The Promise

by Chaim Potok

A Talmud class in which a student is fearful of asking questions can become a suffocating experience. I suffocated.

“One derives great moral strength from a cup of coffee,” I said. “Kosher coffee,” Danny said. “Yes, of course. Kosher coffee. Of course.”

“Perhaps. But it is childish to think of what might have been.”

“The Master of the Universe has so created the world that everything that can be good can also be evil. It is mankind that makes a thing good or evil, Reuven, depending upon how we use the wonders we have been given.

“Almost everything of importance that a person does is a gamble, isn’t it? Every crucial decision is a gamble.”

Each generation thinks it fights new battles. But the battles are the same. Only the people are different.”

“They were nice people as long as you agreed with them,” I said. “That’s the way it is with most people, Reuven.”

“I find no beauty in nonsense,” she said coldly.

“Only because you don’t believe in it. Nonsense is often that in which a person cannot believe.