Reuven needed someone to ask a real question. Was anyone gutsy enough?

“Oh, I don’t know, I imagine you have dreams, like every rosh yeshivah, and maybe this can help you realize them?”

Reuven was quiet. He hadn’t asked for the meeting, and he wasn’t going to make it easier for Heshy

He squinted in the darkness and stared, unable to process what he was seeing. Reuven? At Heshy Brucker’s tish?

This visit to the tent was purely a fact-finding mission — call it due diligence, the way mature, balanced people acted

This meeting with Reuven Stagler was his idea, and his brother was there under protest. It was his show, and he would lead it

Akiva wanted to say something like, “That sort of cynicism isn’t a great chinuch technique,” but he wouldn’t stoop to that level

He would go to Boca, he decided. To anywhere, really. He wouldn’t stick around to see Heshy Brucker win

“I’m looking for my son, I just wish I understood him a bit better, like, that I really knew what he’s about”

"If the kids want to come down, they come down for a Shabbos, if they don’t, they don’t. This is not about them"

"I’m just an exercise equipment salesman from Queens, and I can’t deal with all these issues"