Excerpt and synopsis, THE CHOSEN by Chaim Potok
So much of prayer is silence. In the 12th century, Persian poet Rumi wrote, “Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.” In the 17th century, St. John of the Cross called silence “God’s first language.”
During our Transforming Community retreat on prayer, Ruth Haley Barton read an excerpt from Chaim Potok’s The Chosen. In this masterwork about growing up Jewish in Brooklyn, a rabbi raises his son in nearly complete silence. He has his own very prayerful reasons for doing this, which are laid out in the final two chapters of the book. Perhaps you will read the book, in which case you might not want to read the end before the beginning. Otherwise, enjoy.
A good synopsis of the entire book, which I found online, follows the two-chapter excerpt.
THE CHOSEN by Chaim Potok (last two chapters, followed by synopsis and vocabulary)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Our last year of college began that September. Over lunch one day I told Danny a mild anti-Hasidic story I had heard, and he laughed loudly. Then, without thinking, I mentioned a remark one of the students had made a few days back: “The tzaddik sits in absolute silence, saying nothing, and all his followers listen attentively,” and the laughter left bis lips as suddenly as if he had been slapped, and his face froze.
I realized immediately what I had said, and felt myself go cold. I muttered a helpless apology.
For a long moment, he said nothing. His eyes seemed glazed, turned inward. Then his face slowly relaxed. He smiled faintly. “There’s more truth to that than you realize,” he murmured. “You can listen to silence, Reuven. I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it.”
The words came out in a soft singsong. He sounded exactly like his father.
“You don’t understand that, do you?” he asked.
“No.”
He nodded. “I didn’t think you would.”
“What do you mean, it talks to you?”
“You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture. It doesn’t always talk. Sometimes—sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then. But you have to.”
I felt myself go cold again, hearing him talk that way. “I don’t understand that at all.”
He smiled faintly.
“Are you and your father talking these days?”
He shook his head.
I didn’t understand any of it, but he seemed so somber and strange that I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I changed the subject. “You ought to get yourself a girl,” I told him. I was dating regularly now on Saturday nights. “It’s a wonderful tonic for a suffering soul.”
He looked at me, his eyes sad. “My wife has been chosen for me,” he said quietly.
I gaped at him.
“It’s an old-Hasidic custom, remember?”
“It never occurred to me,” I said, shocked.
He nodded soberly. “That’s another reason it won’t be so easy to break out of the trap. It doesn’t only involve my own family.”
I didn’t know what to say. There was a long, uncomfortable silence. And we walked together in that silence to Rav Gershenson’s shiur.
Danny’s brother’s bar mitzvah celebration, which I attended on a Monday morning during the third week in October, was a simple and unpretentious affair. The Morning Service began at seven-thirty—early enough to enable Danny and me to attend and not come late to school—and Levi was called to recite the blessing over the Torah. After the service there was a kiddush, consisting of schnapps and some cakes and cookies. Everyone drank l’chaim, to life, then left. Reb Saunders asked me quietly why I wasn’t coming over to see him anymore, and I explained that my father and I were studying Talmud together on Shabbat afternoons. He nodded vaguely and walked slowly away, his tall frame somewhat stooped.
Levi Saunders was now tall and thin. He seemed a ghostly imitation of Danny, except that his hair was black and his eyes were dark. The skin on his hands and face was milky white, almost translucent, showing the branching veins. There was something helplessly fragile about him; he looked as if a wind would blow Him down. Yet at the same time his dark eyes burned with a kind of inner fire that told of the tenacity with which he clung to life and of his growing awareness of the truth that for the rest of his days his every breath would depend upon the pills he put into his mouth at regular intervals. The eyes told you that he had every intention of holding on to his life, no matter what the pain.
As if to emphasize the tenuousness of Levi Saunders’ existence, he became violently ill the day following his bar mitzvah and was taken by ambulance to the Brooklyn Memorial Hospital. Danny called me during supper as soon as the ambulance pulled away from in front of his house, and I could tell from his voice that he was in a panic. There wasn’t much I could say to him over the phone, and when I asked him if he wanted me to come over, he said no, his mother was almost hysterical, he would have to stay with her, he had only wanted to let me know. And he hung up.
My father apparently had heard my troubled voice, because he was standing now outside the. kitchen, asking me what was wrong.
I told him.
We resumed our supper. I wasn’t very hungry now, but I ate anyway to keep Manya happy. My father noticed how disturbed I was, but he said nothing. After the meal, he followed me into my room, sat on my bed while I sat at my desk, and asked me what was wrong, why was I so upset by Levi Saunders’ illness, he had been ill before.
It was at that point that I told my father of Danny’s plans to go on for a doctorate in psychology and abandon the position of tzaddik he was to inherit one day from Reb Saunders. I also added, feeling that I ought to be completely honest about it now, that Danny was in a panic over his brother’s illness because without his brother it might not be possible for him to break away from his father; he did not really want to destroy the dynasty.
My father’s face became more and more grim as he listened. When I was done, he sat for a long time in silence, his eyes grave.
“When did Danny tell you this?” he asked finally.
“The summer I lived in their house.”
“That long ago? He knew already that long ago?”
“Yes.”
“And all this time you did not tell me?”
“It was a secret between us, abba.”
He looked at me grimly. “Does Danny, know what painthis will cause his father?”
“He dreads the day he’ll have to tell him. He dreads it for both of them.”
“I knew it would happen,” my father said. “How could it not happen?” Then he looked at me sharply.
“Reuven, let me understand this. Exactly what is Danny planning to tell Reb Saunders?”
“That he’s going on-for a doctorate in psychology and doesn’t intend to take his place.”
“Is Danny thinking to abandon his Judaism?”
I stared at him. “I never thought to ask him,” I said faintly.
“His beard, his earlocks, his clothes, his fringes—all this he will retain in graduate school?”
“I don’t know, abba. We never talked about it” .
“Reuven, how will Danny become a psychologist while looking like a Hasid?”
I didn’t know what to say. “It is important that Danny know exactly what he will tell his father. He must anticipate what questions will be on Reb Saunders’ mind. Talk to Danny. Let him think through exactly what he will tell his father.”
“All this time I never thought to ask him.”
“Danny is now like a person waiting to be let out of jail. He has only one desire. To leave the jail. Despite what may be waiting for him outside. Danny cannot think one minute beyond the moment he will have to tell his father he does not wish to take his place. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“You will talk to him?”
“Of course.”
My father nodded grimly, his face troubled. “I have not talked to Danny in so long,” he said quietly. He was silent for a moment Then he smiled faintly. “It is not so easy to be a friend, is it, Reuven?”
“No,” I said.
