A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World
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7. One of the most important recurring images from the novel is that of the orchard. The orchard first appears on this page, when Felix describes a dream he has had, where four men go into an orchard. What they see in there kills one, makes the second crazy, and turns the third into “a destabilizing force of chaos.” Only the fourth man, described as the rabbi, is unaffected. When Leonard and Sally encounter him in Rome, the Spanish mystic Abulafia claims to be “the rabbi who saw what was there and went home again” (this page). Do you believe him? What do you think they see in the orchard?
8. How do you feel about the choice Sally makes in the end, passing up the chance to study with Abulafia for love, family, and becoming a leader in her own time? Would you make the same choice?