“Modesty is a fine quality, Akiva, but sometimes it masks an unwillingness to take responsibility.

‘Without conservation, there can be no renewal.’

The tradition of the past is the foundation: without a foundation, it is impossible to build new stories.”

Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Sicarii, Nazarenes – what did any of this have to do with him? From the little he had heard about them, he knew that he preferred the learned Pharisees who believed in the World to Come over the wealthy Sadducees who paid no mind to the simple folk, the aloof Essenes who frightened people with their prophesies of the

“You yourself are creating a new basis for loathing the nation of Israel. The gentiles will hate us.”

The Pharisees are lenient with the Torah’s commandments through the oral law, but the Sadducees believe only in the written Torah. They regard the commandments of the Torah as permanent and unchanging injunctions that may not be eased.”

“The gentiles have already forgotten that there ever were Sadducees. They make no distinction between Sadducees and Pharisees. They don’t even know that Jesus was a Pharisee. All the Jews are to blame in their eyes.”

In this matter, he actually supports the approach of Hillel, who said again and again, “Be disciples of Aaron – a lover of peace and a pursuer of peace.” We must pursue peace even when it stands in opposition to another obligation, such as, for example, telling the truth. All our lives we are asked to decide between conflicting commandments.

“Success is no sin,” she sighs. “It is the way of the world. The wheel of life turns for us all – at times we rise to the highest of highs, and at times we descend to the lowest of lows.”