"Play it again, Sam." A legendary song request made by Humphrey Bogart in a Casablanca bar. A lamentation chanted by the daughters of Israel. A retreating cry of a battered and beaten army. A tear-stained cry wrung from the throats of mothers and fathers grieving over slain sons. The wails and woes of a nation rising up before the walls of Ramah.

Old Samuel sat within the walls of the tiny village. He was not playing piano in Rick’s cafe. His bloodshot eyes were scanning the pages of the Torah. His aged hands carefully placed scrolls in the Ark of the Covenant. Soon he would mount his camel and judge cases in small villages from Dan to Beersheba.

Samuel was tormented by the disobedience of Saul, who had snubbed the God of Israel. It seemed like only yesterday that he had waylaid the youn…