| 5/19/06 01:18 pm
I GOT A 100 ON MY TERM PAPER.
the 45 page one
"A++ (100)"
that's what my paper said.
i went up and thanked him and he said
"no, thank you...i mean....you really nailed it"
......i love mr. sullivan.
Chaim Potok is a prolific writer of novels baring the tribulations of Jewish life in America. His first novel, The Chosen, is written with this theme, and has become a classic. Touching and eloquent, the sincerity of the novel is breathtaking. The Chosen exemplifies a bildungsroman through the intellectual, moral, and psychological growth of its main character, Danny Saunders. Danny turns to his most trusted friend, Reuven, to help foster such growths. Born into the life of a Hasidic Jew, Danny is an illustration of not only the strictness of such a life, but also the combination of that with the inevitability of human growth.
Intellectually, Danny is a genius in The Chosen. The growth of his intellect cannot be measured by its magnitude. Rather, one must measure its quality and its significance to Danny's life choices. His analytic mind broadens as he attends several schools, reads forbidden books, and relentlessly studies Talmud, the book of Jewish law.
The Yeshiva Danny attends is unlike the one Reuven attends. The Hasidic qualities of Danny's allows only for Jewish based studies and activities. In order to play a baseball game, Danny has to tell his father that the opposing team is the best team around and that they have "a duty to beat [the] apikorsim at what [they are] best at'" (Potok 71). Even when the school is allowed to play the game a Rabbi must still attend to make certain that those on the team "don't mix too much with the apikorsim" (71). A term used to describe non-Hasidic Jews. The teachers at the Yeshiva are restricted just as much as the students. Danny recognizes that, "they're afraid they'll lose their jobs if they say something too exciting or challenging" (80). Everyone in the school is afraid of pushing the limits constantly implemented upon them. However, Danny studies with ease and learns the power of patience and respect for his teachers.
When Danny's days in the strict Yeshiva end he is allowed to attend Hirsch College. It is here that Danny begins to explore a fascination with Psychology that he has always had. After months of reading Freud, Danny's hopes are considerably quelled by his college psychology lessons, for "he had discovered that psychology in the Samson Raphael Hirsch Seminary and College meant experimental psychology only" (Potok 195), something Danny could not see the significance of. Danny turns to Reuven, his best friend, with this problem, and gets the boys sympathy in return, "Poor Danny, I thought. Professor Appleman, with his experimental psychology, is torturing your mind" (209). Reuven seems to inherently understand Danny's distaste for the subject. Danny struggles with his lessons for only a few months before speaking with his Professor and later admitting that " 'Appleman said something else, though, that made a lot of sense to me. He said that Freud evolved a theory of behavior based only on the study of abnormal cases'" (211). One must feel proud of Danny's understanding and acceptance of the scholar's point of view. His education at Hirsch is then effortless, having learned to manage and even enjoy the experimental psychology he once abhorred.
It is at the end of his education at Hirsch that Danny applies to graduate programs for Psychology. Accepted to Harvard, Columbia, and Berkeley, he ultimately attends Columbia University, for "Appleman suggested Columbia" (Potok 246). One is not surprised by his acceptance to such prestigious schools, however, for "Danny pushed himself relentlessly in his work" (257), ever since his days in the Yeshiva. Knowing these universities to be forbidden to Danny, Reuven asks of him how long "he would be able to keep his applications a secret" (254). To make his choice to attend Columbia Danny needed immense bravery, for it established the foundation for a future away from Hasidim traditions.
Danny is tempted to study and read books, which give his insatiable mind slight liberation. He has the right to read such books. Sadly, his lifestyle as a Hasidim results in the restriction of many of these secular novels. This struggle is a perfect example of "the constant strain in being both religiously Jewish and American" (Fremont-Smith 268). He can, and he cannot, study whatever he chooses; and so Danny must make a choice. Not untenably, he chooses the books. He confesses to Reuven, "I read a lot… I read about seven or eight books a week outside of my schoolwork" (Potok 79). All of these books offering a different point of view than that which he has been sheltered with. He further tells Reuven, "I read anything good that I can get my hands on. I'm reading Hemingway now" (79). Reading absolutely anything he can get his hands on is fair testimony to his avid need for literature. Knowing that the depth of his freedom is shallow, he hides his secret from everyone, save Reuven.
