The Truth of the Torah & The Tortoise and the Hare

Recently I was explaining to a small group of people how I could live as an orthodox Jew while at the same time be an atheist. Here is how I explained a part of that puzzle.

One of the famous stories from Aesop's Fables is The Tortoise and the Hare. As Wikipedia tells it:

The story concerns a hare who ridicules a slow-moving tortoise who challenges him to a race. The hare soon leaves the tortoise behind and, confident of winning, takes a nap midway through the course. The tortoise gets tired but he keeps going. When the hare awakes, however, he finds that his competitor, crawling slowly but steadily, has arrived before him.

Now there are a number of ways to react to this story.

Someone might say "That can't possibly be a true story. Animals don't talk, let alone race." This is the response of an idiot.

Another response is "Hares must be evil and we must emulate tortoises in every way possible." This is the reaction of a fool.

"What can we learn from this story?" seems to be the only sensible approach to this fable or the Torah.