There is a very beautiful expression in the Hebrew language

Host: The studio was a cathedral of light and shadow, filled with the hum of machines and the scent of resin, ink, and metal. Strange sculptures — part organic, part mechanical — hung suspended in midair, like the frozen thoughts of a dreaming architect. The windows were tall, framed with the last blue fire of evening, and the city beyond flickered like a living code.

Jack stood before one of the suspended forms — a twisting structure of glass and bone — his hands buried in the pockets of his worn coat. Jeeny was sitting cross-legged on the floor near a table covered in sketches, her hair a dark river spilling over her shoulders. The light caught the thin streaks of silver in her pencil lines, as if her imagination had bled directly onto the page.

Jeeny: (softly) “Neri Oxman once said, ‘All is predicted, and permission is given at any point to change anything.’ Isn’t that extraordinary, Jack? The idea that destiny can exist — and yet, so can freedom.”

Jack: (gazing at the sculpture) “Sounds poetic, but contradictory. If everything’s predicted, then where’s the freedom? You can’t rewrite a script that’s already written.”

Host: The lights flickered once, as if the room itself exhaled. The hum of the machines deepened, like a living heartbeat echoing through the walls.

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s not a script, Jack. Maybe it’s a score — written, yes, but meant to be interpreted. You can’t change the notes, but you can change how they’re played.”

Jack: (smirks) “So life’s a song, and we’re just improvising over fate’s melody? That’s convenient. People say that kind of thing when they can’t accept that their choices matter less than they think.”

Jeeny: “And skeptics like you hide behind determinism to avoid responsibility. You say it’s fate — but maybe it’s fear. Maybe you’re scared that your freedom is real.”

Host: Her voice hung between them, sharp as a chisel against marble. Jack turned, his grey eyes reflecting the cold neon from the wall.

Jack: “You think freedom’s that simple? Look at the world, Jeeny. People born into war, poverty, oppression. You tell them they have permission to change everything — that they just need to ‘interpret the score’? It’s cruel optimism.”

Jeeny: (rising slowly) “No. It’s defiance. That’s what the idiom means — ‘All is predicted, but permission is given to change anything.’ It doesn’t deny fate, it challenges it. It says: even if the universe knows what you’ll do, you still get to decide who you’ll be.”

Host: The air between them thickened, dense with the tension of belief colliding with doubt. The 3D printer in the corner beeped, finishing a prototype — a fragile, glowing spiral. It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat in plastic.

Jack: “If fate knows the outcome, then every choice is an illusion. Even rebellion is part of the plan. You think you’re changing something — you’re just fulfilling it.”

Jeeny: (with quiet conviction) “Then maybe the illusion is necessary. Maybe it’s the part of the plan that makes us human. If destiny is the river, free will is how you swim. You can’t change the water’s course, but you can change how you move through it.”

Host: Her words shimmered in the air, light falling across her face like rippling water. Jack’s jaw tightened; his voice dropped, low, almost tender in its resistance.

Jack: “You really think everything has meaning, don’t you? Every failure, every coincidence, every heartbreak — all part of some divine engineering?”

Jeeny: “Not divine. Just purposeful. Even chaos has design. Look at evolution — nature’s messiest experiment, and yet it gave us consciousness. Isn’t that the ultimate act of permission? To feel, to choose, to create?”

Host: The rain began to fall outside, soft and rhythmic, tracing lines down the glass like ink on skin. The city lights blurred, becoming something impressionistic — a painting half-seen through memory.

Jack: “You sound like Oxman herself. Always building cathedrals of meaning out of material chaos.”

Jeeny: “Because chaos is sacred, Jack. It’s where creation hides. She wasn’t just talking about art. She was talking about life. About the constant dialogue between what is written and what is rewritten.”

Jack: (crossing his arms) “And what if you rewrite it wrong? What if you take the permission and ruin everything?”

Jeeny: “Then you learn. That’s the miracle of being alive — you can always revise the draft. Every mistake, every loss, gives you another chance to shape what comes next.”

Host: The printer’s light blinked again, casting shifting patterns across the floor. The shadows danced over their faces like moving ink — one dark, one bright, but both drawn from the same light source.

Jack: “You make it sound easy. Like life’s a laboratory where we can just experiment our way into meaning.”

Jeeny: “It is. Every breath is an experiment. Every emotion is data. Every act of creation, no matter how small, is rebellion against the script that says we can’t.”

Host: The rain thickened, a symphony against the windows. Jack turned back to the sculpture, his reflection fractured in the glass — his face repeated infinitely, overlapping, merging with the art he didn’t believe in but couldn’t look away from.

Jack: “You ever think that maybe we don’t create anything? That maybe all we do is uncover what was always there?”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “And what’s wrong with that? Excavation is creation. Every discovery — every idea — is a conversation with something waiting to be found. We don’t invent meaning; we awaken it.”

Host: The machine hummed to life again, starting a new print — layers forming, piece by piece, invisible at first, then tangible. The sound filled the silence like a heartbeat finding rhythm.

Jack: “You really believe the universe gives permission?”

Jeeny: “I believe the universe invites participation. Prediction isn’t imprisonment, Jack — it’s possibility. The script isn’t finished. It’s waiting for us to add our lines.”

Host: Jack’s fingers brushed against the sculpture, the cold material biting his skin. He closed his eyes, hearing the faint music of the printer, the rain, the pulse of the world. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter — a confession more than a question.

Jack: “What if I’ve stopped believing in the invitation?”

Jeeny: (steps closer, her voice almost a whisper) “Then maybe the first act of freedom… is accepting that you can still RSVP.”

Host: The room fell into a soft silence, broken only by the steady print rhythm — layer upon layer of form becoming meaning. The lights dimmed, the machines hummed like living creatures dreaming.

Jack opened his eyes and looked again at the forming sculpture — no longer an object, but an echo of something human, something becoming.

Jack: “So everything’s predicted… but we’re still allowed to improvise.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The design may be divine, but the art — the art is ours.”

Host: The rain slowed to a whisper. A single beam of light cut through the clouded window, striking the unfinished sculpture. The translucent form caught it — refracted it — and scattered it into hundreds of fragile colors, painting their faces in shifting gold, blue, and violet.

Jeeny smiled, her eyes reflecting the kaleidoscope. Jack’s lips curved faintly — not quite a smile, but the beginning of one.

Host: In that moment, the room felt alive — as if destiny itself had paused, waiting for their next move. The machines hummed like an orchestra tuning before the first note, the rain outside faded into mist, and time — for a heartbeat — bent toward something infinite.

For in that silence between prediction and permission, between structure and creation, two souls stood awake — and the universe, for once, seemed to listen.