Danny also begins to read books about Psychology. Soon Danny starts reading the works of Freud, the father of psychology. Excitement and passion first blind Danny to the difficulties of this subject. "You've heard about Freud. He started psychoanalysis. I'm teaching myself German, so I can read him in the original" (Potok 149). With no training or education in the field, he is ready to undertake Freud, psychoanalysis, and the German language simultaneously. Once his phenomenal mind learns German he wears a "mask of frustration" (169) over Freud's work. "The whole thing was ridiculous and impossible; he wasn't getting anywhere" (169). For the first time, Danny cannot succeed. Perseverance leads to the growth of Danny's knowledge, however. Some weeks later he tells Reuven "he had worked out a method of doing Freud" (170). The method includes reading Freud sentence by sentence with a dictionary of psychological terms. His amazement with Freud is carried on with him to Hirsch, and throughout his life.
Danny's photographic memory is a testimony to his genius. When he reads he remembers every page, every word, by heart. He had achieved this level of intellect by the age of four. Reb. Saunders tells 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 [...] He looked at me proudly and told me back the story from memory. (Potok 263)
The pride Danny felt is evidence that he knew of his gift. He recites a passage of Talmud to Reuven eleven years later, "He recited about a third of the page word for word, including the commentaries and the Maimonidean legal decisions of the Talmudic disputations" (69). His memorization is impressive, though his ability to comprehend the words he recites is even more so. At the astonishment on his face Danny tells Reuven, "I have a photographic mind. My father says it's a gift from God" (69). With a sense of humility he quotes what his father thinks of his brilliance, rather than what he thinks. When he was a child Danny felt pride after "swallowing" the story he had read, but grown he uses his genius to study Jewish law and accepts it as a gift from his God.
Talmudic study is an integral part of Jewish life. Being especially devout Danny spends hours every day with this task. In Danny's house it is nearly the only thing of importance, "I have an agreement with my father. I study my quota of Talmud every day, and he doesn't care what I do the rest of the time" (Potok 68). His quota is "two blatt", four pages of Talmud, while most his age study only one page. Reb Saunders uses passages of Talmud as a way to quiz his son. Danny says of these quizzes to Reuven, "It's not that bad. The bad part is waiting until he makes the mistake. After that it's all right. But the mistakes aren't really very hard to find. He makes ones that he knows I can find. It's a kind of game almost" (137). Danny reacts with calm acceptance to what others would approach with dread, and he always wins the bizarre game. Reb Saunders also studies Talmud with Danny by way of debate. Reuven witnesses a debate between them:
They were soon ranging through most of the major tractates of the Talmud again. And it wasn't a quiz or a quiet contest this time, either. It was a pitched battle. With no congregants around, and with me an accepted member of the family, 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. Danny caught his father in a misquote, ran to get a Talmud from a shelf, and triumphantly showed his father where he had been wrong. (155)
Reb. Saunders finds great joy in being beaten by Danny and agrees, "face glowing, that his son was correct" (155). Just as most things, studying Talmud is unproblematic to Danny; Yet still he pores over the tractates, inexorably pushing himself.
Danny studies the intricacies of the Talmud in further detail at Hirsch University, where he is at once placed in the schools highest Talmud class. He is "the talk of the Talmud department by the end of two weeks and the accepted referee of all Talmudic arguments among the students" (Potok 197). Skills such as Danny's do not go over looked in a school like Hirsch. The extent to which the school's Hasidim population revered him "was obvious to everyone. They clung to him as though he were the reincarnation of the Besht, as though he were their student tzaddik, so to speak" (197). His brilliance has put him in a position to be their leader. They understand fully the "the intricacies of Talmudic study" (Fremont-Smith 268), and respectfully admire Danny. The attention Danny receives and the admiration he is shown does nothing to change him. The continuity of his humility testifies to his maturity.
