In the following essay, Lowin examines the progression from the realistic to the fantastic in "The Pagan Rabbi" and the role of the tree in that progression.

Take, for a first example, the plot of "The Pagan Rabbi." Two young men, sons of prominent rabbis, had been classmates together at a rabbinical seminary. One—the narrator—drops out of school and marries Jane, a gentile girl, an incident which causes his father to sit shiva (a seven&mdash:-day mourning period) on his account. He subsequently goes into his uncle's fur business in upstate New York, is miserable in his marriage because his wife is frigid (he calls her a puritan), gets divorced, moves back to New York City, and, deciding to deal in writers and writing, opens a bookstore. The other—Isaac Kornfeld—continues his rabbinical studies, becomes a professor of "mishnaic history...