When I was younger, my parents bought me a pen that seemed like a small miracle. The base contained a magnet, and embedded near the top was another. When you set the pen into its stand, it did not drop to the bottom, and did not snap to the top. It hovered, suspended in the narrow gap between two opposing magnetic forces.
As adults, much of our psychological energy is spent trying to avoid that exact space. We crave terra firma. We want to know precisely where we stand, which camp we belong to, and how our future will unfold. We tend to treat the in-between as an uncomfortable waiting room. We see it as a temporary state to pass through as quickly as possible on our way to certainty. Yet there is a quiet wisdom in that floating pen. The most honest, liberating, and spiritually alive place to exist is often not at either extreme, but inhabiting the tension between them.
This plays out in the face of deep personal uncertainty. Consider someone facing a severe medical diagnosis where the overall medical trajectory is hopeful, but uncertain. The medical team is pursuing a complete cure, yet the daily reality of his journey remains defined by profound ambiguity. On one hand, he needs to plan for a long and healthy future. On the other hand, he has been brought face to face with the plain truth that none of us knows what tomorrow holds.
As humans, we are experts at building the elaborate illusion that we are driving the vehicle that is our life. In truth, we are not able to steer. Yet focusing on that would make us exceedingly anxious. Therefore, we instinctively devise the perception that things are within our locus of control. When our lack of agency stares us in the face, it usually produces anxiety. Therefore, our natural instinct is to try to reemphasize our feeling of control when we confront such fragility.
It is more truthful to step out of the illusion of control and realize the perennial life truth that we are not in control. It can seem jarring and uncomfortable at first, like taking an unplanned cold plunge. However, once we stop fighting the temperature and the water, a surprising shift occurs. Accepting the idea that control was always a myth brings a profound sense of relief. For a person navigating severe illness, learning to hover between long-term hope and immediate unpredictability is not a sentence of despair. Once we give up the exhausting demand to control the future, it allows us to be present in the life we have right now.
This same principle of living in the middle applies to how we navigate identity, culture, and perspective. Within traditional religious life, broad ideological divides naturally emerge. On one end of the spectrum is a community that prioritizes total immersion in full-time sacred study, a distinct and traditional mode of dress, a protective posture toward secular knowledge, and a strong skepticism toward modern political statehood or military service. On another end is a community that seeks full synthesis, actively incorporating rigorous spiritual commitment with higher secular education, professional careers, military duty, contemporary dress, and a deep religious celebration of modern national sovereignty.
Staunch adherents in both worlds often demand absolute loyalty to their path. They view anyone who does not fit their exact mold as compromised or lukewarm. Yet for a person who looks at life through a broader lens, there is genuine beauty and virtue in both outlooks. One offers a singular, uncompromising depth of sacred scholarship and cultural preservation, while the other offers a noble engagement with the broader world, professional life, and the historic duties of a modern nation. Choosing not to anchor fully in either camp can draw criticism from both sides, who might claim you belong to neither one. Floating between them is not a failure of conviction. It is a deliberate choice to absorb the richness of multiple perspectives without letting an ideological label restrict your soul.
This dynamic of peaceful surrender to the suspended state reaches its highest expression in our spiritual lives, particularly in the concept of bitachon – trust in G-d. The great twentieth-century authority, the Chazon Ish, explored this deeply in his classic work, Emunah U’Bitachon.
The Chazon Ish writes that bitachon does not mean things will turn out the way we personally define as good, but rather that everything will unfold according to what is good in the eyes of Hashem. This raises an immediate and troubling question. If outcome control is absent, why should we be hopeful? Why do we pray with specific requests for health, livelihood, or safety? Why cultivate a positive outlook at all?
The answer is that the Chazon Ish is not denying the necessity or validity of personal requests, hopeful prayers, or constructive human effort. He is highlighting a vital companion perspective. Praying for a specific result represents our genuine human hopes. Bitachon is the profound acknowledgment that ultimate control rests outside our hands. True trust does not cancel out prayer and positivity. It completes them, and rescues us from the silent anxiety that we are solely responsible for engineering the universe. Recognizing that we are not in control is the ultimate way to step back, exhale, and feel better, allowing us to ask with wholehearted sincerity while trusting the One who holds the bigger picture.
Whether facing health challenges, navigating cultural divides, or deepening our relationship with the Divine, we are constantly invited to pick a side or secure an outcome. Real growth happens when we learn to stop fighting the middle space. Floating between opposing forces does not mean being lost or untethered. It means having the courage to release our white-knuckled grip on certainty, and find peace in the very tension that holds us up.
