The Multiverse?

TooYoungToTeach insisted that I read "Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson. Always up for new titles, I plucked it up from the library, only to be disappointed that a lot of it takes place in World War II. I don't like reading about World War II. Or World War 1. Or war in general. War is usually off the table for me. Unless it's by Bernard Cornwell. He does war so well. 

Anywho, the heroine of the book is Ursula, but she is an odd duck. For every time she dies, the clock spins backward to the original moment of her birth, over and over and over.

Some timelines continue with near identical repetition; others vary wildly. But we don't see how those timelines continue beyond her death; we are just hurtled back again to her first day on earth. 

What we see is that one small occurrence can alter so much—it's novelized butterfly effect, or "Sliding Doors." 

It made me wonder if the point was that we live in a potential multiverse, where infinite permutations of reality play out. In Ursula's case, some strictly involve her, others involve world events. Like, saaaaay, how would the world be different today if Hitler had been assassinated in 1930? He's also only one person. But his elimination would have altered EVERYTHING. 

I also continued to contemplate if Hashem is overseeing other realities, other planes of existence. But this quickly got far above my pay grade, and decided to quit before I gave myself a headache. 

I concluded that while there could technically be a reality where certain mistakes weren't made, where all is different, as Jews we also believe that reality is intentional. If something was supposed to happen, it does. There is only so much in our control; Ursula is mostly not the driver of her own life; she is swept hither and thither by circumstance. Bumping into the wrong man (multiple men), for instance, by seeming happenstance. 

While have times in our lives when hashgacha pratis is seemingly so clear, other times when we feel cast about in chaos. But is the chaos also intentional, except we just can't see it? 

Headache brewing. Best to leave it be.