Hasidim in Danny's community, like his fellow students, also see the boy's Talmudic aptitude. Even elders in his society know of his greatness. One day Reuven becomes a witness of this:
Two gray-bearded old men came over to Danny, and he got respectfully to his feet. They had had an argument over a passage of Talmud, they told him, each of them interpreting it in a different way, and they wondered who had been correct. (Potok 118)
Danny listens to their opinions, tells them modestly that they were both correct, and cites several reasons why. The Talmud quizzes between Reb Saunders and Danny are in front of a congregation who love watching Danny's aptitude interact with his father's. Upon Danny finding a mistake in his father's Talmud lecture, "a whisper of approval came from the crowd... Everyone sat staring at Danny" (130). The expectations of the crowd are at a height only Danny can reach. However, Danny thinks these customs a "ridiculous way to gain admiration and friendship" (131). He believes all human beings have the potential to answer their own questions, rather than turn to him. However, others' awe towards him for this gives him a perspective on his ability that he did not originally have.
Danny is graced with brilliance. However, he repudiates the notion of genius; to him his mind is just photographic. Yet to Danny a photographic mind is a commodity that leads and inspires others in countless ways. It is a condition that allows him to memorize and identify with all he reads, as well as succeed, quite impassively, in nearly all else he endeavors.
Being a Hasidic Jew is not synonymous with having a mature sense of morality, and Danny is living proof of this. He possesses the knowledge of what's right and what's wrong, however he ignores that knowledge with frequency. At times he acts with severe intolerance while at other times he defies his father. The worst of this, however, is that his dissipation is intrinsically wrought in him.
Danny masks his intolerance of others well until he plays a baseball game that quickly turns into a holy war. "The action revolves, simply and allegorically, around a baseball game between two Jewish parochial schools" (Shapiro 367). One team consists of Hasidic Jews; the other team encompasses merely orthodox Jews. Danny's rage is quiet yet irrepressible, "Danny Saunders, son and heir of the Hasid rabbi, wants to murder the apikorsim" (367). To Danny apikorsim are Jews who display complete irreverence towards the Master of the Universe, who waste potential moments of worship with sacrilegious idle time. While Danny is at the base that Reuven is covering, he tells him, "I told my team we're going to kill you apikorsim this afternoon" (Potok 23). His harsh words come with no expression. Danny cannot wait to be victorious over the other team, as if it will prove that Hasidim as a people are better than all others.
The baseball game changes Danny's perspective of not only apikorsim, but also eventually of Hasidim. As the war rages on eventually Danny's fury becomes physical; "Saunders slams a ball pitched by [Reuven] directly at his head, almost blinding him" (Shapiro 367). Reuven had been vexing Danny the entire game, but his revenge was exaggerated. Knowing what he has done, Danny visits Reuven in the hospital:
'Hello,' Danny Saunders said softly. 'I'm sorry if I woke you. The nurse told me it was alright to wait here.'
I looked at him in amazement. He was the last person in the world I had expected to visit me in the hospital.
'Before you tell me how much you hate me,' he said quietly, 'let me tell you that I'm sorry about what happened.' (Potok 62)
The heart felt and honest apology begins a friendship between him and Reuven. Danny's use of the word apikorsim is diminished from this point on as well.
Danny experiences a growth of morality that allows him to befriend Reuven, an apikorsim whom he previously would have loathed. "While [Reuven] is recovering in the hospital, the two boys become spiritual and intellectual brothers" (Shapiro 367). Danny understands more of human condition now, conditions including sadness and anger. Again he goes to Reuven in the hospital:
[Danny] looked at me and sat still. He didn't seem angry, just sad. His silence made me all the angrier, and finally I said, 'What the hell are you sitting there for? I thought you said you were gone home!'
