The Chosen

by Chaim Potok

“It is written in the name of Rabbi Yaakov, not Rabbi Meir,”

there is a tradition which takes place on Shabbat afternoon: The father

quizzes the son on what he has learned in school during the past week. I was witnessing a kind of public quiz, but a strange, almost bizarre quiz, more a contest than

The men around the tables were watching as if in ecstasy, their faces glowing with pride.

The way Danny had to answer his father’s questions like that in front of everybody. I thought that was terrible.”

“It is not terrible,

Reuven. Not for Danny, not for his father, and not for the people who listened. It is an old tradition, th...

“But in public like that, abba!” “Yes, Reuven. In public like that. How else would Reb Saunders’s people know that Danny has a head for Talmud?”

My father nodded. “It is a little cruel, Reuven. But that is the way the world is. If a person has a contribution to make, he must make it in public. If learning is not made public, it is a waste.

“Reb Saunders is a great man, Reuven. Great men are always difficult to understand. He carries the burden of many people on his shoulders.

If he were not a tzaddik he could make a great contribution to the world. But he lives only in his own world. It is a great pity.

It is a shame that a mind such as Danny’s will be shut off from the world.”

I had the distinct impression that he was reading the middle of the page only and was somehow able to ignore, or absorb without actually reading, what was written on the sides.

Dov Baer invented the idea of the tzaddik.”

While the tzaddik cared for the conduct of the world, for the obtaining of heavenly grace, and especially for Israel’s preservation and glorification, his adherents had to cultivate three kinds of virtues.

It was their duty to draw nigh to him, to enjoy the sight of him, and from time to time to make pilgrimages to him. Further, they were to confess their sins to him. By these means alone could they hope for pardon from their iniquities.’

He went on. “ ‘Finally, they had to bring him presents, rich gifts, which he knew how to employ to the best advantage.

“My father isn’t like that at all.” His voice was sad, and it trembled a little. “He really worries about his people. He worries about them so much he doesn’t even have time to talk to me.”

“Maybe,” he said, not convinced. “It’s awful to have someone give you an image like that of yourself.

“We’re so complicated inside,” he went on quietly. “There’s something in us called the unconscious that we’re completely unaware of. It practically dominates our lives, and we don’t even know it.”

“There’s so much to read,”

he said. “I’ve only really been reading for a few months. Did you know about the subconscious?”

“It’s true,” he said. “Dreams are full of unexpressed fears and hopes, things that we never even think of consciously. We think of them unconsciously deep down inside ourselves, and they come out in dreams.

“You mean these things go on and we don’t know anything about them?”

“He wants to read Freud.” My father’s eyes went wide behind their spectacles.

“The unconscious and dreams,” my father muttered. “And Freud. At the age of fifteen.” He shook his head gloomily. “But it will not be possible to stop him.”

“Graetz was biased, and his sources were not accurate. If I remember correctly, he calls the Hasidim vulgar drunkards, and he calls the tzaddikim

My father told me that night that there had been a serious question in his mind about how ethical it was for him to give Danny books to read behind his father’s back.

pointed out to my father that Danny was anyway reading on his own now, without direction from an adult. My father certainly hadn’t told him to read Freud.

afternoon together with his father, studying Pirkei Avot.

“I know all about you, Reuven Malter. Danny never stops talking about you.”

There were books everywhere—on

All the books seemed to be in Hebrew or Yiddish, and many of them were very old and in their original bindings.

There was a musty odor in the room, the odor of old books with yellow leaves and ancient bindings.

“You are a good mathematician. Now we will see what you know about more important things.”

Rabbinic literature can be studied in two different ways, in two directions, one might say. It can be studied quantitatively or qualitatively—or, as my father once put it, horizontally or vertically.

the

latter involves confining oneself to one single area until it is exhaustively covered, and then going on to new material.

My father, in his classes and when he studied with me at home, always u...

realized soon enough that the Pirkei Avot text was merely being used as a sort of jumping-off point for them, because they

were soon ranging through most of the major tractates of the Talmud again.

Danny and his father fought through their points with loud voices and wild gestures of their hands almost to

where I thought they might come to blows.

There was an ease about them, an intimacy, which had been totally lacking from the show they had put on before

the congregants last week.

And I soon realized something else: Reb Saunders was far happier when he lost to Danny than when he won.

would cast inquisitive glances at me, as if to ask what I was doing just sitting there while all this excitement was going on: Why in the world wasn’t I joining in the battle?

then I realized that though they knew so much more material than I did, once a passage was quoted and briefly explained, I was on almost equal footing with them.

I suddenly found myself on the field of combat, offering an interpretation

of the passage in support of Danny.