‘Tell me, Danny and Reb Saunders still do not talk?”
I shook my head. Then I told him what Danny had said about silence. “What does it mean to hear silence, abba?”
That seemed to upset him more than the news about Danny’s not becoming a tzaddik. He sat up straight on the bed, his body quivering. “Hasidim!” I heard him mutter, almost contemptuously. “Why must they feel the burden of the world is only on their shoulders?”
I looked at him, puzzled. I had never heard that tone of contempt in his voice before.
“It is a way of bringing up children,” he said.
“What is?”
“Silence.”
“I don’t understand—”
“I cannot explain it. I do not understand it completely myself. But what I know of it, I dislike. It was practiced in Europe by some few Hasidic families.” Then his voice, went hard. “There are better ways to teach a child compassion.”
“I don’t—”
He cut me short. “Reuven, I cannot explain what I do not understand. Danny is being raised by Reb Saunders in a certain way. I do not want to talk about it anymore. It upsets me. You will speak to Danny, yes?”
I nodded.
“Now I have work I must do.” And he went from the room, leaving me as bewildered as I had been before.
I had planned to talk to Danny the next day,, but when I saw him he was in such a state of panic over his brother that I didn’t dare mention what my father had said. The doctors had diagnosed his brother’s illness as some kind of imbalance in the blood chemistry caused, by something he had eaten, Danny told me over lunch, looking pale and grim, and blinking his eyes repeatedly. They were trying out some new pills, and his brother would remain in the hospital until they were certain the pills worked. And he would have to be very careful from now on with his diet. Danny was tense and miserable all that day and throughout the week.
Levi Saunders was discharged from the “Brooklyn Memorial Hospital the following Wednesday afternoon. I saw Danny in school the next day. We sat in the lunchroom and ate for a while in silence. His brother was fine, he said finally, and everything seemed to have settled down. His mother was in bed with high blood pressure, though. But the doctor said it was caused by her excitement over Levi’s illness and all she needed now was to rest. She would be better soon.
He told me quietly that he was planning to write to three universities that day—Harvard, Berkeley, and Columbia— and apply for a fellowship in psychology. I asked him how long he thought he would be-able to keep his applications a secret.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice a little tight.
“Why don’t you tell your father now and get it over with?”
He looked at me, his face grim. “I don’t want explosions with every meal,” he said tightly. “All I get are either explosions or silence. I’ve had enough of his explosions.”
Then I told him what my father had said. As I spoke, I could see him become more and more uncomfortable.
“I didn’t want you to tell your father,” he muttered angrily.
“My father kept your library visits a secret from me,” I reminded him. “Don’t worry about my father.”
“I don’t want you to tell anyone else.”
“I won’t. What about what my father said? Are you going to remain an Orthodox Jew?”
“Whatever gave you the notion that I had any intention of not remaining an Orthodox Jew?”
“What if your father asks about the beard, the caftan, the—”
“He won’t ask me.”
“What if he does?”
He pulled nervously at an earlock. “Can you see me practicing psychology and looking like a Hasid?” he asked tightly.
I hadn’t really expected any other answer. Then something occurred to me. “Won’t your father see the mail you get from the graduate schools you’ve applied to?”
He stared at me. “I never thought of that,” he said slowly. “I’ll have to intercept the mail.” He hesitated, his face rigid. “I can’t. It comes after I leave for school.” And his eyes filled with fear.
” think you ought to have a talk with my father,” I said.
Danny came over to our apartment that night, and I took him into my father’s study. My father came quickly around from behind his desk and shook Danny’s hand.
“I have not seen you in such a long time,” he said, smiling warmly. “It is good to see you again, Danny. Please sit down.”
My father did not sit behind his desk. He sat next to us onuniversities that day—Harvard, Berkeley, and Columbia— and apply for a fellowship in psychology. I asked him how long he thought he would be-able to keep his applications a secret.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice a little tight.
“Why don’t you tell your father now and get it over with?”
He looked at me, his face grim. “I don’t want explosions with every meal,” he said tightly. “All I get are either explosions or silence. I’ve had enough of his explosions.”
Then I told him what my father had said. As I spoke, I could see him become more and more uncomfortable.
“I didn’t want you “to tell your father,” he muttered angrily.
“My father kept your library visits a secret from me,” I reminded him. “Don’t worry about my father.”
– “I don’t want you to tell anyone else.”
“I won’t. What about what my father said? Are you going to remain an Orthodox Jew?”
– “Whatever gave you the notion that I had any intention of
not remaining an Orthodox Jew?”
“What if your father asks about the beard, the caftan, the—”
“He won’t ask me.”
“What if he does?”
He pulled nervously at an earlock. “Can you see me practicing psychology and looking like a Hasid?” he asked tightly.
I hadn’t really expected any other .answer. Then something occurred to me. “Won’t your father see the mail you get from the graduate schools you’ve applied to?”
He stared at me. “I never thought of that,” he said slowly. “I’ll have to intercept the mail.” He hesitated, his face rigid. “I can’t. It comes after I leave for school.” And his eyes filled with fear.
“I “mink you ought to have a talk with my father,” I said.
Danny came over to our apartment that night, and I took him into my father’s study. My father came quickly around from behind his desk and shook Danny’s hand.
“I have not seen you in such a long time,” he said, smiling warmly. “It is good to see you again, Danny. Please sit down.”
My father did not sit behind his desk. He sat next to us on the kitchen chair he had asked me. earlier to bring into the study.
“Do not be angry at Reuven for telling me,” he said quietly to Danny. “I have had practice with keeping secrets.”
Danny, smiled nervously.
“You will tell your father on the day of your ordination?”
Danny nodded.
“There is a girl involved?”
Danny nodded again, giving me a momentary glance.
“You will refuse to marry this girl?”
“Yes.”
“And your father will have to explain to her parents and to his followers.”
Danny was silent, his face-tight.
My father sighed softly. “It will be a very uncomfortable situation. For you and for your father. You are determined not to take your father’s place?”
“Yes,” Danny said.
“Then you must know exactly what you will tell him. Think carefully of what you will say. Think what your father’s questions will be. Think what he will be most concerned about after he hears of your decision. Do you understand me, Danny?”
Danny nodded slowly.
There was a long silence.
Then my father leaned forward in his chair. “Danny,” he said softly, “you can hear silence?”
Danny looked at him, startled. His blue eyes were wide, frightened. He glanced at me. Then he looked again at my father. And, slowly, he nodded his head.
“You are not angry at your father?”
Danny shook his head.
“Do you understand what he is doing?”
Danny hesitated. Then he shook his head again. His eyes were wide and moist.
