The Chosen

by Chaim Potok

  I found I couldn’t open my mouth. Say about what? I hadn’t the faintest idea what he and Danny had been talking about.

  “You heard my little talk?” Reb Saunders asked me quietly.

  I felt my head nod.

  “And you have nothing to say?”

  I felt his eyes on me and found myself staring down at the table. The eyes were like flames on my face.

  “Reuven, you liked the gematriya?” Reb Saunders asked softly.

  I looked up and nodded. Danny hadn’t moved at all. He just sat k there, grinning. His little brother was playing with the tomato again. And the men at the tables were silent, staring at me now.

  “I am very happy,” Reb Saunders said gently. “You liked the gematriya. Which gematriya did you like?”

  I heard myself say, lamely and hoarsely, “They were all very good.”

  Reb Saunders’ eyebrows went up. “All?” he said. “A very nice thing. They were all very good. Reuven, were they all very good?”

  I felt Danny stir and saw him turn his head, the grin gone now from his lips. He glanced at me quickly, then looked down again at his paper plate.

  I looked at Reb Saunders. “No,” I heard myself say hoarsely. “They were not all good.”

  There was a stir from the men at the tables. Reb Saunders sat back in his leather chair.

  “Nu, Reuven,” he said quietly, “tell me, which one was not good?”

  “One of the gematriyot was wrong,” I said. I thought the world would fall in on me after I said that. I was a fifteen-year-old boy, and there I was, telling Reb Saunders he had been wrong! But nothing happened. There was another stir from the crowd, but nothing happened. Instead, Reb Saunders broke into a warm, broad smile.

  “And which one was it?” he asked me quietly.

  “The gematriya for ‘prozdor’ is five hundred and three, not five hundred and thirteen,” I answered.

  “Good. Very good,” Reb Saunders said, smiling and nodding his head, the black beard going back and forth against his chest, the earlocks swaying. “Very good, Reuven. The gematriya for ‘prozdor’ comes out five hundred three. Very good.” He looked at me, smiling broadly, his teeth showing white through the beard, and I almost thought I saw his eyes mist over. There was a loud murmur from the crowd, and Danny’s body sagged as the tension went out of him. He glanced at me, his face a mixture of surprise and relief, and I realized with astonishment that I, too, had just passed some kind of test.

  “Nu,” Reb Saunders said loudly to the men around the tables, “say Kaddish!”

  An old man stood up and recited the Scholar’s Kaddish. Then the congregants broke to go back to the front section of the synagogue for the Evening Service.

  Danny and I said nothing to each other throughout the service, and though I prayed the words, I did not know what I was saying. I kept going over what had happened at the table. I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t get it through my head that Danny had to go through something like that every week, and that I myself had gone through it tonight.

  The followers of Reb Saunders obviously had been pleased with my performance, because I could see they were no longer staring questions at me but were glancing at me admiringly. One of them, an old man with a white beard who was sitting in my row, even nodded at me and smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. I had clearly passed the test. What a ridiculous way to gain admiration and friendship!

  The Evening Service was over very quickly, and afterward one of the younger men chanted the Havdalah, the brief service that marks the end of the Shabbat. Danny’s brother held the braided candle, his hand trembling a little as the molten wax spilled onto his fingers. Then the congregants wished one another and Reb Saunders a good week and began to leave the synagogue. It was late, and I thought my father would probably be worried about me by now, but I stood there and waited until the last congregant was gone and the synagogue was empty—except for me, Danny, Reb Saunders, and the little boy. The synagogue seemed to me suddenly very small without its throng of black-hatted, black-bearded, black-caftaned men.

  Reb Saunders was stroking his beard and looking at Danny and me. He leaned an elbow upon the large podium, and then the hand that was stroking the beard began to play with an earlock. I heard him sigh and saw him shake his head slowly, his dark eyes moist and brooding.

  “Reuven, you have a good head on you,” he said quietly in Yiddish. “I am happy my Daniel has chosen you for a friend. My son has many friends. But he does not talk about them the way he talks about you.”

  I listened and said nothing. His voice was gentle, almost a caress. He seemed so altogether different now from the way he had been at the table. I glanced at Danny. He was looking at his father, and the rigid lines were gone from his face.

  Reb Saunders clasped his hands behind his back.

  “I know of your father,” he said to me quietly. “I am not surprised you have such a head. Your father is a great scholar. But what he writes, ah, what he writes!” He shook his head. “I worry myself about my son’s friends, especially if such a friend is the son of David Malter. Ah, what your father writes! Criticism. Scientific criticism. Ah! So when he tells me you are now his friend, I worry myself The son of David Malter should be my Daniel’s friend? But your father is an observer of the Commandments, and you have his head, and so I am happy you are friends. It is good my Daniel has a friend. I have many responsibilities, I am not always able to talk to him.” I saw Danny stare down at the floor, his face hardening. “It is good he has acquired a friend. Just so his friend does not teach him scientific criticism.” Reb Saunders looked at me, his eyes dark and brooding. “You think a friend is an easy thing to be? If you are truly his friend, you will discover otherwise. We will see. Nu, it is late and your father is certainly worried that you are away so long. Have a good week, Reuven. And come pray with us again. There will be no more mistakes in gematriya.”

