me and asked, “what do we do if ICE doesn’t have anyone in their cars and we’ve been trying to stop them from taking boxes of tax records, not people?” I replied with a confidence and clarity that still surprises me when I reflect back on it. I told them that we cannot be certain if there are people in the ICE vehicles and the agents will not tell us or may lie to us, so we must act upon our uncertainty and try to stop them from leaving no matter what.

Doubt: The Ground of our Obligation
This intuition—this svara—that we must act precisely because we cannot be certain finds its deepest expression in the Talmud’s discussion of pikuach nefesh—the obligation to save a life—in Yoma 82a-83b. Here, the Rabbis are debating when one may violate Shabbat to save a life. What emerges from their intricate argumentation is not a calculus of certainty, but a theology of doubt.

סָפֵק נְפָשׁוֹת דּוֹחֶה אֶת הַשַּׁבָּת

A doubt about saving a life overrides Shabbat. (Yoma 82a)

Safek—doubt. The word itself carries weight. The Talmud does not say we violate Shabbat when we are certain a life can be saved. It says we act when there is doubt, when we do not know, when we cannot be sure. The very uncertainty itself becomes the ground of our obligation.

The Rabbis continue this line of reasoning in Yoma 83a, discussing a case where a building has collapsed and someone might be trapped beneath the rubble:

מָצְאוּ אוֹתוֹ חַי — מְפַקְּחִין. וְאִם לָאו — מַנִּיחִין אוֹתוֹ

If they found the person alive, they clear away the rubble; if not, they leave them there. (Yoma 83a)

But the question the Rabbis wrestle with is: How do you know if they are alive before you dig? The answer is: you don’t. You dig anyway. You dig through the rubble on Shabbat—violating the sacred rest—because of the possibility that life remains. You act in the face of uncertainty, not despite it.

When the Rubble Falls
As 100 or more people blocked the driveway, a large unmarked van pulled up and masked men piled out of it, throwing tear gas and flash bang grenades at the crowd. The tear gas was thrown directly towards adults with young children in arms. A person protesting picked up the tear gas canister and threw it away from the family and nearby elders. ICE began blindly shooting pepper balls at the crowd through a thick cloud of chemical smoke. U.S. Representative Adelita Grijalva was present, having come to the neighborhood for lunch. Encountering an active ICE raid, she attempted to intervene with agents attacking the crowd. My partner and co-parent was chased and tackled to the ground by unidentifiable men, who put him into the same unmarked van they had just run out of themselves. I followed the masked men, yelling and begging for them to tell me where they would take him. They refused answers.

We live in a country where people are being thrown into unmarked vehicles by people wearing masks. It is happening every day. They don’t care who runs after them crying and begging to know where their loved one is being taken. Their hearts are hardened and they cannot hear our cries. This is a terrifying moment of history and we are being called into the deepest uncertainties. We face the kinds of uncertainties that leave us sleepless and fearful to act. This is true not only for those who are being targeted by the government because of immigration status, but also for anyone who chooses to protest, attempts to intervene, or the government simply deems undesirables.

Closing Our Ears
There is another text that speaks to this moment, and the Rabbis themselves used to back up their arguments, from the Book of Proverbs:

אֹטֵם אׇזְנוֹ מִזַּעֲקַת־דָּל גַּם־הוּא יִקְרָא וְלֹא יֵעָנֶה

Those who close their ears to the cry of the poor will themselves cry out and not be answered. (Proverbs 21:13)

This is not a promise of divine retribution. It is a description of moral reality. When we close our ears to the cries of those being deported, detained, separated from their families, we participate in creating a world where cries go unanswered. We become complicit not through action alone, but through the violence of our inaction. Shabbat 54b tells us that if we can and do not protest this, that we are held liable as if we had done it ourselves. The stakes are high today and will likely continue to grow higher.

If you feel uncertain, I want you to know that I do too. If you feel afraid, I need you to know that I do too. If you feel stuck, worried, guilty, angry, heartbroken, please know that I feel these things too and so did our ancestors. They knew how broken this world was and how hard it is to be in it. Our Sages knew the truth of our human selves in a broken world and they wound their way through the Torah to bring us a tradition that says “Feeling uncertain and heart-weary from this broken world? Act with hope and trust. Act every time. Don’t delay. Hear every cry and feel them in your bones. Listen for every cough, and act like it’s life or death. We can’t be certain, but we can listen to our svara and act.”

Digging Through Our Rubble
The rubble is not metaphorical. People are trapped beneath systems of deportation, detention, and family separation. The question the Talmud asks is simple: Will you dig?

The Talmud does not promise that digging will reveal life. It promises only that failing to dig guarantees death. Our moral universe is structured not around certainty of success, but around the refusal of complicity. We are accountable not for outcomes we cannot control, but for the actions we fail to take when action is possible.

This is what it means to be held accountable “with the whole world.” Not because we caused every wrong in the world, but because we had the capacity to protest and did not.

My partner spent three days in an ICE detention facility and has been charged with a federal misdemeanor. Another person was charged with a federal felony. Both of them are  part of a Jewish community that takes this part of our tradition to heart, that we are obligated to protest and that we have an obligation to protect life even if that runs afoul of the law. I would go so far as to say that this is the core of Judaism: the obligation to protect life and face down a broken world by means of hope in action.

My partner’s experiences at the ICE detention facility were difficult in some ways, but also inspiring. The people there are resilient in face of tremendous uncertainty. They expressed gratitude that he tried to stop deportations and kidnappings. They were kind to each other and there was laughter. Prisons are horrible places designed to strip one of their humanity and crush joy, and yet joy remains within those cells and pods.

The Certainty Within Uncertainty
The paradox at the heart of this tradition is profound: we act most authentically not when we are certain of success, but when we are willing to act without that certainty. Our tradition does not ask us to be successful. It asks us to be present. It asks us to refuse to close our ears. It asks us to go so far as to violate Shabbat or Yom Kippur. It asks us to stand in front of the unmarked vans and to stand up to armed men who hide their faces from us.

Even when—especially when—we do not know if it will matter.

Safek nefashot docheh et haShabbat—doubt about lives overrides even our most sacred obligations, transforming them into something more urgent: the obligation to dig.

The Talmud does not give us false optimism, but our Sages were grounded in their hope. It was not hope in the conventional sense. It was for them, and is for us, the practice of showing up for the work of justice even when we cannot see the outcome.

For the past two weeks, I have found myself thinking about the people in those same cells and pods my partner slept in as I fall asleep. I think about their uncertainties and the fear they feel for themselves and moreover, for those they love. It is true that certainty is a luxury that we are rarely afforded in this life, but as my neshama transgresses prison walls in my dreams, I am grounded in the certainty of human resilience and the boundless capacities for dreaming the world to come.

The rubble is still there. The unmarked vans are still running. And we must still dig.

Not because we know we will find life, but because we refuse to participate in guaranteeing death.

We act because efshar—because it is possible—and in a world of injustice, possibility itself is a sacred obligation.

Blessed are you, Eternal One, who frees the prisoners.