Summary

The Lion’s Den – Jacob and Tamir end the day of Isaac’s funeral drinking beer in Jacob’s kitchen. As they talk – about the relative difficulties of their lives, about the difference between being Jewish in America and Jewish in Israel, about their different beliefs about Isaac – Jacob remembers an important incident the two of them shared 30 years previously. The night before his bar mitzvah, Tamir talked him into breaking into the zoo and then jumping into the lion’s cage. Jacob recalls that afterwards, particularly after a near-escape from an awakened lion, he never felt more alive, and realizes that every moment of fear, or hope, or joy, that came afterward paled in comparison. Conversation starts to become aggressive and then vulnerable, with Tamir admitting that he does not know where Noam...