My father sighed again. “It will be explained to you,” he said softly. “Your father will explain it to you. Because he will want you to carry it on with your own children one day.”
Danny blinked his eyes nervously.
“No one can help you with this, Danny. It is between you and your father. But think carefully of what you will say to him and of what his questions will be.”
My father came with us to the door of our apartment. I could hear Danny’s capped shoes tapping against the outside hallway floor. Then he was gone.
“What is this again about hearing silence, abba?” I asked.
But my father would say nothing. He went into his study and closed the door.
Danny received letters of acceptance from each of the three universities to which he had applied. The letters came in the mail to his home and lay untouched on the vestibule table until he returned from school. He told me about it in early January, a day after the third letter had come. I asked him who usually picked up the mail.
“My father,” he said, looking tense and bewildered. “Levi’s in school when it comes, and my mother doesn’t like climbing stairs.”
“Were there return addresses on the envelopes?”
“Of course.”
“Then how can’t he know?” I asked him.
“I don’t understand it,” he said, his voice edged with panic. “What is he waiting for? Why doesn’t he say something?” I felt sick with his fear and said nothing.
Danny told me a few days later that his sister was pregnant. She and her husband had been over to the house and had informed his parents. His father had smiled for the first time since Levi’s bar mitzvah, Danny said, and his mother had wept with joy. I asked him if his father gave any indication at all of knowing what his plans were.
“No,” he said.
“No indication at all?”
“No, I get nothing from him but silence.”
“Is he silent with Levi, too?”
“No.”
“Was he silent with your sister?”
“No.”
“I don’t like your father,” I told him. “I don’t like him at all.”
Danny said nothing. But his eyes blinked his fear.
A few days later, he told me, “My father asked me why you’re not coming over anymore on Shabbat.”
“He talked to you?”
“He didn’t talk. That isn’t talking.” –
“I study Talmud on Shabbat.”
“I know.”
“I’m not too eager to see him.”
He nodded unhappily.
“Have you decided which university you’re going to?”
“Columbia.”
“Why don’t you tell him and get it over with?”
“I’m afraid.”
“What difference does it make? If he’s’ going to throw you out of the house, he’ll do it no matter when you tell him.”
“I’ll have my degree in June. I’ll be ordained.”
“You can live with us. No, you can’t. You won’t eat at our house.”
“I could live with my sister.”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid. I’m afraid of the explosion. I’m afraid of anytime I’ll have to tell him. God, I’m afraid.”
My father would say nothing when I talked to him about it. “It is for Reb Saunders to explain,” he told me quietly.” I cannot explain what I do not completely understand. I cannot do it with my students, and I cannot do it with my son.”
A few days later, Danny told me that his father had asked again why I wasn’t coming over to their house anymore. “I’ll try to get over,” I said.
But I didn’t try very hard. I didn’t want to see Reb Saunders. I hated him as much now as I had when he had forced his silence between me and Danny.
The weeks passed and winter melted slowly into spring. Danny was working on an experimental psychology project that had to do with the relationship between reinforcement and rapidity of learning, and I was doing a long paper on the logic of ought statements. Danny pushed himself relentlessly in his work. He grew thin and gaunt, and the angles and bones of his face and hands jutted like sharp-peaks from beneath his skin. He stopped talking about the silence between him and his father. He seemed to be shouting down the silence with his work. Only his constantly blinking eyes gave any indication of his mounting terror.
The day before the start of the Passover school vacation period, he told me that his father had asked him once again why I wasn’t coming over to their house anymore. Could I possibly come over on Passover? he had wanted to know. He especially wanted to see me the first or second day of Passover.
‘I’ll try,” I said halfheartedly, without the slightest intention of trying at all.
But when I talked to my father that night, he said, with a strange sharpness in his voice, “You did not tell me Reb Saunders has been asking to see you.”
“He’s been asking all along.”
“Reuven, when someone asks to speak to you, you must let him speak to you. You still have not learned that? You did not learn that from what happened between you and Danny?”
“He wants to study Talmud, abba.”
“You are sure?”
“That’s all we’ve ever done when I go over there.”
“You only study Talmud? You have forgotten so quickly?”
I stared to him. “He wants to talk to me about Danny,” I said, and felt myself turn cold.
“You will go over the first day of the holiday. On Sunday.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Reuven, he did tell you. You have not been listening.”
“All these weeks—”
“Listen next time. Listen when someone speaks to you.”
“Maybe I should go over tonight.”
“No. They will be busy preparing for the holiday.”
“I’ll go over on Shabbat.”
“Reb Saunders asked you to come on Passover.”
“I told him we study Talmud on Shabbat.”
“You will go on Passover. He has a reason if he asked you to come especially on Passover. And listen next time when someone speaks to you, Reuven.”
He was angry, as angry as he had been in the hospital years ago when I had refused to talk to Danny.
I called Danny and told him I would be over on Sunday.
He sensed something in my voice. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’ll see you on Sunday.”
“Nothing’s wrong?” His voice was tight, apprehensive.
“No.”
“Come over around four,” he said. “My father needs to rest in the early afternoons.”
“Four.”
“Nothing’s wrong?”
“I’ll see you on Sunday,” I told him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
On the afternoon of the first day of Passover, I walked beneath the early spring sycamores on my street, then turned into Lee Avenue. The sun was warm and bright, and I went along slowly, past the houses and the shops and the synagogue where my father and I prayed. I met one of my classmates and we stopped to talk for a few minutes; then I went on alone, turning finally into Danny’s street. The sycamores formed a tangled bower through which the sun shone brightly, speckling the ground. There were tiny buds on these sycamores now and on some I could see the green shoots of infant leaves. In a month, those leaves would shut out the sky, but now the sun came through and brushed streaks of gold across the sidewalks, the street, the talking women, and the playing children. I walked along slowly, remembering the first time I had gone up this street years ago. Those years were coming to an end now. In three months, in a time when the leaves would be fat and full, our lives would separate like the branches overhead that made their own way into the sunlight.
I went slowly up the wide stone staircase of Danny’s house and through the wooden double door of the entrance. The hallway was dim and cold. The synagogue door stood open. I peered inside. Its emptiness whispered echoes at me: mistakes, gematriya, Talmud quizzes, and Reb Saunders staring at my left eye. You do not know yet what it is to be a friend. Scientific criticism, ah! Your father is an observer of the Commandments. It is not easy to be a true friend. Soft, silent echoes. It seemed tiny to me now, the synagogue, so much less neat than when I had seen it for the first time. The stands were scarred, the walls needed paint; the naked light bulbs seemed ugly, their bare, black wires like the dead branches of a stunted tree. What echoes will Reb Saunders’ study have? I thought. And I felt myself go tight with apprehension.
