The Chosen by Chaim Potok

amother

Floralwhite

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 9:16 am

#BestBubby wrote:

Totally unrealistic that Satmar-type Mesifta Bochrim would play baseball - with modern zionist boys.

You are right. And yet, the hallmark of great novelists is that they make it seem authentic, so that even as an insider, you can still feel that it could be real.

chanchy123

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 9:24 am

I read the book many times as a teen. I loved it. Funny fact I used the chapter explaining the fundamentals and history of chassidut to study for my bagrut (high school finals) in history on the topic of chadsidut and got an excellent grade.
There is something so profound about the nuanced relationships in the book, between the sons, their fathers, and their friend’s father. I did not enjoy the sequel, they all became annoying characters and very disappointing from a frum point of view. I do recommend the movie though, I watched it many years ago and remember it being really good.

chanchy123

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 9:28 am

leah233 wrote:

Potok clearly had a personal psychological issue with silence because in his house also the housekeeper did not allow anything to be said while she was serving supper. (or was it during the entire supper?)

I remember reading somewhere that the silence motive was in some way an allegory for the Holocaust.
ETA
The Holocaust is hardly mentioned in the book, but it’s very much about the Holocaust besides the other topics and themes.
I only realised how much it was about the Holocaust after watching the movie and later reading it as an adult.

Last edited by chanchy123 on Mon, Mar 08 2021, 9:33 am; edited 1 time in total

chanchy123

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 9:35 am

leah233 wrote:

Rabbi Saunders and Mr. Malter were completely different people.

Mr. Malter was an activist who was helping nobody on a personal level. He came across as the type of guy who thinks he knows everything and looks down at everyone who didn't think like him.

Rabbi Saunders was the opposite. He was extremely devoted to his Chasidim on a personal level. His involvement in klal affairs was only an outgrowth of his general responsibility to them.

All four main characters are mirror images of one another. It’s a bit clunky from a modern reader’s point of view - but works really well within the story. I wonder sometimes if it worked so well for me - because I read the book at such a young age and basically compared it to teen fiction which is always so simplified.

amother

Teal

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 9:47 am

I found Reuven to be a kind, compassionate, wise and a very bright young man.
I found Daniel to be self-centered, unaware, non-compassionate and brilliant.
I was surprised that the books intended to depict Daniel as caring and "unable to hurt another person unless it was a hurting in order to help". (something like that)
Reuven described Daniel as having - "The mind of an Einstein and the soul of a Schweitzer". (Something like that)
The whole friendship was one-sided. Daniel "used" Reuven through the difficult years when he was breaking out of his expected role and Reuven became the buffer. I didn't see Daniel helping Reuven much. Daniel was very self-absorbed.
Daniel stole Reuven's girlfriend and then never even told him. Let him figure it out himself.
Daniel was AWOL the second time Reuven's father had a heart attack.
Daniel used Reuven to catch up in the mathematical side of psychology.

Though I read this book decades ago, I have very strong opinions of this excellent book. Very Happy

chanchy123

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 9:50 am

amother [ Teal ] wrote:

I totally agree - although I think some of those things happened in the sequel. But Reuven became just as insufferable as a passive nobody that I didn’t care anymore.

leah233

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 9:56 am

amother [ Teal ] wrote:

It was not a one sided relationship. Reuven was using Danny to bolster his own view of himself.

The Saunders weren't constantly talking about how much smarter and better we are than non-Chasidim. Whereas the Malters were constantly putting Chasidim down. Reuven was getting a lot of self validation for his own way of life by helping Danny leave his.

Reuven was also constantly hanging out by the Suanders. He even spent a summer there as a freeloader. Whereas Danny rarely went over to Reuven's house looking for anything.

amother

Teal

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 10:11 am

leah233 wrote:

It was not a one sided relationship. Reuven was using Danny to bolster his own view of himself.

The Saunders weren't constantly talking about how much smarter and better we are than non-Chasidim. Whereas the Malters were constantly putting Chasidim down. Reuven was getting a lot of self validation for his own way of life by helping Danny leave his.

Reuven was also constantly hanging out by the Suanders. He even spent a summer there. Whereas Danny rarely went over to Reuven's house looking for anything.

Reuven did not need validation. He was comfortable in his way of life.
You are not remembering the story-line properly if you think that Reuven and his father judged the Chasidim but the Chasidim did not judge the "mitnagdim"

Both sides had trouble understanding the other.
But Reuven and his father were WAY kinder to the Chasidim than the Chasidim were to the "misnagdim". Reuven and his father's criticism was mostly intellectual. Not true the other way.

