Literally: What to do
Idiomatically: What can you do?

The word "Laasot" used as a verb can be found early in the Bible (Genesis 2:2) but it is also made famous by the Byrds in the late 60's in their hit Turn Turn Turn which quotes Ecclesiastes (3:1-8).When someone wants to get out of doing something s/he doesn’t want to do, they will try to convince themselves and you that it isn’t worth the time or effort by using this fatalistic phrase accompanied with a shrug. As it started raining, my wife asked one of my kids to take in the laundry. "Ma Laasot? Hu bainko ratuv" (What can you do? It's wet anyway"). The fact that later most of the laundry blew across to Jordan didn't seem to faze him... Ma laasot?

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