Perhaps
The Grammar of Freedom
How many times this week did you say “maybe” when you meant “no”?
How often did you frame a demand as a suggestion, wrapping what you wanted in the soft grammar of uncertainty?
“Perhaps we could try this approach?” really means “Do it my way.”
“Maybe it would be better if...” conceals an imperative.
But what if this everyday manipulation contains, buried within it, the deepest grammar of covenant itself? What if the Hebrew word אוּלַי—perhaps—traces an arc from human scheming to divine vulnerability, teaching us not just how to negotiate with God, but how to love anyone whose freedom we cannot control?
Let’s trace the recurrence of this word through the Torah to uncover what it might mean.
וַתֹּאמֶר שָׂרַי אֶל אַבְרָם הִנֵּה נָא עֲצָרַנִי ‘ה מִלֶּדֶת בֹּא נָא אֶל שִׁפְחָתִי אוּלַי אִבָּנֶה מִמֶּנָּה
And Sarai said to Abram: Behold now, The Lord has restrained me from bearing; come now to my maidservant; perhaps I shall be built from her. (Genesis 16:2)
אוּלַי יֵשׁ חֲמִשִּׁים צַדִּיקִם בְּתוֹךְ הָעִיר
Perhaps there are fifty righteous within the city (Genesis 18:24)
אוּלַי יַחְסְרוּן חֲמִשִּׁים הַצַּדִּיקִם חֲמִשָּׁה
Perhaps there will lack five of the fifty righteous (Genesis 18:28)
אוּלַי יִמָּצְאוּן שָׁם אַרְבָּעִים
Perhaps forty will be found there (Genesis 18:29)
אוּלַי יִמָּצְאוּן שָׁם שְׁלֹשִׁים
Perhaps thirty will be found there (Genesis 18:30)
אוּלַי יִמָּצְאוּן שָׁם עֶשְׂרִים
Perhaps twenty will be found there (Genesis 18:31)
אוּלַי יִמָּצְאוּן שָׁם עֲשָׂרָה
Perhaps ten will be found there (Genesis 18:32)
אֲכַפְּרָה פָנָיו בַּמִּנְחָה הַהֹלֶכֶת לְפָנָי וְאַחֲרֵי כֵן אֶרְאֶה פָנָיו אוּלַי יִשָּׂא פָנָי
I will appease his face with the gift that goes before me, and afterward I will see his face; perhaps he will lift my face (Genesis 32:21)
אוּלַי יְמֻשֵּׁנִי אָבִי וְהָיִיתִי בְעֵינָיו כִּמְתַעְתֵּעַ
Perhaps my father will feel me and I will seem like a deceiver in his eyes (Genesis 27:12)
אַתֶּם חֲטָאתֶם חֲטָאָה גְדֹלָה וְעַתָּה אֶעֱלֶה אֶל ‘ה אוּלַי אֲכַפְּרָה בְּעַד חַטַּאתְכֶם
You have sinned a great sin; and now I will go up to The Lord; perhaps I can atone for your sin (Exodus 32:30)
לְכָה וְנַעְבְּרָה אֶל מַצַּב הָעֲרֵלִים הָאֵלֶּה אוּלַי יַעֲשֶׂה ‘ה לָנוּ
Come, let us cross over to the garrison of these uncircumcised; perhaps The Lord will act for us (1 Samuel 14:6)
אוּלַי יִרְאֶה ‘ה בְּעֵינִי וְהֵשִׁיב ‘ה לִי טוֹבָה תַּחַת קִלְלָתוֹ
Perhaps The Lord will see my affliction and The Lord will repay me good for his curse (2 Samuel 16:12)
שִׂנְאוּ רָע וְאֶהֱבוּ טוֹב וְהַצִּיגוּ בַשַּׁעַר מִשְׁפָּט אוּלַי יֶחֱנַן ‘ה אֱלֹהֵי צְבָאוֹת שְׁאֵרִית יוֹסֵף
Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; perhaps The Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph (Amos 5:15)
קוּם קְרָא אֶל אֱלֹהֶיךָ אוּלַי יִתְעַשֵּׁת הָאֱלֹהִים לָנוּ וְלֹא נֹאבֵד
Arise, call to your God; perhaps the God will give thought to us and we will not perish (Jonah 1:6)
יִתֵּן בֶּעָפָר פִּיהוּ אוּלַי יֵשׁ תִּקְוָה
Let him put his mouth in the dust; perhaps there is hope (Lamentations 3:29)
אוּלַי יִשְׁמְעוּ וְיָשֻׁבוּ אִישׁ מִדַּרְכּוֹ הָרָעָה וְנִחַמְתִּי אֶל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי חֹשֵׁב לַעֲשׂוֹת לָהֶם
Perhaps they will listen and turn, each from his evil way, and I will relent from the evil which I plan to do to them (Jeremiah 26:3)
