On the first day of Passover in Danny and Reuven's senior year of college, Reb Saunders invites Reuven to their home to talk with him and Danny. Reb Saunders tells Reuven that he knows that Danny will not be assuming the rabbinate, that he has known for a long time, and he accepts it. He then explains why he raised Danny in silence: he feared that Danny's phenomenal intelligence would lead him to lack compassion for others. Therefore, he raised Danny in silence so that he could learn what it is to suffer, and therefore, have a soul. He also relates Danny to his older brother, who ran away from his homeland in Russia and became a secular professor and died in Auschwitz.