I stood at the foot of the inner stairway and called Danny’s name. My voice moved heavily through the silent house. I waited a moment, then called his name again. I heard the tapping of metal-capped shoes upon the third-floor stairway, then in the hallway over my head; and then Danny was standing at the head of the stairs, tall, gaunt, an almost spectral figure with his beard and earlocks and black satin caftan.
I climbed the stairs slowly, and he greeted me. He looked tired. His mother was resting, he said, and his brother was out somewhere. He and his father were studying Talmud. His voice was dull, flat, only faintly edged with fear. But his eyes mirrored clearly what his voice concealed.
We went up to the third floor. Danny seemed to hesitate before the door to his father’s study, almost as if he was wishing not to have to go back in there again. Then- he opened the door, and we stepped inside.
It had been almost a year since I had last been inside Reb Saunders’ study, but nothing about it had changed. There was the same massive, black wood, glass-topped desk, the same red carpet, the same glass-enclosed wooden bookcases jammed tight with books, the same musty old-book odor in the air, the same single light bulb glowing white behind its ceiling fixture. Nothing had really changed—nothing, except Reb Saunders himself.
He sat in his straight-backed, red leather chair and looked at me from behind the desk. His beard had gone almost completely gray, and he sat stooped forward, bent, as though he were carrying something on bis shoulders. His brow was crisscrossed with wrinkles, his dark eyes brooded and burned with some kind of invisible suffering, and the fingers of his right hand played aimlessly with a long, gray earlock.
He greeted me quietly, but did not offer me his hand. I had the feeling that a handshake was a physical effort he wanted to avoid.
Danny and I sat in the chairs by his desk, Danny to his right, I to his left. Danny’s face was expressionless, closed. He tugged nervously at an earlock.
Reb Saunders moved forward slightly in the chair and put his hands on the desk. Slowly, he closed the Talmud from which he and Danny had been studying. Then he sighed, a deep, trembling sigh that-filled the silence of the room like a wind.
“Nu, Reuven,” he said quietly, “finally, finally you come to see me.” He spoke in Yiddish, his voice quavering a little as the words came out.
“I apologize,” I said hesitantly, in English.
He nodded his head, and his right hand went up and stroked his gray beard. “You have become a man,” he said quietly. “The first day you sat here, you were only a boy. Now you are a man.”
Danny seemed suddenly to become conscious of the way he was twisting his earlock. He put his hand on his lap, clasped both hands tightly together and sat very still, staring at his father.
Reb Saunders looked at me and smiled feebly, nodding his head. “My son, my Daniel, has also become a man. It is a great joy for a father to see his son suddenly a man.” Danny stirred faintly in his chair, then was still. “What will you do after your graduation?” Reb Saunders asked quietly.
“I have another year to study for smicha.”
“And then what?”
“I’m going into the rabbinate.” He looked at me and blinked his eyes. I thought I saw him stiffen for a moment, as though in sudden pain. “You are going to become a rabbi,” he murmured, speaking more to himself than to me. He was silent for a moment. “Yes. I remember . . . Yes . . .” He sighed again and shook his head slowly, the gray beard moving back and forth. “My Daniel will receive his smicha in June,” he said quietly. Then he added, “In June . . . Yes . . . His smicha . . . Yes . . .” The words trailed off, aimless, disconnected, and hung in the air for a long moment of tight silence.
Then, slowly, he moved his right hand-across the closed Talmud, and his fingers caressed the Hebrew title of the tractate that was stamped into the spine of the binding. Then he clasped both hands together and rested them on top of the Talmud. His body followed the movements of his hands, and his gray earlocks moved along the sides of his aged face. “Nu,” he said, speaking softly, so softly I could barely hear him, “in June my Daniel and his good friend begin to go different ways. They are men, not children, and men go different ways. You will go one way, Reuven. And my son,”my Daniel, he will—he will go another way.”
I saw Danny’s mouth fall open. His body gave a single convulsive shudder. Different ways, I thought. Different ways. Then he—
“I know,” Reb Saunders murmured, as if he were reading my mind. “I have known it for a long time.”
Danny let out a soft, half-choked, trembling moan. Reb Saunders did not look at him. He had not once looked at him. He was talking to Danny through me.
“Reuven, I want you to listen carefully to what I will tell you now.” He had said: Reuven. His eyes had said: Danny. “You will not understand it. You may never understand it. And you may never stop hating me for what I have done. I know how you feel. I do not see it in your eyes? But I want you to listen.
“A man is born into this world with only a tiny spark of goodness in him. The spark is God, it is the soul; the rest is ugliness and evil, a shell. The spark must be guarded like a: treasure, it must be nurtured, it must be fanned into flame. It must learn to seek out other sparks, it must dominate the shell. Anything can be a shell, Reuven. Anything. Indifference, laziness, brutality, and genius. Yes, even a great mind can be a shell and choke the spark.
“Reuven, the Master of the Universe blessed me with a brilliant son. And he cursed me with all the problems of raising him. Ah-, what it is to have a brilliant sonl Not a smart son, Reuven, but a brilliant son, a Daniel, a boy v^ a mind like a jewel. Ah, what a curse itis, whatah ahgujsKvit^-to have a Daniel, whose mind is like a pearl, like a sun. Reuven, when my Daniel was four years old I saw him reading a story from a book. And I was frightened. He did not read the story, he swallowed it, as one swallows food or water. There was no soul in my four-year-old Daniel, there was only his mind. He was a mind in a body without a soul. It was a story in a Yiddish book about a poor Jew and his struggles to get to Eretz Yisroel before he died. Ah, how that man suffered! And my Daniel enjoyed the story, he enjoyed the last terrible page, because when he finished it he realized for the first time what a memory he had. He looked at me proudly and told me back the story from memory, and I cried inside my heart. I went away and cried to the Master of the Universe, ‘What have you done to me? A mind like this I need for a son? A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul!’
Reb Saunders paused and took a deep, trembling breath. I tried to swallow; my mouth was sand-dry. Danny sat with his right hand over his eyes, his glasses pushed up on his forehead. He was crying silently, his shoulders quivering. R eb Saunders did not look at him.
“My brother was likemy Daniel,” he went on quietly. “What a mind he had. What a mind. But he was also not like my Daniel. My Daniel, thank God, is healthy. But for many, many years my brother was ill. His mind burned with hunger for knowledge. But for many years his body was wasted with disease. And so my father did not raise him as he raised me. When he was well enough to go off to a yeshiva to study, it was too late.
