Long-divided friends – one, an atheist writer, and the other, a rabbi — are forced to revisit the argument that divided them so many decades ago, when chance brings them together again. The Quarrel is a moving drama that follows writer Chaim and his old friend, Rabbi Hersh, through a picturesque park in Montreal as they rehash a long-standing debate about God and morality – one that has newfound weight after the Holocaust that has taken place since they last spoke.

“I always thought about you in the camp,” Hersh says, “I was always haunted by the terrible fight we had when you left yeshiva. Sometimes I thought that God was keeping me alive so that I could see you one more time and I could ask you to forgive me.” Said with the best of intentions, this peace offering quickly spirals into a heated debate that calls each man’s core beliefs into question.

A fateful meeting on the Jewish New Year gives Chaim and Hersh one last chance to confront the past, explain their actions, and try to make sense of the very different lives they’re living. On the morning of Rosh Hashana, Chaim orders bacon and eggs for breakfast and gets a phone call from the woman he casually slept with the night before, while Hersh is down by the waterfront leading his yeshiva students in prayer. Their lifestyles and ideologies couldn’t be more different, but childhood friendships often transcend logical relationships. As the two men share their Holocaust experiences and explain how their lives have fortified their beliefs, the argument that results becomes a struggles to decide whether they are best friends or bitter enemies. But instead of boiling things down to a simple black and white reality, The Quarrel fleshes out their contradictory arguments and then lets them stew unresolved, recognizing life’s complexities.

For both Holocaust survivors, talk of God stirs up strong emotions. To Hersh, the Holocaust proved that assimilation is impossible and wrong, and he has since dedicated his life to his yeshiva and to strengthening the Jewish faith among God’s chosen people. Chaim, on the other hand, cannot reconcile the promise that Jews are God’s chosen people with the brutal death of six million innocents. He believes that if there is a God, He broke his covenant with the Jewish people at Auschwitz.

Instead of favoring one man’s opinions, the brilliant dialogue takes a fair look at both religious and secular ideologies to present the strongest arguments for both, as the two friends resume their long-dormant battle. Hersh argues that his Judaism was only strengthened by the Holocaust, and that forsaking his religion would be an insult to all the Jews who died. He argues that without religion man would be governed by reason, the same “reason” that allowed people to turn a blind eye to the death of their Jewish neighbors. Chaim, on the other hand, counters that belief in God doesn’t necessarily make people act morally and that atheists can be the most moral of us all. He argues that faith in humanity and a love for all people are what drive us to do good.

What the two men do have in common is rage. “I lost everyone. I was married. Two boys,” Chaim says, and Hersh confides that he also lost his entire family in the war. The incredible pain they’ve endured has left an anger boiling inside of each of them that comes to the surface and vents itself in their sharp words.

Ultimately, The Quarrel takes a close look at friendship to try to figure out what bonds two people together. It’s not just shared experience or a similar mindset that unites human beings. It’s something else—a passion and intensity that can’t be easily pinpointed. Friends don’t always look alike, they don’t always behave similarly, and at times they don’t even like each other. But any antagonism comes from deep concern and profound interest in what’s best for the other person.

Strangers have to smile and nod, but someone who loves you isn’t afraid to argue with you, too.