How to Set Variables in a Laravel Blade Template

I'm reading the Laravel Blade [documentation][1] and I can't figure out how to assign variables inside a template for use later. I can't do `{{ $old_section = "whatever" }}` because that will echo "whatever" and I don't want that. I understand that I can do `<?php $old_section = "whatever"; ?>`, but that's not elegant. Is there a better, elegant way to do that in a Blade template? [1]: https://laravel.com/docs/master/blade