The Chosen

by Chaim Potok

  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.

  “Reuven, I want you to listen carefully to what I will tell you now.” He had said: Reuven. His eyes had said: Danny. “You will not understand it. You may never understand it. And you may never stop hating me for what I have done. I know how you feel. I do not see it in your eyes? But I want you to listen.

  “A man is born into this world with only a tiny spark of goodness in him. The spark is God, it is the soul; the rest is ugliness and evil, a shell. The spark must be guarded like a treasure, it must be nurtured, it must be fanned into flame. It must learn to seek out other sparks, it must dominate the shell. Anything can be a shell, Reuven. Anything. Indifference, laziness, brutality, and genius. Yes, even a great mind can be a shell and choke the spark.

  “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. He did not read the story, he swallowed it, as one swallows food or water.

  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. It was a story in a Yiddish book about a poor Jew and his struggles to get to Eretz Yisroel before he died. Ah, how that man suffered! And my Daniel enjoyed the story, he enjoyed the last terrible page, because when he finished it he realized for the first time what a memory he had. He looked at me proudly and told me back the story from memory, and I cried inside my heart. I went away and cried to the Master of the Universe, ‘What have you done 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!’ ”

  Reb Saunders paused and took a deep, trembling breath. I tried to swallow; my mouth was sand-dry. Danny sat with his right hand over his eyes, his glasses pushed up on his forehead. He was crying silently, his shoulders quivering. Reb Saunders did not look at him.

  “My brother was like my Daniel,” he went on quietly. “What a mind he had. What a mind. But he was also not like my Daniel. My Daniel, thank God, is healthy. But for many, many years my brother was ill. His mind burned with hunger for knowledge. But for many years his body was wasted with disease. And so my father did not raise him as he raised me. When he was well enough to go off to a yeshiva to study, it was too late.

  “I was only a child when he left to study in Odessa, but I still remember what he was able to do with his mind. But it was a cold mind, Reuven, almost cruel, untouched by his soul. It was proud, haughty, impatient with less brilliant minds, grasping in its search for knowledge the way a conqueror grasps for power. It could not understand pain, it was indifferent to and impatient with suffering. It was even impatient with the illness of its own body. I never saw my brother again after he left for the yeshiva. He came under the influence of a Maskil in Odessa and went away to France where he became a great mathematician and taught in a university. He died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz. I learned of it four years ago. He was a Jew when he died, not an observer of the Commandments, but not a convert, thank God. I would like to believe that before he died he learned how much suffering there is in this world. I hope so. It will have redeemed his soul.

  “Reuven, listen to what I am going to tell you now and remember it. You are a man, but it will be years before you understand my words. Perhaps you will never understand them. But hear me out, and have patience.

  “When I was very young, my father, may he rest in peace, began to wake me in the middle of the night, just so I would cry. I was a child, but he would wake me and tell me stories of the destruction of Jerusalem and the sufferings of the people of Israel, and I would cry. For years he did this. Once he took me to visit a hospital—ah, what an experience that was!—and often he took me to visit the poor, the beggars, to listen to them talk. My father himself never talked to me, except when we studied together. He taught me with silence. He taught me to look into myself, to find my own strength, to walk around inside myself in company with my soul. When his people would ask him why he was so silent with his son, he would say to them that he did not like to talk, words are cruel, words play tricks, they distort what is in the heart, they conceal the heart, the heart speaks through silence. 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. Only slowly, very slowly, did I begin to understand what he was saying. For years his silence bewildered and frightened me, though I always trusted him, I never hated him. 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. 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.

  “You do not understand this, Reuven. I see from your eyes that you do not understand this. But my Daniel understands it now. He understands it well.

  “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. 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? 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? How could I teach my son the way I was taught by my father and not drive him away from Torah? Because this is America, Reuven. This is not Europe. It is an open world here. Here there are libraries and books and schools. Here there are great universities that do not concern themselves with how many Jewish students they have. 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.”

  He closed his eyes and seemed to shrink into himself. His hands trembled. He was silent for a long time. Tears rolled slowly down alongside the bridge of his nose and disappeared into his beard. A shuddering sigh filled the room. Then he opened his eyes and stared down at the closed Talmud on the desk. “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. He could not understand. Ah, what it is to be a mind without a soul, what ugliness it is. . . . Those were the years he learned to trust me and love me. . . . And when he was older, 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 answers,’ 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 feel
s because of his ignorance, and you will not laugh.’ He was bewildered and hurt. The nightmares he began to have. . . . 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.”