'I came to talk to you,' he said quietly.
'Well, I don't want to listen.' I told him. 'Why don't you go home? Go home and be sorry over my eye!'
He stood up slowly. I could barely see his face because of the sunlight. His shoulders seemed bowed.
'I am sorry,' he said quietly.
'I'll just bet you are,' I told him.
He started to say something, stopped, then turned and walked slowly away up the aisle. (Potok 63)
Once, a more petulant Danny would have exploded, now a calm Danny patiently listens to the distress and anger of others. Danny refuses to allow a potential friendship to be lost, and again appeals to Reuven through visitation, this time with much improved results:
'Please stop calling me Malter,' [Reuven] said.
He looked at me. Then he smiled faintly. 'What do you want me to call you?'
'If you're going to call me anything, call me Reuven,' I said. 'Malter sounds as if you're a schoolteacher or something.'
'Okay,' he said, smiling again. 'Then you call me Danny.'
'Fine,' I said. (67)
The exchange of names symbolizes the acceptance of an apikorsim into Danny's life. The friendship becomes monumental in its strength, and stretches across every aspect of the two boys lives.
How people deceive or do not deceive others can also be a testimony to the rigidity of their principles. Mastering the art of deception, Danny betrays his fathers will. Disapproving of most secular books, Reb Saunders bans them from Danny; Danny begins to read them secretly, "I read in the library so my father won't know. He's very strict about what I read" (Potok 79). Danny knows the inappropriateness of his behavior; he knows well enough to hide it from his father. He cannot be blamed for this break in character though; one is obliged to admit that Danny has an exceptional mind that cannot be imprisoned:
I just get so tired of studying Talmud all the time. I know the stuff cold, and it gets a little boring after a while. So I read whatever I can get my hand on. But I only read what the librarian says is worthwhile. I met a man there, and he keeps suggesting books for me to read. That librarian is funny. She's a nice person, but she keeps staring at me all the time. She's probably wondering what a person like me is doing reading all those books. (80)
Many Hasidic Jews are not allowed to read such literature; the librarian's wonder at Danny is not unfounded. Hiding this increment of rebellion is the most important thing to Danny, his trips to the library are cautious and he operates with vigilance. Reuven accompanies Danny to the library, and as they are leaving Reuven observes his wariness, "When we were about halfway down the staircase to the second floor, Danny stopped and looked carefully around. He did the same when we were going down to the main floor" (150). He looks not only for his father, but also for anyone whom his popular family may know. Fear has a strong hold on Danny in the library, but his determination to read overshadows that fear.
One is not surprised that Reb. Saunders soon finds out about Danny's dishonesty. Surpassing his anger is his sadness that Danny would try to trick him in such a way. He goes to Reuven, not Danny, to confess his knowledge of the situation, "I know that my Daniel spends hours almost every day in the public library" (Potok 157). How he knows is not explained, though to Danny it is simply enough that he knows. Of the seemingly divinely received knowledge he does say "the neighborhood is not so big that he could hide this from me forever. When my son does not come home in the afternoons week after week, I want to know where he is. Nu, now I know" (157). The fear Danny experienced in the library was not in vain as his father learned of his reading secular books from someone in his neighborhood. The problem of Danny hungering for secular books is soon resolved as Reb. Saunders admits, "I know the mind he has, and I know I can no longer tell him what yes to read and what not to read" (157). Resignation is hard for Reb. Saunders, but Danny's growth cannot be caged by any limitations. Reuven tells Danny of his father's knowledge of his lies, and that his father will do nothing and say nothing to stop him; Danny's fear dissolves at these words.