“I was only a child when he left to study in Odessa, but I still remember what he was able to do with his mind. But it was a cold mind, Reuven, almost cruel, untouched by his soul. It was proud, haughty, impatient with less brilliant minds, grasping in its search for knowledge the way a conqueror grasps for power. It could not understand pain, it was indifferent to and impatient with suffering. It was even impatient with the illness of its own body. I never saw my brother again after he left for the yeshiva. He came under the influence of a Maskil in Odessa and went away to France where he became a great mathematician and taught in a university. He died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz. I learned of it four years ago. He was a Jew when he died, not an observer of the Commandments, but not a convert, thank God. I would like to believe that before he died he learned how much suffering there is in this world. I hope so. It will have redeemed his soul.
“Reuven, listen to what I am going to tell you now and remember it. You are a man, but it will be years before you understand my words. Perhaps you will never understand them. But hear me out, and have patience.
“When I was very young, my father, may he rest in peace, began to wake me in the middle of the night, just so I would cry. I was a child, but he would wake me and tell me stories, of the destruction of Jerusalem and the sufferings of the people of Israel, and I would cry. For years he did this. Once he took me to visit a hospital—ah, what an experience n that was! — and often he took me to visit the poor, the beggars, to listen to them talk. My father himself never talked to me, except when we studied together. He taught me with silence. He taught me to look into myself, to find my own strength, to walk around inside myself in company with my soul. When his people would ask him why he was so silent with his son, he would say to them that he did not like to talk, words are cruel, words play tricks, they distort what is in the heart, they conceal the heart, the heart speaks through silence. One learns of the pain of others by suffering one’s own pain, he would say, by turning inside oneself, by finding one’s own soul. And it is important to know of pain, he said. It destroys our self-pride, our arrogance, our indifference toward others. It makes us aware of how frail and tiny we are and of how much we must depend upon the Master of the Universe. Only slowly, very slowly, did I begin to understand what he was saying. For years his silence bewildered and frightened me, though I always trusted him, I never hated him. And when I was old enough to understand, he told me that of all people a tzaddik especially must know of pain. A tzaddik must know how to suffer, for his people, he said. He must take their pain from them and carry it on his own shoulders. He must carry it always. He must grow old before his years. He must cry, in his heart he must always cry. Even when he dances and sings, he must cry for the sufferings of his people. “You do not understand this, Reuven. I see from your eyes that you do not understand this. But my Daniel understands it now. He understands it well.
“Reuven, I did not want my Daniel to become like my brother, may he rest in peace. Better I should have had no son at all than to have a brilliant son who had no soul. I looked at my Daniel when he was four years old, and I said to myself, How will I teach this mind what it is to have a soul? How will I teach this mind to understand pain? How will I teach it to want to take on another person’s suffering? How will I do this and not lose my son, my precious son whom I love as I love the Master of the Universe Himself ? How will I do this and not cause my son, God forbid, to abandon the Master of the Universe and His Commandments? How could I teach my son the way I was taught by my father and not drive him away from Torah? Because this is America, Reuven. This is not Europe. It is an open world here. Here there are libraries and books and schools. Here there are great universities that do not concern themselves with how many Jewish students they have. I did not want to drive my son away from God, but I did not want him to grow up a mind without a soul. I knew already when he was a boy that I could not prevent his mind from going to the world for knowledge. I knew in my heart that it might prevent him from taking my place. But I had to prevent it from driving him away completely from the Master of the Universe. And I had to make certain his soul would be the soul of a tzaddik no matter what he did with his life.”
He closed his eyes and seemed to shrink into himself. His hands trembled. He was silent for a long time. Tears rolled slowly down alongside the bridge of his nose and disappeared into his beard. A shuddering sigh filled the room. Then he opened his eyes and stared down at the closed Talmud on the desk. “Ah, what a price to pay . . . The years when he was a child and I loved him and talked with him and held him under my tallis when I prayed . . . ‘Why do you cry, Father?’ he asked me once under the tallis. ‘Because people are suffering,’ I told him. He could not understand. Ah, what it is to be a mind, without a soul,’what ugliness it is . . . Those were the years he learned to trust me and love me . . . And when he was older, the years I drew myself away from him . . . ‘Why have you stopped answering my questions, Father?’ he asked me once. ‘You are old enough to look into your own soul for the answers,’ I told him. He laughed once and said, That man is such an ignoramus, Father.’ I was angry. ‘Look into his soul,’ I said. ‘Stand inside his soul and see the world through his eyes. You will know the pain he feels because of his ignorance, and you will not laugh.’ He was bewildered and hurt. The nightmares he began to have . . . But he learned to find answers for himself. He suffered and learned to listen to the suffering of others. In the silence between us, he began to hear the world crying.”
He stopped. A sigh came from his lips, a long, trembling sigh like a moan. Then he looked at me, his eyes moist with his own suffering. “Reuven, you and your father were a blessing to me. The Master of the Universe sent you to my son. He sent you when my son was ready to rebel; He sent you to listen to my son’s words. He sent you to be my closed eyes and my sealed ears. I looked at yoursoul, Reuven, not your mind. In your father’s writings I looked at his soul, not his mind. If you had not found the gematriya mistake, Reuven, it would have made a difference? No. The gemitriya mistake only told me you had a good mind. But your soul I knew already. I knew it when my Daniel came home and told me he wanted to be your friend. Ah, you should have seen his eyes that day. You should have heard his voice. What an effort it was for him to talk to me. But he talked. I knew your soul, Reuven, before I knew your mind or your face. A thousand times I have thanked the Master of the-Universe that He sent you and your father to my son.
“You think I was cruel? Yes, I see from your eyes that you think I was cruel to my Daniel. Perhaps. But he has learned. Let my Daniel become a psychologist I. know he wishes to become a psychologist. I do not see his books? I did not see the letters from the universities? I do not see his eyes? I do not hear his soul crying? Of course I know. For a long time I have known. Let my Daniel become a psychologist. have no more fear now. All his life he will be a tzaddik. He wil be a tzaddik for the world. And the world needs a tzaddik.”
Reb Saunders stopped and looked slowly over at his son. Danny still sat with his hand oyer his eyes, his shoulders trembling. Reb Saunders looked at his son a long time; I had the feeling he was preparing himself for some gigantic effort, one that would completely drain what little strength he had left.
Then he spoke his son’s name.
There was silence.
Reb Saunders spoke his son’s name again. Danny took his hand away from his eyes and looked at his father.
“Daniel” Reb Saunders said, speaking almost in a whisper,” when you go away to study, you will shave off your beard and earlocks?”
Danny stared at his father. His eyes were wet He nodded his head slowly.
Reb Saunders looked at him. “You will remain an observer of the Commandments?” he asked softly.
