The first time I ever wept reading a book…”The Chosen”

Journal Entry - 8-27-07

[to give a little background, this was a journal entry from last night that I wanted to share with whomever…I just finished The Chosen, and here were my initial whatever…A brief synopsis for those who aren’t familiar with Judaism or The Chosen, two Jewish boys growing up in Brooklyn named Reuven and Danny. Reuven is an Orthodox Jew and Danny is a Hasidic Orthodox Jew. There fathers are opposite ends of the Orthodox spectrum. Reb Saunders, Danny’s father decided when Danny was a young child that he would not talk to his son, except when discussing Talmud. Danny decides not to become the hereditary “tzaddik” after his father. His father talks to Reuven while his son is sitting there, because he will not talk to his son about anything besides Talmud. The following is my journal entry]

I just finished The Chosen by Chaim Potok, a masterful piece of fiction at all levels.

I want to write my thoughts about this book, and I may do that in the future. But for now my thoughts will not do justice to the situation. I want to pour my heart onto the page. I know how impossible to describe in words how I felt and feel as I painful and eagerly, woefully and joyfully finished the final pages of the book.

Let me say but this, I cried, no I wept.

Now, so this may be burned in my memory forever, I will transcribe the final words of The Chosen with some short excerpts skipped yet maintaining the heart of what was said:

…[Narrator is Reb Saunders]Reuven, I want you to listen carefully to what I will tell you now…you will not understand it. You may never understand it. And you will never stop hating me for what I have done…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 son! Not a smart son, Reuven, but a brilliant son, a Daniel…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…There was no soul in my four year old Daniel, there was only his mind. It was a story in a Yiddish book about a poor Jew and his struggles to get to Eretz Yisrael before he died. Ah, how the 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 my son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want for my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want for my son, not a mind without a soul!”

My father [Reb Saunders’ father] himself never talked to me, except when we studied together. He taught me silence…the heart speaks through silence. One learns of the pain of others by suffering one’s own pain, he would say…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 depend on the Master of the Universe…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…

I looked at Daniel when he was four years old, and I said to myself, “How will I teach this mind to understand pain? How will I teach it to want to take on another person’s suffering?”…I had to make certain his soul would be the soul of a tzaddik no matter what he did with his life…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 is ignorance, and you will not laugh”…Let my Daniel become a psychologist. I have no fear now. All his life he will be a tzaddik. He will be a tzaddik for the world. And the world needs a tzaddik…

Then he spoke his son’s name.
There was silence.
Reb Saunders spoke his son’s name again…Today is the Festival of Freedom…

My [Reuven’s] 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.”