Intricate novels and nonfiction essays monopolize most of Danny's time after his father's inconsequential intervention. He says to Reuven, "I don't know how he found out I was reading behind his back, but I'm glad he knows about it. At least I won't have to walk around in that library scared to death. I just feel bad having had to fool my father like that" (Potok 160). His morality has grown, it is shown in the way he feels badly for having fooled his father. He begins to read a vulgar account of the history of the Hasid people, finding distaste in every line and anguish at his own identity. "It's awful to have someone give you an image like that of yourself" (146). For the first time he considers Hasidism to be near vile. Turning from such overwhelming works, he reads those of Freud:
Danny nodded. 'You can find out about it, though. About your unconscious, I mean. That's what psychoanalysis is all about. I haven't read too much about it yet, but it's a long process. Freud started it. You've heard about Freud. He started psychoanalysis. I'm teaching myself German, so I can read him in the original. He discovered the unconscious, too'. (149)
His excitement is genuine, but the works of Freud become daunting to him. Even more surprising are his plans to study German, which would indubitably create a fury in Reb. Saunders. For right after World War II studying the German language is a strange decision for any Jew. Reuven argues with Danny:
I stared at him and felt a shock of coldness move inside me. 'You're studying German?'
He seemed surprised at my reaction. 'What's wrong with studying German? Freud wrote in German. What are you looking at me like that for?' (148)
That Danny finds nothing wrong with studying German is apparent, though he must realize other's bewilderment. As life develops for Danny he begins to know what is important to him and abandons opinions of others.
Danny's father has always believed that his son's lack of compassion is intrinsic. Reb. Saunders, sadly, tells Reuven that he believes Danny's corruption began at birth:
'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, a boy with a mind like a jewel. Ah, what a curse it is, what an anguish it is 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, […] 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. […] I went away and cried to the Master of the Universe, what have you don't 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!' (Potok 264)
Danny's mind, his near absurd brilliance, frightened his father more than anything ever had. One of his fears, which was realized, was that Danny would grow and, with his intelligence forming rebellion, be influenced by such an impious world, "Because this is America, [.] This is not Europe. It is an open world here. Here there are libraries and books and schools" (266). Influence as a father goes far, but a child with a mind such as Danny's cannot sit quietly while the world erupts around him, it must listen and learn and interact with such a world. Determination overcomes Danny's father, and he searches his own mind for a way to gently change his son:
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? (265)
Nothing is of such importance as compassion to Reb. Saunders, but he perceives it impossible in the case of his son. How would Reb. Saunders teach and show such beautiful ideas to his son if at the age of four Danny is morally nonexistence, and generating fear in a grown man?
The decision Reb Saunders makes is to parent Danny through silence. Teaching a child through silence "was practiced in Europe by some Hasidic families" (Potok 266). You do not speak to your child, allowing them to find their own answers and their own soul. In Reb Saunders' desperation to give his son a soul, he ceased speaking to him except for when they studied Talmud. He remembers when he first began the silence:
Those were 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 answer, 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. (266)
His sons own ignorance pains him into the drastic measures he employs. Danny grows up in silence from then on, and when Reb Saunders finally breaks this silence he knows that he has given his son a soul, but at what price? "Daniel.forgive me.for everything.I have done. A-a wiser father.may have done differently. I am not.wise" (268). The pain he feels is heartbreakingly sincere, for the pain he knows he has caused his son is now resonating within him. Reuven knows of the silence as well, and finds it horrific. Reb Saunders says to him, "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" (267). He has learned to feel the pain and happiness of others, the only thing Reb. Saunders wanted for his son. One must agree with Reuven in his distaste for such rearing, but in the same breath must acknowledge Danny's moral growth.