Danny nodded again. Reb Saunders sat back slowly in his chair. And from his lips came a soft, tremulous sigh. He was silent for a moment, his eyes wide, dark, brooding, gazing upon his son. He nodded his head once, as if in final acknowledgment of his tortured victory.
Then he looked back at me, and his voice was gentle as he spoke. “Reuven, I—I ask you to forgive me . . . my anger . . . at your father’s Zionism. I read his speech . . . I—I found my own meaning for my . . . brother’s death . . for the death of the six million. I found it in God’s will . . . which I did not presume to understand. I did not—I did not find it in a Jewish state that does not follow God and His Torah. My brother . . . the others . . . they could not—they could not have died for such a state. Forgive me. . . your father . . . it was too much . . . too much—”
His voice broke. He held himself tightly. His beard moved faintly with the trembling of his lips. “Daniel,” he said brokenly. “Forgive me . . . for everything . . . I have done. A—a wiser father … may have done differently. I am not . . . wise.”
He rose slowly, painfully, to his feet. “Today is the—the Festival of Freedom.” There was a soft hint of bitterness in his voice. “Today my Daniel is free . . . I must go . . . I am very tired . . . I must lie down.”
He walked heavily out of the room, his shoulders stooped, his face old and torn with pain.
The door closed with a soft click.
Then I sat and listened to Danny cry. He held his face in his hands, and his sobs tore apart the silence of the room and racked his body. I went over to him and put my hand on his shoulder and felt him trembling and crying. And then I was crying too, crying with Danny, silently, for his pain and for the years of his suffering, knowing that I loved him, and not knowing whether I hated or loved the long, anguished years of his life. He cried for a Jong time, and I left him in the.chair and went to the window and listened to his sobs. The sun was low over the brownstones on the other side of the yard, and an ailanthus stood silhouetted against its golden rim, its budding branches forming a lace curtain through which a wind moved softly. I watched the sun set. The evening spread itself slowly across the sky.
Later, we walked through the streets. We walked for hours, saying nothing, and occasionally I saw him rub his eyes and heard him sigh. We walked past our synagogue, past the shops and houses, past the library where we had sat and read, walking in silence and saying more with that silence than with a lifetime of words. Late, late that night I left Danny at his home and returned alone to the apartment .
My father was in the kitchen and there was a strange brooding sadness on his face. I sat down and he looked at me, his eyes somber behind their steel-rimmed spectacles. And I told him everything.
When I was done, he was quiet for a very long time. Then he said softly, “A father has a right to raise his son in his own way, Reuven.”
“In that way, abba?”
“Yes. Though I do not care for it at all.”
“What kind of way is that to raise a son?”
“It is, perhaps, the only way to raise a tzaddik.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t raised that way.”
“Reuven,” my father said softly. “I did not have to raise you that way. I am not a tzaddik.”
During the Morning Service on the first Shabbat in June, Reb Saunders announced to the congregation his son’s intention to study psychology. The announcement was greeted with shocked dismay. Danny was in the synagogue at the time, and all eyes turned to stare at him in astonishment. Whereupon Reb Saunders further stated that this was his son’s wish, that he, as a father, respected his son’s soul and mind – in that order, according to what Danny later told me – that his son had every intention of remaining an observer of the Commandments, and that, therefore, he felt compelled to give his son his blessing. The turmoil among Reb Saunders followers that was caused by this announcement was considerable. But no one dared to challenge Reb Saunders’ tacit transference of power to his younger son. After all, the tzaddikate was inherited, and the charisma went automatically from father to son—all sons.
Two days later, Reb Saunders withdrew his promise to the family of the girl Danny was supposed to marry. There had been some fuss over-that, Danny told me afterward. But it had quieted down after a while.
The reaction at Hirsch College, once the news of Reb Saunders’ announcement was out, lasted all of about two or three days. The non-Hasidic students talked about it for a day or so, and then forgot it. The Hasidic students sulked, scowled, glowered, and then forgot it, too. Everyone was busy with final examinations.
That June Danny and I were among the seventy-eight students who were graduated from Hirsch College, to the accompaniment of numerous speeches, applause, honorary degrees, and family congratulations. Both of us had earned our degrees summa cum laude.
Danny came over to our apartment one evening in September. He was moving into a room he had rented near Columbia, he said, and he wanted to say goodbye. His beard and earlocks were gone, and his face looked pale. But there was a light in his eyes that was almost blinding.
My father smiled at him warmly. “Columbia is not so far,” he said. “We will see you on Shabbat.” Danny nodded, his eyes glowing, luminous.
I asked him how his father had reacted when he had seen him without the beard and earlocks.
He smiled sadly. “He’s not happy about it. He said he almost doesn’t recognize me.”
“He talked to you?”
“Yes,” Danny said quietly. “We talk now.”
There was a long, gentle silence. A cool breeze moved soundlessly through the open windows of the living room.
Then my father leaned forward in his chair. “Danny,” he said softly, “when you have a son of your own, you will raise him in silence?”
Danny said nothing for a long time. Then his right hand rose slowly to the side of his face and with his thumb and forefinger he gently caressed an imaginary earlock.
“Yes,” he said. “If I can’t find another way.”
My father nodded, his eyes calm.
Later, I went down with Danny to the street.
“You’ll come over sometimes on a Saturday and we’ll study Talmud with my father?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said.
We shook hands and I watched him walk quickly away, tall, lean, bent forward with eagerness and hungry for the future, his metal capped shoes tapping against the sidewalk. Then he turned into Lee Avenue and was gone.
THE END
Chaim Potok was born Herman Harold Potok in Buffalo, New York in 1929. He died in 2002. He was an American Jewish author , rabbi, theologian and professor.
Potok wrote The Chosen in 1967. It has sold more than 3,400,000 copies. He wrote a sequel, The Promise, in 1969.
The following synopsis of The Chosen, and the vocabulary words at the end, come from: http://potok.lasierra.edu/Chosen.guide.html
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
Introduction/Plot Summary
In The Chosen, Danny Saunders, a young Hasidic Jew, struggles to free himself from his inherited position as eventual leader of a religious sect whose views and customs he cannot uphold. Because Hasidic traditions carry great spiritual, moral, and intellectual force for Danny, and because he deeply loves and admires his father, Reb Saunders, who has dedicated his life to teaching him to carry on these traditions, Danny’s struggle to free himself is a soul-wrenching one. Because his father’s beliefs seem inapplicable to the America of the 1940s in which Danny is coming into manhood, the struggle is also a cultural one–a matter of replacing the responses his ancestors developed to defend themselves against centuries of European persecution with ones suited to a tolerant society rich with possibilities; to America, the “open world.”
