One day, on his way to work, a man was detained by the clerical authorities. He was taken for interrogation to the Hall of Justice. After waiting some hours in a side room, he was then brought before the Interrogator who requested his name, and where he lived. The Interrogator then asked the arresting officials why the man had been brought before him. They handed him a sheaf of papers listing suspicions and allegations. 'I see,' he said and read aloud from the papers, 'It says here, that every day before dawn you wake and pray for one hour, and that you pray 3 more times every day; twice a day you attend the Place of Worship and donate the greater part of your wages to its upkeep; you appear to listen attentively to the Preceptor and seem to apply the words of his teachings; you observe poverty and abstinence; you read only the prescribed texts; people call you holy. Is this an accurate picture?' The man said, 'I wish only to live according to God's will, for his greater glory.' The Interrogator politely nodded, 'but it is my experience that nobody is as observant of the Law as those who seek to award themselves the privilege of subverting it. And you have been observed in your observance. I cannot think why you would have come to our attention if the purpose of your display was not to maintain something hidden. What does the devout man, I ask myself, hide from God? Perhaps even you do not know the answer to this. And perhaps it is only now, in the moment that you are challenged on the reasons for your piety, that you begin to see from the outside how strict observance might present an opportunity for evasion in other areas. There is a secret within what you are doing. My feeling is that such a strict, and featureless, observance could be more dangerous to our faith, in its way, than all-out indifference.