Through the silence forced upon him by his father Danny does become a compassionate person who reacts with tenderness to the confusion and pain of others. In the words of his father, "He suffered and learned to listen to the suffering of others. In the silence between us, he began to hear the world crying" (Potok 267). Danny cannot help but understand the anguish of others, for he too has felt anguish just as deep. Even the physical distress of his sickly younger brother is comprehensible to him:
He went on talking about his brother. 'It must really be hell to walk around sick all the time and have to depend upon pills. He's really a sweet kid. And bright, too.' He seemed to be rambling, and I wasn't quite sure I knew what he was trying to say. (190)
Though he himself has never experienced such problems, he knows how terrible it must be and feels his brother, Levi, deserves better because of his many attributes. After the news of the slaughter of six million Jews, Reb Saunders talks to Danny and Reuven, "Danny and [Reuven] sat silent and listened to him talk. Danny was pale and seemed tense with distraught. He tugged constantly at an earlock, his eyes blinking nervously" (181). His father's "conditioning" of Danny allows him to feel the pain of others, to sympathize and empathize with them, but to empathize with six million people is a heavy weight. Danny has no choice but to feel the pain of others; his soul is the most defined part of him.
The morality of Danny Saunders is a terrible yet beautiful thing. His hollow soul transforming into a soul outstandingly strong is what makes Danny as fascinating as he is. His hatred of apikorsim and his deceit of his father all come together in the silence pervading his life. The silence that creates his soul, that shapes it from his own despair and that ultimately allows him to understand the emotions of others.
The stability of Danny's morals is just as uncertain as the stability of his mind. Psychologically there is very little that is tangible to Danny. He lives in a constant and sluggish depression, worrying continually over his future as either a tzaddik or psychologist. The inability to make his own life decisions has left Danny in identity moratorium.
The silence permeating between Danny and his father has left him with no intellectual outlet of conversation until he meets Reuven. Yet even after this meeting Reuven notices Danny's inflexible depressive mood on several occasions, "He smiled but said nothing. It was a sad smile, and his blue eyes seemed sad, too" (Potok 81). Danny does not talk about his sadness; he is so used to silence that he speaks his emotions to Reuven only through his eyes. He has so little energy that he does not even want to defend himself against Reuven when they first meet:
He looked at me, his sculptured face expressionless.
'What do you want me to say?' His voice wasn't angry, it was sad. 'You want me to say I'm miserable? Okay, I'm miserable.'
'That's all? Only miserable? How do you sleep nights?'
He looked down at his hands. 'I didn't come here to fight with you,' he said softly. 'If you want to do nothing but fight, I'm going to go home.'
'For my part,' I told him, 'you can go to hell, and take your whole snooty bunch of Hasidim along with you!'
He looked at me and sat still. He didn't seem angry, just sad. (63)
Reuven finds Danny's quiet sadness near bewildering. He does not think to wonder why someone as gifted and privileged as Danny would be stricken by such sorrow. Danny keeps his sadness inside of his soul, letting it out only in small doses, and never speaking of it. The sadness is finally liberated when Danny's father breaks the silence between them:
I 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 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 long time. (268)
As Danny let's go of all of his pain and sadness, Reuven recognizes the "years of suffering" that he silently lived through. Danny acknowledges the misery he continuously feels, giving him opportunity to change the state of his mental stability.
The sadness is monumental to Danny's life, though the source of it is perpetually unclear in the novel. One finds the source of Danny's anguish to be, blatantly, the silence Reb Saunders executes during the majority of Danny's life. After hearing that his father knows of his hours in the library Danny says, "His eyes were moist and gloomy. 'I almost wish he had asked me instead,' he said quietly. 'But we don't talk anymore, except when we study Talmud'" (Potok 160). Danny's concern at confrontation with Reb Saunders is nonexistent in the face of his desire to converse with his father. Reuven questions further about the silence between the two:
'We just don't talk, Reuven.'
'I don't understand that at all.'
'I'm not so sure I understand it myself,' he said gloomily. (160)
His "gloom" at the thought of the stillness and silence in his life is understandable, allowing one to feel Danny's sadness as though it were their own. Anger can also branch from his sadness, allowing for the instability and vulnerability of his emotions to be nearly visible. As Reuven incessantly urges him to speak to his father, Danny's capricious emotions flare, " 'I can't!'' he said, a little angry now. 'Don't you listen to what I'm saying? I just can't'" (161). Though it is out of character for Danny to yell at Reuven, the conversation becomes insufferable for him. That the sadness and volatility of Danny comes from the silence is plain, but how the circumstances will change seems unfeasible.