The "joke" was that Reuven was the apikoros. There was no joke that Daniel was ultra orthodox.
Daniel and his father and the Chasidim absolutely put "mitnagdim" down. Think about the first baseball game. The Chasidish team were horribly rude. Their team was initially forbidden to play against them.
Think about the Chasidish boys putting Reuven into cheirem because of his father's book.

amother

Floralwhite

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 11:13 am

I read the book a long tine ago, and watched the movie more recently.

If the movie is an accurate depiction of the book, I wouldnt characterize the Malters as "misnagdim" in the classic sense. (Does the book use that word to describe the Malters?)

They were more like today's MO. Misnagdim usually refer to talmidim of the Gr'a, or litvish people who oppose chassidus on the grounds that they didn't put Torah as the only pathway to serve Hashem.

If the Malters opposed chassidus, it was more because they didnt agree with their whole way of life, they way they secluded themselves from secular society. In that way, the Malters ideologically would fit the MO theology better, not Misnagdim.

leah233

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 11:48 am

amother [ Teal ] wrote:

But Reuven and his father were WAY kinder to the Chasidim than the Chasidim were to the "misnagdim". Reuven and his father's criticism was mostly intellectual. Not true the other way.

What kindness did Reuven and his father ever exhibit to Chasidim outside the context of taking a repressed Chasidish boy under their wing and showing him the light?

The Saunder's issue with Malter type non-Chasidim was over haskafa, principle and bad influences. The Malters were just intellectual snobs.

FranticFrummie

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 11:51 am

I enjoyed the book, I have not seen the movie.

The characters and their families were shown as very complicated, with their goals, hopes, flaws, and struggles. In that way, it was very authentic.

Does it "represent" any group? No more than any other person can represent a whole group. In other words, no. I don't see this as a large, sweeping commentary on Jewish life as a whole. It's a small book, about a few people, in a certain time. If you take it for more than that, you are projecting.

tigerwife

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 11:52 am

I didn’t know there was a sequel or movie.
There was definitely a negative bias on both sides. When they got to know each other, they realized they aren’t that different after all... except for Danny’s father. He was extremely unusual. So I was wondering if anyone thought his method of child-rearing was normal in any way, or was this complete dramatic fiction. Regarding the Holocaust, the beginning of he book takes place during WW2. American Jewry or the world for that matter had no idea about the horrors of the Final Solution until after the war ended.

It seems like Danny’s issue with Gemara was that he had a photographic memory and didn’t gain the satisfaction of figuring out a sugya because he knew all the sources by heart. Reuven was a “regular” brilliant student and the book does go into depth about how he enjoyed learning and taking ideas apart, and the brilliance and intellectual satisfaction of gemara in general.

I think in general, many Jews of that time period didn’t believe they could be as successful if they kept up their religious looking appearances. I think we need to be very grateful today that a boy in chassidish garb or a girl with a head covering and modest clothes can really go into any field they choose.

tigerwife

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 11:57 am

leah233 wrote:

I think they represented a way to pursue intellectual goals while remaining frum. Reuven was a very supportive friend and Danny needed him more than the other way around. He was lonely and probably thought he was the only one smart enough to need more than what he had. Actually, his father’s insistence on learning empathy was spot-on for someone so smart, but the silence thing was bizarre.

leah233

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 12:02 pm

tigerwife wrote:

Had the story been the other way around and it was the Saunders taking a MO boy -even a troubled one- who was heading towards becoming a major doctor or professor and helping him drop that trajectory and turn him Chasidish, the Malter's would not have perceived that behavior as kindness.

syrima

Mon, Mar 08 2021, 12:13 pm

The Chosen was a formative book for me ever since I first read it as a teen. I related to the silence of R' Saunders as I had a father who was uncommunicative about emotions, though we did talk (less than I would have liked) about other things. I think that it helped me to find meaning in a relationship that was never going to be the way I wanted it, and to find some peace. In some ways, having a father like I did made me stronger. I also view it as a metaphor to our relationship with our Father in Heaven... when does He speak to us? And isn't that very silence the backdrop for so much of our growth? Growth comes from a perceived lack. If we as parents provide too well and coddle our kids too much, are we denying them growth opportunities?