Alexander of Macedon stopped, so the sages tell it, to test the elders of the Negev with ten hard questions. Some of their answers have come down to us, and they show a people confident enough in their wisdom to argue with the world's most powerful man.
"Which are more remote from each other," he asked, "the heavens from the earth, or the east from the west?"
"The east is more remote from the west," the elders answered, "for when the sun is in the east or in the west, anyone can gaze upon him. But when the sun is at the zenith of heaven, no one can bear to look — he is so much nearer to us than the horizons." (The Mishnaic sages, however, read Psalm 103 as saying both distances are equal: "As the heavens are high above the earth... so far has He removed our transgressions from us." (Psalms 103:11-12).)
Alexander pressed on. "Were the heavens created first, or was the earth?"
"The heavens," they said, "for Scripture teaches, 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' (Genesis 1:1)."
"Was light created first, or darkness?"
"This," the elders replied, "is a question we dare not answer." Yet strict order suggests darkness came first, for Scripture says, "And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep" — before God said, Let there be light.
The sages are not just sparring with a king. They are showing that the questions of Jewish wisdom — beginnings, light and dark, nearness and distance — belong not to the conqueror but to the people who read the text carefully.
(From the 1901 Hebraic Literature anthology, drawing on Tamid 31b-32a.)