The action of The Chosen unfolds in the immigrant community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, against the backdrop of World War II. It is seen through the eyes of Reuven Malter, a boy who would appear to have much in common with Danny, for they are both brilliant, Jewish, closely tied to their fathers, and near-neighbors who live only five blocks apart. Still, they attend separate yeshivas (parochial schools) and inhabit very different worlds. Reuven’s yeshiva, where his father teachers, prides itself on being “emancipated from the fenced-off ghetto mentality typical of other parochial schools.” Danny’s, on the other hand, was established by his father, a rabbi and leader of a small sect which follows strict Hasidic traditions. Isolated and suspicious of outsiders including members of neighboring rival sects, the Hasids of Williamsburg “derive from southern Poland yet they walk the Brooklyn streets like specters with their black hats, long black coats, black beards, and earlocks.” The Hasids are also contemptuous of Jews who ignore the traditions of dress and study which they scrupulously adhere to, and have a special name which brands these Jews as second-rate, the apikorsim.
Because World War II is raging in Europe, some of the teachers who are in charge of the English subjects at the Williamsburg yeshivas have drawn up a plan to demonstrate to the gentile (non-Jewish) world that the yeshiva students are as physically fit, despite their long hours of study, as the American students. A baseball league is begun. When Danny Saunders’ school plays Reuven Malter’s, the Hasids are determined to show the apikorsim a thing or two and the competition is fierce. Danny’s murderous pitching is particularly intimidating, but when Reuven comes to bat he does not back away. A hard ball shatters his glasses and smashes into his eye, sending him to the hospital for a week. At his father’s insistence, Reuven permits the repentant Danny to visit him, and they become friends.
Danny dazzles Reuven with demonstrations of his photographic mind, with the quantity of scholarly work he bears each day, and with the intellectual prowess of his English and Hebrew studies–qualities greatly revered in traditional Jewish culture. Danny’s revelations startle Reuven; he confesses he would rather be a psychologist than accept his inherited role as spiritual leader of his father’s sect. Reuven’s confessions surprise Danny; he reveals his desire to become a rabbi, though his scholar-father would prefer him to follow his talent and become a mathematician. Danny cannot understand how anyone would choose the very position he secretly wishes to reject. At a time when conflicts are churning within him, Danny finds a needed confidante in Reuven, an empathetic listener who is highly intelligent yet safe–not a Hasid, but a Jew who follows orthodox religious traditions without rejecting the secular possibilities in the world around them.
As the boys become friends, Reuven begins to learn about Hasidism. Though he scoffs at its narrowness, his father tells him he must understand its origins if his is to appreciate the turmoil his new friend is experiencing. For it is in the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe, Mr. Malter explains to Reuven, that his friend’s “soul” had been born. First there were centuries of persecution–Jews fleeing from Germany to Poland in the thirteenth century, academies set up, an economy built–until in the seventeenth century the Jewish community in Poland began to flourish. But one hundred years later it was nearly destroyed at the hands of the Polish Cossacks, and it was at this point that Hasidism began. The Hasidim lived shout off from the rest of the world; whatever was not Jewish and Hasidic was forbidden. Many separate sects emerged, each with its own spiritual leaders whose every word was considered to be holy. These leaders, or tzaddiks, were believed to be superhuman links between the people and God. In some sects it was believed that a leader should take upon himself the sufferings of the Jewish people, for their sufferings were so great they would be unendurable if their leaders did not somehow absorb these into themselves.
Such a leader is Reb Saunders. His ways and his teachings are the ways of seventeenth century Hasids and it is this role that Danny is expected to fill when he becomes the tzaddik. In the long and uncomfortable initial visits that Reuven pays to Reb Saunder’s congregation to be approved as fit company for Danny, Reuven observes the way Hasidic philosophy permeates his friend’s life:
“‘The world kills us!'” Reb Saunders instructs his congregation, “‘The world laughs at Torah! And if it does not kill us, it tempts us! It misleads us! It contaminates us! It asks us to join in its ugliness, its impurities, its abominations! It is not the world that is commanded to study Torah, but the people of Israel! We are only half alive in this world! Half alive!'”
As Reuven listens to this outpouring he thinks, “I didn’t agree at all with his notions of the world as being contaminated. Albert Einstein is part of the world…President Roosevelt is part of the world. The millions of soldiers fighting Hitler are part of the world.” But this view is the one that Danny, with all his brilliance and all his intellectual curiosity, is going to have to promulgate when he becomes leader of a congregation.
Reuven’s father finds this world view equally appalling. Weeks before the accident which brings the two boys together, Mr. Malter meets Danny in the public library and begins to guide him in his search for knowledge of the world through the “forbidden books” prescribed by his father.Mr. Malter tells Reuven of Danny’s brilliant mind, his insatiable appetite for learning, the amazing speed with which he digests information. “‘It is a shame that a mind such as Danny’s will be shut off from the world,'” he laments, and justifies giving Danny books to read “behind his father’s back” by explaining, “‘Danny would have continued to read anyway on his own. At least this way he has some direction from an adult.'”
Mr. Malter and Reb Saunders are, in some ways, antithetical characters. Passionately involved in the world the Hasid defines as “the world that kills,” Mr. Malter’s widely published articles, his commitment to teaching, his political activism on behalf of the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, and his continual discussions with his son are in direct opposition to Reb Saunders’ sanction against writing (publishing is forbidden to a Hasid, only discussion of the Talmud is permitted); his opposition to the state of Israel, a state that does not follow God or Torah, and therefore a desecration; and his method of raising his son “in silence,” speaking only when they are studying Talmud.
When the Germans surrender and the existence of the concentration camps becomes known for the first time, the two men’s reactions are characteristic. For Mr. Malter, overwhelming grief is followed by a determination to counter the senseless suffering of the millions who died with something meaningful: the creation of the state of Israel. “‘There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? A man must fill his life with meaning; meaning is not automatically given to life.'”
His life comes to revolve around two ideas: educating American Jews and helping to make a Jewish state a reality. “‘We have a terrible responsibility,'” Mr. Malter tells Reuven, “‘We must replace the treasures we have lost…Six million of our people have been slaughtered. It will have meaning only if we give it meaning.'”
“‘Ah, how the world kills us!'” Reb Saunders exclaims when he learns of the concentration camps,”‘How the world drinks our blood. It is the will of God. We must accept the will of God!'” Anguish and suffering are his response to the holocaust. Acceptance of God’s will is the only action he knows how to take.
