Disobedience

by Naomi Alderman

This world is a mask, and the mask hides a face, and the face is a secret, for it is the visage of the Almighty, whom we shall only come to know on our day of judgement, when He reveals Himself to us. It has been taught that if the Lord were to lift only a tiny corner of His veil, to show us but the slightest glimpse of His truth, we should be blinded by brightness, colour and pain.

Even while studying at Yeshiva, he had not been a brilliant Torah scholar. He did not have the quickness of mind of the great ones, the easy grasp of new material, or the ability to hold each step of a complex argument in a separate vessel of his mind, combining and reordering them at will.