אוּלַי יִשְׁמְעוּ בֵּית יְהוּדָה אֵת כׇּל הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי חֹשֵׁב לַעֲשׂוֹת לָהֶם לְמַעַן יָשׁוּבוּ אִישׁ מִדַּרְכּוֹ הָרָעָה
Perhaps the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I plan to do to them, so that they may turn, each from his evil way (Jeremiah 36:3)
אוּלַי תִּפֹּל תְּחִנָּתָם לִפְנֵי ‘ה וְיָשֻׁבוּ אִישׁ מִדַּרְכּוֹ הָרָעָה
Perhaps their supplication will fall before The Lord and they will turn, each from his evil way (Jeremiah 36:7)
וְאַתָּה בֶן אָדָם עֲשֵׂה לְךָ כְּלֵי גוֹלָה וּגְלֵה יוֹמָם לְעֵינֵיהֶם... אוּלַי יִרְאוּ כִּי בֵּית מְרִי הֵמָּה
And you, son of man, make yourself vessels of exile and go into exile by day in their sight... perhaps they will see, though they are a rebellious house (Ezekiel 12:3)
“Anxiety is a qualification of dreaming spirit…The actuality of the spirit constantly shows itself as a form that tempts its possibility but disappears as soon as it seeks to grasp for it, and it is a nothing that can only bring anxiety.” (Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety)
“Hence, anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when the spirit wants to posit the synthesis and freedom looks down into its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself. Freedom succumbs to dizziness.” (Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, p. 61)
“Dasein is not something present-at-hand which possesses its competence for something by way of an extra; it is primarily Being-possible. Dasein is in every case what it can be, and in the way in which it is its possibility.” (Martin Heidegger, Being and Time)
“Possibility, which Dasein in each case is existentially, is distinguished just as much from empty, logical possibility as from the contingency of something occurrent.” (Heidegger, Being and Time)
“A statement is true in some possible world (not necessarily our own) is called a possible truth. Under the ‘possible worlds idiom,’ to maintain that something’s existence is possible but not actual, one says, ‘There is some possible world in which it exists; but in the actual world, it does not exist.’” (Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity)
The most famous negotiation in Scripture occurs in Genesis 18, when Abraham haggles with God to spare Sodom on behalf of the righteous. Commentators have long marveled that Abraham dares to argue with the divine at all, and that God appears to invite and delight in Abraham’s challenge. The manner in which Abraham argues is also noteworthy.
The key lies in a single word, repeated six times: אוּלַי—perhaps.
Abraham does not claim to know that righteous people exist in Sodom. He does not demand that God spare the city. He does not assert facts or invoke rights. Instead, he deploys a rhetoric of uncertainty, using “perhaps” to create grammatical space for a possibility that may or may not obtain. “Perhaps there are fifty righteous... perhaps forty... perhaps thirty... perhaps twenty... perhaps ten.”
This is modal logic in narrative form, the introduction of the possible into discourse about the actual. Abraham is operating in what contemporary philosophers call epistemic modality: he does not know whether righteous people exist, so he must frame his advocacy in the subjunctive. The “perhaps” acknowledges the boundary of his knowledge while refusing to let that boundary silence his voice.
