She tried to remember the different things he had described to her in the past few days. Upright kneeling. Motionless dance.

Kahn is actually quoting someone; he is quoting Menachem Mendel of Vorki, who had been asked about the essential practices of Judaism. In fact, Rabbi Mendel cites another one as well: “silent screaming.” But that did not suit my needs, so in true rabbinical fashion, I left it out. Mendel’s complete reply can be found in Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidim; a book which Kahn would have known well. (“He knew it by this. His master’s voice.” RCA’s slogan, and more.)

SPLIT THIRTY has many such references to religious texts. Ecclesiastes, of course, is everywhere; people either refer to it by name, or quote it pretty consciously (“And the sun goeth down on Pooch. Any day now,” warns Chan Peterson). Other references are also fairly obvious; when Paula weeps for her children, for instance, with “lamentation, on the Upper East Side.” She is playing Rachel, as described by Jeremiah. And some references are real, but hidden. Consider Kahn telling a model how she can “make a new name for herself” with a film shoot, and how that film shoot eventually takes place by the Hudson River; Jacob also made a new name for himself, by wrestling with an angel, by the banks of a different river.

My favorite textual incident, however, has nothing to do with plot at all, and only a little to do with character: it’s when Bell finds himself “standing by a city sycamore,” thinking through a conversation he has just had with Walton. There is no more to it, than that fact. But it was the prophet Amos, scourge of the northern kingdom, champion of justice, and protector of the downtrodden, who made his living as a “dresser of sycamore trees.”

Something Bell might have remembered, as he planned his next steps.