Every now and then I re-read all of Chaim Potok’s books. I get in a certain mood, you see.
You may know Potok’s work from one of his biggest selling books, The Chosen.
All of Potok’s books deal with protagonists who eventually must confront the limitations of the touchstones they were given through childhood, their bedrock belief systems. With the exception of Davita’s Harp, that touchstone is an Orthodox Jewish community.
In My Name is Asher Lev, we get to know Asher, the son of a man accomplished in the Jewish community, the right-hand assistant to the Hassidic Rebbe who is the highest authority in the community, a man who works hard to build yeshivas all over Europe, a man of integrity, all that. And Asher, his son, is an artistic genius on the level of Picasso. Long story short, Asher finds that his masterpiece painting expresses itself with a crucifixion as part of its form. Needless to say, that causes a bit of a stir in his community, which already looks askance at his painting to begin with. Add the family dynamic to that, and Asher is confronted with a heavy task. And he is fully aware after he paints the picture exactly how much it will hurt his family, why it will hurt his family, and the kind of disapproval and anger it will draw down upon him.