Crucially, Abraham is wrong about the facts. Even if we count Lot and his family as innocents, their innocence is not enough to justify preserving the existence of an evil society, so they must be allowed to leave.
Abraham’s six “perhapses” function like a sustained hava amina in Talmudic dialectic: an initial supposition that gets refuted by data. Yet the negotiation matters anyway, not because Abraham’s factual claims prove true, but because the act of negotiation itself, the sustained use of “perhaps” across six iterations, teaches something fundamental about the grammar of relationship between human and divine freedom.
To understand Abraham’s achievement, we must return to the first “perhaps” in Torah, spoken by his wife Sarah: “Behold now, The Lord has restrained me from bearing; come now to my maidservant; אוּלַי אִבָּנֶה מִמֶּנָּה—perhaps I shall be built from her.”
We can’t know Sarah’s full motivation, but her attempt to engineer a solution to her woes via Hagar only leads to more problems at home, heightened hatred of Hagar, and ultimately the expulsion of Ishmael. We can see in Sarah’s perhaps an attempt to run an experiment, but also to take control of her situation. A reasonable approach, but one that she takes without consulting God (Isaac prays on behalf of Rebecca, but Abraham takes Hagar as a wife). Abraham’s perhaps in his negotiations with God is part of a deliberative process rather rather than a catalyst for making a bet.
Sarah’s ploy works in that she does get a child; but it also fails because she is not “built up” in any sense by it. Between Sarah’s failed “perhaps” and Abraham’s sustained “perhapses” in Genesis 18, we find Jacob’s anxious “perhaps”: “Perhaps my father will feel me and I will seem like a deceiver in his eyes.” Here “perhaps” marks tactical calculation during deception; the con artist’s worried assessment of whether his scheme will be exposed. The word creates plausible deniability while Jacob actively deceives. From these uses we might think that perhaps is a set up for reality to respond (or perhaps not). And that is the point: perhaps is an imaginative leap, but it can’t actually know if it will work.
Moses, standing in the breach after the Golden Calf, uses “perhaps” in a different register: “You have sinned a great sin; and now I will go up to The Lord; אוּלַי אֲכַפְּרָה—perhaps I can atone for your sin.” Moses does not know if intercession will succeed, but he must try. The “perhaps” acknowledges both the severity of the situation and the limits of his power, while refusing to accept destruction without advocacy.
Jonathan, before his raid on the Philistine garrison, uses “perhaps” as an expression of radical faith: “Come, let us cross over to the garrison of these uncircumcised; אוּלַי יַעֲשֶׂה ‘ה לָנוּ—perhaps The Lord will act for us, for nothing can prevent The Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.” The “perhaps” combines genuine uncertainty with theological conviction—God can save, but Jonathan cannot presume He will. The word creates space for divine freedom.
David, suffering under Shimei’s curse, hopes: “Perhaps The Lord will see my affliction and The Lord will repay me good for his curse.” Amos calls for justice while acknowledging: “Perhaps The Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.” Even the pagan ship captain in Jonah grasps that divine mercy requires “perhaps”: “Arise, call to your God; perhaps the God will give thought to us and we will not perish.”
The word traces an arc from manipulation through tactical calculation to genuine advocacy—from Sarah’s attempt to force outcomes, through Jacob’s worried scheming, to Moses and Jonathan’s intercession that acknowledges both urgency and uncertainty.
What makes Genesis 18 unique is not just that Abraham uses “perhaps,” but that he uses it six times in succession, each iteration more desperate than the last. The negotiation is a descending spiral: 50→45→40→30→20→10. Abraham is not swayed by refutation. He finds resilience in each subsequent perhaps.
This is what Kierkegaard meant by being “educated by possibility.” The sustained use of “perhaps” is a form of training in uncertainty, learning to remain in the space of not-knowing without either presuming on outcomes or collapsing into silence.