The silence between father and son does break, though it takes overwhelming effort. They first speak through Reuven, a buffer to both of their pain, "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" (Potok 263). Though all three know that it is to Danny whom Reb Saunders directs his words, he cannot yet truly speak to him. One then becomes aware that Reb Saunders knew of Danny's pain over the silence but did nothing for he believes in the pain of being a tzaddik:
A tzaddik must know how to suffer for his people, 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. (265)
He sees Danny's sadness as appropriate to a tzaddik, and so continues in hurting his son. After a long while, Reb Saunders impedes his speech:
Reb Saunders stopped and looked slowly over at his son. Danny still sat with his hang over 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 hang away from his eyes and looked at his father. (267)
From this moment on the silence between Danny and his father is dissolved, as well as the sadness Danny has harbored. The stability of his brilliant mind becomes unwavering, and he pursues life with contentment again.
Danny's sadness had been perpetually partnered with a certain fear, however. This was the fear of the inevitability of his becoming a tzaddik, a rabbi for Hasidic Jews. However, a tzaddik is much more than a rabbi, as the Hasidim who follow them hold them in God-like reverence. Reb Saunders is a tzaddik, and Danny tells Reuven, "I have to take my fathers place. I have no choice. It's an inherited position" (Potok 69). The dynastic nature of the role of a tzaddik leaves Danny no hope of any other course of life. He has accepted it as his life, and when asked if he is going to become a rabbi he says, "Sure. I'm going to take my father's place" (69). He acquiesces, at the age of fifteen, to a life already planned. However, Danny has no excitation to become a tzaddik, and tells Reuven of his disfavor to such a future. Reuven, in his naivety, apprises Danny that he can simply refuse the position, to which Danny replies, "If the son doesn't take the father's place, the dynasty falls apart.I'm a little trapped" (81). He feels there is no choice, and all passion he has for life is drained by the fact that he must conform to a future he dreads.
The theme of being trapped is paramount in Danny's life. His severe dismay at being the first born son has led to him feeling more than just an estrangement from his younger brother:
It also occurred to me recently that all my concern about my brother's health was a fake. I don't have much of a relationship with him [.] I was really concerned about his health because all along I've wanted him to be able to take my father's place. (Potok 190)
He is so deeply concerned with his inability to grow from his future that he abandons all human feeling toward his brother, only seeing him as an evasion from that future. Tragically the same fate, in part, befalls his father:
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. I want to be able to breathe, to think what I want to think, to say the things I want to say. (191)
He uses his father as a catalyst to prove to himself the imprisonment of becoming a tzaddik. His feeling of becoming trapped, however, greatly increases as he grows:
"Do you know what it's like to be trapped? [.] How could you possibly know? It's the most hellish, choking, constricting feeling the world. I scream with every bone in my body to get out of it. My mind cries to get out of it. But I can't. Not now. One day I will, though. (191)
Within Danny's vow to one day get out of his entrapment is a strength he never before had. This strength is what will ultimately allow him to become his own person.
A second chance is possible for Danny in the form of Levi, Danny's little brother. Though he is sickly, he may be able to take Danny's place. Danny says to Reuven "my brother would probably make a fine tzaddik" (Potok 190). He really believes that it could be possible, explaining, "It occurred to me recently that if I didn't take my father's place I wouldn't be breaking the dynasty. My brother could take over" (190). His elation at realizing potential freedom allows him to admit to Reuven the idea of become a tzaddik is truly intolerable to him, "I had talked myself into believing that if I didn't take his place I would break the dynasty. I think I had to justify to myself having to become a tzaddik" (190). His justification does not last, however, and he soon is set upon his brother's becoming a tzaddik. He begins to plan his life they in the way he has always desiderated.
