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Main characters

• Reuven (Robert or Bobby) Malter, a Modern Orthodox teenage boy. Smart, popular, has a head for mathematics, and his father wants him to be a mathematician when he grows up.
• Daniel (Danny) Saunders, a Hasidic teenage boy. Brilliant with a photographic memory. Interested in psychology, particularly Freudian psychoanalysis. Feels trapped by Hasidic tradition, and particularly his role as next in line to succeed his father as Rabbi. He really wants to become a psychologist.
• David Malter, Reuven's father. Talmudic scholar, teacher, Zionist. Considered a heretic by fundamentalist Hasidim. Supports the creation of the state of Israel because of his belief in the Messianic Age rather than a literal Messiah.
• Rabbi Isaac Saunders (Reb Saunders), Danny's father. Rabbinic sage and tzaddik. Rebbe (spiritual leader) of a Hasidic sect, which role is dynastic (passed on from father to son). Moved his congregation from Russia to the United States before the Communist Revolution. He is against a secular Jewish nation-state, because he believes this supersedes God's will.