  He was smiling broadly and warmly now, his eyes wrinkling at the corners, the hard lines of his face almost gone. And then he offered me his hand, his entire hand this time, not only the fingers, and I took it, and he held my hand a long time. I almost had the feeling he wanted to embrace me. Then our hands separated, and he went slowly up the aisle, his hands clasped behind his back, tall, a little stooped and, I thought, a little majestic. His young son trailed behind him, holding on to the caftan.

  Danny and I remained alone in the synagogue. It occurred to me suddenly that not a single word had passed between him and his father all evening, except for the Talmud contest.

  “I’ll walk you part of the way home,” Danny offered, and we went out of the brownstone and down the stone stairway to the street. I could hear the caps of his shoes clearly against the stone of the stairway, and then against the cement pavement of the sidewalk.

  It was night now, and cool, and a breeze blew against the sycamores and moved softly through the leaves. We walked in silence until Lee Avenue, then turned left. I was walking quickly, and Danny kept pace with my steps.

  Walking along Lee Avenue, Danny said quietly, “I know what you’re thinking. You think he’s a tyrant.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what to think. One minute he’s a tyrant, the next minute he’s kind and gentle. I don’t know what to think.”

  “He’s got a lot on his mind,” Danny said. “He’s a pretty complicated person.”

  “Do you always go through that routine at the table?”

  “Oh, sure. I don’t mind it. I even enjoy it a little.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”

  “It’s a family tradition,” Danny explained. “My father’s father used to do it with him. It goes all the way back.”

  “It would scare me sick.”

  “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.”

  “S
ome game!”

  “The second mistake tonight caught me off guard. But he made that one for you, really. That was very good, the way you caught it. He knew I wouldn’t catch it. He just wanted to catch me, so he could tell me I wasn’t listening. He was right. I wasn’t listening. But I wouldn’t have caught it even if I had listened. I’m no good in math. I’ve got a photographic memory for everything except math. You can’t memorize math. You have to have a certain kind of head for it.”

  “I hate to tell you what I think about that game,” I said, a little heatedly. “What happens if you miss the mistake?”

  “I haven’t missed in years.”

  “What happens when you do miss?”

  He was silent a moment. “It’s uncomfortable for a while,” he said quietly. “But he makes a joke or something, and we go into a Talmud discussion.”

  “What a game!” I said. “In front of all those people!”

  “They love it,” Danny said. “They’re very proud to see us like that. They love to hear the Talmud discussed like that. Did you see their faces?”

  “I saw them,” I said. “How could I not see them? Does your father always use gematriya when he talks?”

  “Not always. Very rarely, as a matter of fact. The people love it and always hope for it. But he does it rarely. I think he did it tonight only because you were there.”

  “He’s good at it, I’ll say that much.”

  “He wasn’t too good tonight. Some of it was a little forced. He was fantastic a few months ago. He did it with Talmudic laws then. He was really great.”

  “I thought it wasn’t bad tonight.”

  “Well, it wasn’t too good. He hasn’t been feeling too well. He’s worried about my brother.”

  “What’s wrong with your brother?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t talk about it. Something about his blood. He’s been sick for a few years now.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Danny.”

  “He’ll be all right. There’s a pretty big doctor taking care of him now. He’ll be all right.” His voice had the same strange quality it had had when he had talked about his brother on our way over to the synagogue earlier in the day—hope, wistfulness, almost an eagerness for something to take place. I thought Danny must love his little brother very much, though I didn’t remember his saying a word to him all the time they had been together. “Anyway,” Danny said, “these contests, as you call them, are going to end as soon as I start studying with Rav Gershenson.”

  “Who?”

  “Rav Gershenson. He’s a great scholar. He’s at Hirsch College. He teaches Talmud there. My father says that when I’m old enough to study with Rav Gershenson, I’ll be old enough for him not to worry whether I can catch him at mistakes or not. Then we’ll just have the Talmud discussions. I’ll like that.”

  I was restraining my delight with considerable difficulty. The Samson Raphael Hirsch Seminary and College was the only yeshiva in the United States that offered a secular college education. It was located on Bedford Avenue, a few blocks from Eastern Parkway. My father had told me once that it had been built in the early twenties by a group of Orthodox Jews who wanted their sons to have both a Jewish arid a secular education. Its college faculty was supposed to be excellent, and its rabbinic faculty consisted of some of the greatest Talmudists in the United States. A rabbinic ordination from its Talmud faculty was looked upon as the highest of Orthodox Jewish honors. It had been a foregone conclusion on my father’s part and on mine that I would go on to there after high school for my bachelor’s degree. When I told Danny that, his face burst into a smile.

  “Well, that’s wonderful!” he said. “I’m happy to hear that. That’s really wonderful!”