His decision to pass his dynastic right down to his brother is one that takes him the briefest of moments to make; its repercussions will be immeasurable, however. The break he will have to make when he tells his father may excommunicate him from his family. After imparting his plan to Reuven the boy's words display the intensity of the situation:
'Your home hasn't blown up recently, so I take it you haven't told your father.'
'No, I haven't. And I'm not going to, either. Not yet. (Potok 190)
Reb Saunders is expected, by both of the young boys, to be inconsolably angry at Danny's words of insurgence. As if in an acknowledgment of the horrifying possibilities of breaking a tzaddik dynasty, Danny asks Reuven to be there the day he tells his father:
'I can't wait until the day you tell your father.'
'You'll wait' Danny said tightly, blinking his eyes. 'You'll wait, and you'll be around, too, because I'm going to need you.' (191)
Danny's need of Reuven shows his fear in a way that his words do not. Reuven knows he will have to stand alongside Danny, but he too is frightened, "I had many nightmares that year in which Reb Saunders screamed at me that I had poisoned his son's mind" (192). Reuven has no doubt that he will be partially blamed for the path Danny is taking, and is not prepared for the fury he will face. The devastation that Danny's free thinking mind has and will create is astonishing in its ability to not only ruin a dynasty, but also the lives connected to it.
The time that elapses following Danny's decision to break from the tzaddik line brings with it mounting uncertainties. You can see his anxiety in many ways, but surprisingly even his physical state deteriorates. Reuven asks him how his eyes, which have been become a nuisance to him, are doing, he replies that, "they bother me sometimes. The doctor says it's nervous tension" (Potok 244). The nervous tension, of course, is a result of ubiquitous stress. Danny decides to tell his father on the day of his ordination- the day he officially becomes a rabbi. Reuven knows that Danny "dreads the day he'll have to tell him. He dreads it for both of them" (252). At this point there is neither prospect nor desire to go back on the plan he has created. Reuven one day tells Danny his belief that Reb Saunders knows of the plan he has contrived, to which Danny says "nothing. But his eyes blinked his fear" (256). Becoming a tzaddik still reviles Danny so that he cannot shift his plans no matter how frightened he becoms. His trepidation continues with no interruption until the day he has dreaded and prayed for finally arrives.
The day of Danny's ordination is remote yet when his father confronts him. Still unable to express himself freely to his son, Reb Saunders speaks plainly to him through Reuven. It is immediately known that he is aware of the plan:
'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 for a long time.' (Potok 263)
His father's quiet and calm admittance of knowing his plans comes as a tremendous shock and relief to Danny. To explain the persistence of the silence even years after he knew of Danny's strategy, Reb Saunders says, "I had to make sure his soul would be the soul of a tzaddik no matter what he did with his life" (266). The pain perpetually felt by Danny has given him all he needs to have the soul of a tzaddik. He will always have that soul; therefore he will always be a tzaddik. Danny finally receives peace in his unsound mind from Reb Saunders:
'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 now. All his life he will be a tzaddik. He will be a tzaddik for the world. And the world needs a tzaddik' (267).
All that Reb Saunders wanted to achieve has been realized; his final gift to his son is the tranquility that his mind has been searching for nearly his entire life. Danny becomes a psychologist and, through his deep compassion, remains a tzaddik for the world.
Providing a strong theme of growth, The Chosen allows one to fully understand not only the complexity of Jewish life but also the convolution of change in that Jewish life. The Hasidic Danny comes to finally understand his brilliance, the ideals and values of non-Hasidic Jews, and the value of his own life free from the pressures of a dynasty. Through all of Danny's hardships it is the constant help of Reuven that gives Danny the strength to completely change his life. It is that help that drives Danny to grow intellectually, morally, and psychologically by the end of this beautifully heartbreaking novel.
i got a 100 on that!!!
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waurs's journal
calm
ecstatic
exhausted
confused
aggravated
annoyed
peaceful