“They need words. Persuasion. Reassurance, that they are doing the Will of the Almighty, and that He is orchestrating this crescendo of history”

“If we were to listen to the soul, not of you or me, but of this time, these months and days, what would we hear?” he asks

She claps her hand in excitement. “Yannai and his men will pray, indeed. But not here. At the very gateway of prayer”

She will need a scribe. Someone who will walk around the factory and not simply assume that he has seen destruction, but will open his eyes and note down the details

How does she do it? Scratching out words and numbers and talking to him at the same time?

It is not a long journey, she repeats to herself, a mantra. But it is a journey that means stepping into the unknown

“The navi Hoshea. Can you imagine, Mama. He had a body, he lived and walked these hills, and here he rests”

As he moves, his tzitzis flap gently; they are dyed green, and she wonders why, for she has only seen tzitzis made of yellowing wool

And then, a rustle. Bilhah freezes. She blinks, trying to stare through the shifting shadows and the blackness. Someone is out here, with her

How could she? How could she be so cruel? Then again, what else to expect from a woman who has so much?