  “So we’ll be going to the same college,” I said. “Will you be going for a B.A.?”

  “Sure. You have to. They don’t let you study just Talmud in that college. I’ll be majoring in psychology.”

  We had come to the corner of the synagogue in which my father and I prayed. Danny stopped.

  “I have to go back,” he said. “I’ve got schoolwork to do.”

  “I’ll call you at your house tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll probably be in the library tomorrow afternoon, doing some reading in psychology. Why don’t you come over there?”

  “I won’t be able to read anything.”

  “That’s right.” Danny smiled. “I forgot. You didn’t duck.”

  “I’ll come over anyway. I’ll sit and think while you read.”

  “Wonderful. I’d like to watch you sit and think.”

  “Mitnagdim can think too, you know.” I said. Danny laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Right,” I said, and watched him walk away, tall and lean in his black caftan and black hat.

  I hurried home and came into the apartment just as my father was beginning to dial the phone. He put the phone down and looked at me.

  “Do you know what time it is?” he asked.

  “Is it very late?” I glanced at my watch. It was almost ten-thirty. “I’m sorry, abba. I couldn’t just walk out.”

  “You were at Reb Saunders’ synagogue all this time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Next time you are out so late you will call, yes? I was ready to telephone Reb Saunders to find out what happened. Come into the kitchen and sit down. What are you looking so excited about? Sit down. I’ll make some tea. Did you eat? What happened that you were away so long?”

  I sat at the kitchen table and slowly told my father everything that had taken place in Reb Saunders’ synagogue. He sipped his tea and listened quietly. I saw him grimace when I began to go over the gematriyot. My father did not particularly care for gematriya. He had once referred to it as nonsense numerology and had said that anything could be proved that way, all that had to be done was to shift letters around adroitly so as to make the values come out any way you wanted. So he sat there, sipping his tea and grimacing, as I reviewed Reb Saunders’ gematriyot. When I started to tell him what had happened afterward, the grimace left his face, and he listened intently, nodding his head from time to time and sipping his tea. And when I got to the part where Reb Saunders had asked me about the wrong gematriya, his face took on a look of astonishment, and he put the glass down on the table. Then I told him what Reb Saunders had said to me after Havdalah and what Danny and I had talked about on the way home, and he smiled proudly and nodded to indicate his happiness.

  “Well,” my father said, sipping his tea again, “you had some day, Reuven.”

  “It was an experience, abba. The way Danny had to answer his father’s questions like that in front of everybody. I thought that was terrible.”

  My father shook his head. “It is not terrible, Reuven. Not for Danny, not for his father, and not for the people who listened. It is an old tradition, this kind of Talmudic discussion. I have seen it many times, between great rabbis. But it does not only take place between rabbis. When Kant became a professor, he had to follow an old tradition and argue in public on a philosophical subject. One day when you are a professor in a university and read a paper before your colleagues, you will also have to answer questions. It is part of Danny’s training.”

  “But in public like that, abba!”

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

  “It just seemed so cruel to me.”

  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. But the business about the mistakes I never heard before. That is something new. That is Reb Saunders’ innovation. It is clever, but I am not sure I like it very much. No, I do not think I like it at all.”

  “Danny said the mistakes are always easy to find.”

  “Perhaps,” my father said. “A man can do whatever he wishes to test his son’s knowledge. But there are
other ways than the way of Reb Saunders. At any rate, Reuven, it is good training for Danny. He will be involved in such things all his life.”

  “Reb Saunders is a very complicated man, abba. I can’t make him out. One minute he’s hard and angry, the next minute he’s soft and gentle. I don’t understand him.”

  “Reb Saunders is a great man, Reuven. Great men are always difficult to understand. He carries the burden of many people on his shoulders. I do not care for his Hasidism very much, but it is not a simple task to be a leader of people. Reb Saunders is not a fraud. He would be a great man even if he had not inherited his post from his father. It is a pity he occupies his mind only with Talmud. 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. Danny will be the same way when he takes his father’s place. It is a shame that a mind such as Danny’s will be shut off from the world.”

  My father sipped his tea again, and we sat quietly for a while.

  “I am very proud of the way you handled yourself today,” my father said, looking at me over the rim of the glass. “I am glad Reb Saunders will let you be Danny’s friend. I was worried about Reb Saunders.”

  “I’m awfully sorry I came back so late, abba.” My father nodded. “I am not angry,” he said. “But next time you will be so late, you will call, yes?”

  “Yes, abba.”

  My father glanced at the clock on the shelf over the refrigerator. “Reuven, it is late, and tomorrow you are going to school. You should go to sleep now.”

  “Yes, abba.”

  “Remember, you must not read. I will read to you in the evenings and we will see if we can study that way. But you must not read by yourself.”

  “Yes, abba. Good night.”

  “Good night, Reuven.”

  I left him sitting at the kitchen table over his glass of tea and went to bed. I lay awake a long time before I was able to sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT