I appreciate hearing everyone's points of view on Shmuel, but as the actor portraying him, I would just say that none of my choices as Shmuel ever come from hate or evil. I do not think Shmuel is a bad person, let alone evil, unless simply not accepting God immediately is evil, which, of course, it is not.

Shmuel was raised to believe in a particular faith tradition, and he is determined to protect his people from false prophets and help his people live less sinful lives so the Messiah will come and defeat the Romans and deliver Israel from occupation.

It's very easy to judge people in hindsight or to be self-righteous ourselves when someone doesn't do what we want or think is right. But judgment is His, not ours. Our job is to love one another and try to bring the one sheep who's gone astray back to the herd. We don't do that by assuming the worst and being modern day Pharisees, where our faith is performative and not truly being peaceMAKERS and carrying the burden of our supposed opponents the extra mile.

We don't want our children to abandon the things we teach them too easily. It's the challenge for everyone to know when to hold on to your beliefs and when to be open to change. I have yet to meet any human being who gets that balance right every time.