The Chosen

by Chaim Potok

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.

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.

“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.

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?

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.”

“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.

Ah, what it is to be a mind without a soul, what ugliness it is. . . .

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.’

. 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.”

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.

looked at your soul, Reuven, not your mind. In your father’s writings I looked at his soul, not his 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.

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. I have no more fear n...

“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.

“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—”

“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.”

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.

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,

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.

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 t...

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.

Two days later, Reb Saunders withdrew his promise to the family of the girl Danny was supposed to marry.

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.

“He talked to you?” “Yes,” Danny said quietly. “We talk now.”

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?”

“Yes,” he said. “If I can’t find another way.”

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.