  He stopped. A sigh came from his lips, a long, trembling sigh like a moan. Then he looked at me, his eyes moist with his own suffering. “Reuven, you and your father were a blessing to me. 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. He sent you to be my closed eyes and my sealed ears. I looked at your soul, Reuven, not your mind. In your father’s writings I looked at his soul, not his mind. If you had not found the gematriya mistake, Reuven, it would have made a difference? No. The gematriya mistake only told me you had a good 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.

  “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. 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.”

  Reb Saunders stopped and looked slowly over at his son. Danny still sat with his hand 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 hand away from his eyes and looked at his father.

  “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.

  Reb Saunders sat back slowly in his chair. And from his lips came a soft, tremulous sigh. He was silent for a moment, his eyes wide, dark, brooding, gazing upon his son. He nodded his head once, as if in final acknowledgment of his tortured victory.

  Then he looked back at me, and his voice was gentle as he spoke. “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—”

  His voice broke. He held himself tightly. His beard moved faintly with the trembling of his lips.

  “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.”

  He walked heavily out of the room, his shoulders stooped, his face old and torn with pain.

  The door closed with a soft click.

  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. 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 his 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, and I left him in the chair and went to the window and listened to his sobs. The sun was low over the brownstones on the other side of the yard, and an ailanthus stood silhouetted against its golden rim, its budding branches forming a lace curtain through which a wind moved softly. I watched the sun set. The evening spread itself slowly across the sky.

  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. Late, late that night I left Danny at his home and returned alone to the apartment.

  • • •

  My father was in the kitchen and there was a strange brooding sadness on his face. I sat down and he looked at me, his eyes somber behind their steel-rimmed spectacles. And I told him everything.

  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 that way. I am not a tzaddik.”

  During the Morning Service on the first Shabbat in June, Reb Saunders announced to the congregation his son’s intention to study psychology. The announcement was greeted with shocked dismay. Danny was in the synagogue at the time, and all eyes turned to stare at him in astonishment. 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. The turmoil among Reb Saunders’ followers that was caused by this announcement was considerable. But no one dared to challenge Reb Saunders’ tacit transference of power to his younger son. After all, the tzaddikate was inherited, and the charisma went automatically from father to son—all sons.

  Two days later, Reb Saunders withdrew his promise to the family of the girl Danny was supposed to marry. There had been some fuss over that, Danny told me afterward. But it had quieted down after awhile.

  The reaction at Hirsch College, once the news of Reb Saunders* announcement was out, lasted all of about two or three days. The non-Hasidic students talked about it for a day or so, and then forgot it. The Hasidic students sulked, scowled, glowered, and then forgot it, too. Everyone was busy with final examinations.

  That June Danny and I were among the seventy-eight students who were graduated from Hirsch College, to the accompaniment of numerous speeches, applause, honorary degrees, and family congratulations. 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.

  My father smiled at him warmly. “Columbia is not so far,” he said. “We will see you on Shabbat.”

  Danny nodded, his eyes glowing, luminous.

  I asked him how his father had reacted when he had seen him without the beard and earlocks.

  He smiled sadly. “He’
s not happy about it. He said he almost doesn’t recognize me.”

  “He talked to you?”

  “Yes,” Danny said quietly. “We talk now.”

  There was a long, gentle silence. A cool breeze moved soundlessly through the open windows of the living room.

  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?”

  Danny said nothing for a long time. Then his right hand rose slowly to the side of his face and with his thumb and forefinger he gently caressed an imaginary earlock.

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

  My father nodded, his eyes calm.

  Later, I went down with Danny to the street.

  “You’ll come over sometimes on a Saturday and we’ll study Talmud with my father?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I said.

  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.

  About the Author

  Chaim Potok was born in New York City in 1929. He is the author of nine novels, including The Chosen (1967), The Promise (1969), and My Name is Asher Lev (1972), as well as three plays, three children’s books, and three works of nonfiction. An ordained rabbi, he served as an army chaplain in Korea and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. He died in 2002.

  ALSO BY CHAIM POTOK

  Novels

  The Chosen (1967)

  The Promise (1969)

  My Name Is Asher Lev (1972)

  In the Beginning (1975)

  The Book of Lights (1981)

  Davita’s Harp (1985)

  The Gift of Asher Lev (1990)

  I Am the Clay (1992)

  Old Men at Midnight (2001)

  Nonfiction

  Wanderings: Chaim Potok’s History of the Jews (1978)