Abraham is learning to sustain what Kierkegaard called “the dizziness of freedom”—but not his own freedom. He is learning to sustain the encounter with divine freedom. Each “perhaps” is a moment of standing before God’s sovereignty without knowing what God will choose. God could say yes, God could say no, God could stop the conversation, God could destroy Sodom anyway. Abraham has no control over the divine response.
The six “perhapses” are six moments of facing the abyss of another’s freedom. This is the vertigo of genuine relationship, the dizziness that comes not from confronting your own power to choose, but from confronting someone else’s power to choose differently than you hope.
Abraham is also, almost certainly, negotiating strategically. His nephew Lot lives in Sodom. The abstract principle (”Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?”) may mask personal interest (save Lot). The “perhaps” provides tactical cover: he is not demanding, merely suggesting possibilities; not claiming knowledge, merely proposing hypotheticals. The word creates plausible deniability.
Abraham’s negotiation succeeds in a spiritual sense.
Heidegger wrote of Dasein as “Being-possible”—the human mode of existence is not static presence but orientation toward possibilities. “Dasein is in every case what it can be, and in the way in which it is its possibility.” Abraham’s six “perhapses” enact this: he is not claiming what is, but probing what might be. A person who says perhaps is a knight of faith, ready to go into the unknown and maintain hope even when things appear not to work out. No sooner does Abraham arrive in the Promised Land than he has to leave for Egypt. Abraham get a son in Isaac only to be commanded to sacrifice him. But this master of perhaps takes it all in stride.
Centuries later, through the prophet Jeremiah, God Himself begins to use Abraham’s language: “Perhaps they will listen and turn, each from his evil way, and I will relent from the evil which I plan to do to them.” “Perhaps the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I plan to do to them, so that they may turn, each from his evil way.” “Perhaps their supplication will fall before The Lord and they will turn, each from his evil way.” And through Ezekiel: “Perhaps they will see, though they are a rebellious house.” God follows Israel to the place it will show God, as it were. God places Godself, as it were, in the hands of God’s people.
This is the theological revolution hidden in a single word. Not because God lacks knowledge, but because God has created humans with genuine freedom, which means even God must speak in the subjunctive about our choices.
The divine “perhaps” is not epistemic uncertainty (God knows whether they will repent). It is ontological respect. God has created beings whose freedom God will not override. The “perhaps” acknowledges that humans could repent or could refuse, and God has bound Himself not to force the outcome.
Abraham’s “perhaps” marks the boundary of human knowledge. God’s “perhaps” marks the boundary of divine control. Both are facing another’s freedom—Abraham confronting God’s freedom to judge or spare, God confronting human freedom to repent or rebel.
The arc completes itself: Sarah’s manipulative “perhaps” (attempting to force the promise) gives way to Abraham’s intercessory “perhapses” (advocating within divine judgment), which culminate in God’s covenantal “perhaps” (respecting human freedom even at the cost of divine vulnerability).
Modal logic distinguishes between different types of possibility. There is metaphysical possibility (what could be true), epistemic possibility (what might be true given what we know), and deontic possibility (what may be done). Abraham’s “perhapses” operate primarily in epistemic mode—he does not know if righteous people exist. But they gesture toward something deeper: the ontological structure of freedom itself, the fact that genuine relationship between persons requires each to face the other’s unpredictable freedom.
Kierkegaard and Heidegger saw that possibility generates anxiety. But they focused on confronting one’s own possibilities, the dizziness of your own freedom to choose. The Torah’s “perhaps” reveals another dimension: the dizziness of confronting another’s freedom, of remaining in relationship with a being whose choices you cannot control.
Abraham’s six “perhapses” teach that the covenant requires the courage to sustain uncertainty, to advocate without presuming, to hope without controlling. The word “perhaps” becomes the linguistic form of remaining in relationship across the abyss of another’s freedom, neither demanding nor despairing, neither forcing nor fleeing, but sustaining the vertigo of hope itself.
When God adopts this language, God reveals that God, too, experiences this vertigo, as it were. We find no perhaps before Sarah and Abraham. We should meditate deeply on this. Our founding patriarch and matriarch changed everything with this one small word.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar