During the game, Danny hits the ball that strikes Reuven in the face, injuring his eye, and sending him to the hospital for surgery. Danny visits Reuven in the hospital and apologizes for hitting him with the ball. At first, Reuven rejects Danny’s apology, but at the urging of his father, he becomes Danny’s friend.

Danny tells Reuven that he will inherit his father’s position and become a rabbi, but he also admits that he would rather become a phychologist. Reuven learns that Danny has been raised in virtural silence-the only time Danny’s father talks to him is when they are studying Talmud together.

Danny confesses that studying Talmud is boring and that he secretly reads secular books in the public library. According to Danny, even though Jews have an obligation to obey God, sometimes he is not sure what God wants. Reuven wants to become a rabbi, but also has a strong interest in math.

Danny makes an perceptive and rather amusing observation that he has to be a rabbi, but doesn’t want to be one, and Reuven does not have to be a rabbi, but wants to be one.

Danny’s father finds out that he has been visiting the library and wants to know what he has been reading. Danny tells him everything, including the fact that the reading material was recommended by Reuven’s father, whom he met in the library.

Danny and Reuven enter Hirsh College for the fall term. Danny is upset that the college psychology department discredits the work of Sigmund Freud, preferring instead the discipline of experimental psychology.

When Reuven’s father suffers a heart attack, rabbi Saunders invites Reuven to stay with him and his family until his health improves. Danny and Reuven spend much time together and discuss various literary and Jewish subjects. When they visits Reuven’s father in the hospital, he talks passionately about the 6 million Jews slaughtered by Hitler and the Nazis and how the American Jews must help rebuild the human loss. He also supports establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. Jews cannot wait for the Messiah to come to aid them, he argues. They must help themselves. Mr Malter’s position contrasts that of Rabbi Saunders, who says that Palestine cannot become a Jewish state until the Messiah comes.

Mr. Malter gives a speech at Madison Square Garden in New York City, urging the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Reuven is moved by the speech, but Rabbi Saunders is furious. He forbids Danny to associate with Reuven.

For the rest of the semester, Danny and Reuven do not speak to each other. The conflict beween Rabbi Saunders and Mr. Malter continues. Rabbi Saunders organizes his followers into a group called the League for a Religious Israel. Mr Malter continues speaking on behalf of a Jewish state in Palestine.

The state of Israel is formally proclaimed on May 14, 1948. After the United Nation’s action, Rabbi Saunders’ anti-Zionist stance fades in importance as far as the students at Hirsh College are concerned, and Danny is permitted to speak to Reuben, and their rift is healed.

At his professor’s suggestion, Danny decides to persue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, which means that he will have to renounce his father’s rabbinical position. Danny and Reuven discuss how Danny should tell his father, and Danny gets advice from Mr. Malter. Ironically, rabbi Saunders is already aware of Danny’s decision.

Rabbi Saunders realizes that the boys have become men. Reuven tells rabbi Saunders that he wants to become a rabbi, and Danny tells him that he has chosen a different path and wants to become a psychologist. Danny has a brilliant mind and cannot be satisfied within the confines of a Hasidic environment.

Danny and Reuven graduate from Hirsh college. When Danny comes to say good-bye to Reuven and Mr. Malter before leaving for graduate school at Columbia University, Reuven notices that Danny has shaved his beard and cut off his earlocks, the two symbols of the Hasidic faith. Mr. Malter says Columbia University is not so far away, so Danny should visit them often. The novel ends as Danny agrees to visit the Malters and then leaves.