I found myself intrigued by those books. They were written in a clear and on occasion almost exquisite prose style, the kind of style one rarely finds in works of philosophy and theology. And they were filled with blunt questions: Do you believe the world was created in six days? Do you believe in the order of creation given in the Bible? Do you believe Eve was created from Adam's rib? Do you believe in angels? Do you believe in the biblical account of the Revelation at Sinai? Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe that G-d guides the destiny of every living creatures? Do you believe that G-d talked, actually talked in the manner described in the Bible? How is one to react to the findings of archeology and anthropology and biology and astronomy and physics? How is one to react to the discoveries of modern biblical scholarship? How might one not believe literally in the Bible and still remain a traditional Jew? Are total belief or complete abandonment the only available choices, or is it possible to reinterpret ancient beliefs in a way that will make them relevant to the modern world and at the same time not cause one to abandon the tradition?

The problems he raised fascinated me.

They didn't fascinate me, though. They cast a calm and a frenzy over me. They cast a calm and a frenzy over me. over me.. in me.

the leaves of the Sycamores

Then there were the twilight weeks, a length of gray time between October and December when the weave formed in the summer seemed to come apart...

The patterns of our lives were being spun out in different worlds, and as the sycamores turned and the air grew cold the summer became a distant dream, and I could recall it sharply only in the very early mornings as I lay in my bed, no longer asleep but not yet fully awake.

At odd moments of the day... a disconnected piece of the summer would float slowly toward me and expand into dim memory... but the strange conjunction of events that had begun with the carnival appeared disentangled now, and the summer faded together with the leaves of the sycamores.

faded...faded

he talked

Can you feel the sun, Reuven? Can you feel how hot it is? Did you know Giordano Bruno was burned alive in Rome in 1600 for writing that the stars were suns? Did you know the gases in the interior of the sun are more than ten million degrees Kelvin? That's hot. They burned him alive because he wrote that the were suns. I wonder what it's like to be burned alive. Fire on your feet and around your legs and the pain as the fire creeps up. When do you die when you're burned alive? I think about that sometimes. They cheated Bruno. They killed him for the truth. But he didn't cheat. He wrote the truth. You have to get killed sometimes but you can't cheat. The cheating never hurts the stars but your eyes get clouded. I really believe that. Your eyes get clouded and you can't see through the telescope, any kind of telescope. There are different kinds of telescopes. Did you know that? There are refracting telescopes and reflecting telescopes and there's the Schmidt telescope. I read about them in a book. Refracting telescopes are okay but you have to watch out for chromatic aberration. Reflecting telescopes don't have that problem. But they have other problems, lots of other different problems. God, listen to me talking. I can't stop talking. Why can't I stop talking? What was I saying? Problems. The Schmidt telescope has problems too. Everything has problems. There's nothing anywhere without problems. There's no one without problems. Look at the clouds. They're beautiful. God, they're beautiful. There's one that looks like someone burning. Yes. Someone is burning. Who doesn't have problems?

We sailed and he talked and then we were near the shoreline and he talked and I could make out clearly the trees and the boulders and summer homes and people on the lawns and a deer at the edge of the woods and still he talked. Then, quite suddenly, he was silent. We sailed in that silence the rest of the way to the dock.