After Acher’s story comes something that is not a new story. It is a place to look back over the road already walked.
Six movements have passed. Learning, argument, justice, character and humility, speech, and endings and beginnings.
Learning, Why We Learn
It began with the man who froze on the roof. The hunger to learn, the patience of a man who began at forty, a teacher who taught the same thing four hundred times, learning that grows even in the back row, and the courage to ask. Five chapters.
Argument, How We Differ
It began with the declaration that it is not in Heaven, and went on through the admission that both are the words of the living God, the way authority comes loose, a conviction held alone, and a prayer that pressed Heaven.
Justice, What Is Right
It began with the ruin one invitation made, and went on through a character revealed by a single habit of speech, a hand extended in the face of death, charity given with the face hidden, and the share beyond the rule. Five chapters.
Character and Humility
It began with the Torah learned standing on one foot, and went on through the teaching to tell the craftsman who made the vessel, the man who did not return a greeting, the man who changed after eighty years, and the tears of a man who learned all his life.
Speech, What We Say
It began with the laughter of two jesters, and went on through the moment a face turns white, the three a tongue kills, a word changed for the sake of peace, and the silence that beats speaking. Five chapters.
Endings and Beginnings, What We Leave
It began with the tree that bears in seventy years, and went on through the man who lay in a coffin, the four who entered and the one who came out, and Acher, arriving at this last part.
Gathered Into One
All six movements stood before the same question. Where no single answer is given, how will you judge and act?
Whether to learn, which side is right, what to do beyond the rule, how to carry yourself, what to say and what to swallow, and what to leave where things are collapsing. Thirty chapters asked this one question with thirty different faces.
Today, From Where We Have Arrived
There is no new story to learn on this page. What there is instead is one question left by the thirty chapters behind it.
In a moment with no right answer, what do I judge by? The question the people in these thirty chapters each answered in their own way now belongs to the reader.
This Is Not the End
The six parts are threaded together, and the series does not close here.
Next come five chapters on compassion. They ask how to protect the face of the person receiving.
After that, one more chapter is added to each of the earlier parts. Argument gains the place left when the person who argued with you is gone.
Learning gains the man who started late. Speech gains the question of where to put hatred.
Endings and beginnings gains the man who laughed in the ruins, and a last word. Forty chapters in all.