While Reb Saunders suffers, Danny struggles to educate himself in the ideas of Freud and in the problems of contemporary Judaism. He combines the double load of schoolwork and the rigorous study of Talmud which forms the basis of his relation to his father, with his own attempts to educate himself in his quest for identity. Reuven, too, is seen to spend many hours of his day in study. There is a passion for learning in these two characters, one that is shaped by the religion itself. To study Talmud is to engage in scholarly work, the novel shows. There are lines of religious text and there are commentaries written by the various rabbis whose opinions are included in Talmud. Often these opinions contradict one another; it is not a question of finding a “right answer,” but of asking the right questions. Each father tests his son’s acumen by a series of questions which demand careful responses and a great deal of preparation. Each father, Hasidic rabbi or free-thinking scholar, finds joy in the knowledge that his son will surpass him in scholarly achievements.
It is his passion to know, to know the world and to know himself that ultimately leads Danny to reject Hasidism. He comes to see that the world of his father is too restricted; he begins to feel trapped. At the same time, the respect and love he feels make it terribly difficult for Danny to disregard the ties that bind him to his father’s way of life. “‘I don’t know what he’s trying to do to me with this weird silence that he’s established between us, but I admire him. I think he’s a great man. I respect him and trust him completely, which is why I think I can live with his silence. And I pity him, too. Intellectually, he’s trapped. He was born trapped. I don’t ever want to be trapped the way he’s trapped…It’s the most hellish, choking, constricting feeling in the world. I scream with every bone in my body to get out of it. My mind cries to get out of it.'”
The novel begins with Danny and Reuven as high school boys and concludes with their graduation from college. Danny has decided to get out of the life that imprisons him; he will take off the clothing and shun the trappings of the Hasid, go on to graduate school, and become a psychologist. When he has resolved to do this, Mr. Malter tells him he must prepare the things he will say to his father very carefully for Danny’s decision has deep repercussions: An arranged marriage will have to be broken, the inheritance of spiritual leadership will go to Danny’s sickly younger brother, the tradition of six generations will have been broken, and Reb Saunders will have lost to the world he hates and fears the son he most treasures.
Before Danny can confront his father, however, his father confronts him. Using Reuven as a foil through whom to speak to his son, Reb Saunders reveals that he knows his son will not become a rabbi. “‘I know…I have known it for a long time.'”
“‘This is America,'” Reb Saunders explains, “‘Not Europe but an open world. Here there are libraries and books and schools. Here there are great universities that do not concern themselves with how many Jewish students they have. I knew already that I could not prevent [Danny’s] mind from going into the world for knowledge. I knew in my heart that it might prevent him from taking my place. I had to make certain his would be the soul of a tzaddik no matter what he did with his life.'”
And so Reb Saunders reveals his plan was not merely to train Danny to take his inherited position, but rather to pass along the tradition of the tzaddik so that if Danny chose to reject the old world, he would be prepared to enter the new one with a compassionate soul, not merely with a brilliant uncaring intellect. “‘One learns the pain of others by suffering one’s own pain,'” Reb Saunders explains, “‘By turning oneself inside out…by finding one’s own soul. And it is important to know of pain…It destroys our self pride, our arrogance, our indifference towards others. And of all people a tzaddik especially must know of pain. A tzaddik must know how to suffer for his people. He must take the pain from them and carry it on his own shoulders.'” It is for this end that Danny has been raised “in silence”. And although Danny has decided to reject many aspects of his upbringing, he tells the Malters that he is prepared to raise his own son in silence,”‘If I cannot find another way.'”
Reb Saunders’ pain is made evident at the novel’s conclusion. He has recognized his own limitations as Danny’s teacher and has seen the Malters, both father and son, as a blessing: worthy guides for Danny in his period of crisis, able to integrate Danny into the America he himself is cut off from, and compassionate individuals in their own right, an essential feature in a teacher.
He can accept his son’s decision, having seen the agony Danny has experienced in his choice. “‘I do not see his books? I did not see the letters from the universities? I do not see his eyes? I do not hear his soul crying? Let my Daniel become a psychologist. I have no fear now. All his life will be a tzaddik. He will be a tzaddik for the world. And the world needs a tzaddik.'”
In The Chosen younger readers will naturally identify with Danny’s struggle; they will celebrate his “festival of freedom” with all its attendant pain. With the narrator, Reuven Malter, they will find it difficult if not impossible to understand Reb Saunders’ methods or his objectives, but it is interesting and very moving to read the last chapter in which so much of Reb Saunders’ conflict and pain is given voice.
In a sense we come to see how much the two fathers of this novel share; how they value similar qualities in their sons: intelligence, intellectual achievement, compassion. And although for Reb Saunders compassion is viewed as the ability to suffer, to internalize the pain which has always surrounded Jews in the world, for Mr. Malters it is not enough to suffer; suffering must be wedded to work, to action which will redeem the meaningless of the evil that is always in the world. It is this work which Danny comes to seek, which he chooses, not freely, but with great anguish as he breaks the tradition that demands he become a tzaddik for a small community of Jews and establishes a new role for himself as tzaddik for the world.
Vocabulary:
Hasid: Member of a Jewish sect who follows the religious and social precepts set down in the 17th century.
Yiddish: A language spoken by Jews since the Middle Ages. Its components are Hebrew, German, and Slavic.
assimilationist: One who adopts the practice of a prevailing culture.
fanatic: Rigorous believer.
Talmud: In Hebrew, the word for “teachings.” Applied to the collection of academic discussion and judicial administration of Jewish law written by generations of scholars over hundreds of years.
apikorsim: An unbeliever or skeptic. One who does not adhere to Jewish religious belief or practice.
rabbi: Religious leader and head of a congregation.
Cossacks: Polish soldiers who, under the leadership of Chmielnicki, annihilated hundreds of Jewish communities in 1648, killing hundreds of thousands of people.
tallit: Hebrew prayer shawl worn by adult males.
tefillin: Two small black boxes fastened to leather straps, containing parts of the Torah and worn during morning prayer.
shofar: Ram’s horn blown at various religious services.
the Kaballah: Books of Jewish mysticism.
tzaddik: According to Hasidism, a pious leader who is the intermediary between God and man, the “soul of the world.”
Torah: The written law given to Moses at Mount Sinai, including the Talmud and related commentaries.
gematriya: A method of interpreting a biblical word based on the numerical value of its letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
misnaged: Opponents of the Hasidic movement who criticize belief in the tzaddik.
Teresienstadt: The name of a German concentration camp.
goyim: The Hebrew word for non-Jews.
Zionism: The movement to secure the return of the Jewish people to Palestine.
bar mitzvah: The ceremony marking the initiation of a 13-year-old boy into adulthood and the Jewish religious community.
