Movies - The Chosen

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	Movies - The Chosen

The Chosen is a book by Chaim Potok published in 1967. It is about two teenage Jewish boys who form a friendship, though they come from different worlds. It is a first-person narrative from the point of view of Reuven Malter.

Setting

The Chosen is set in the 1940s, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, New York. The story takes place over a period of seven years.

Characters

Robert (Reuven) Malter, a Modern Orthodox teenage boy. Smart and has a head for mathematics.
Daniel (Danny) Saunders, a Hasidic teenage boy. Brilliant with a photographic memory. Feels trapped by Hasidic tradition.
David Malter, Reuven's father. Talmudic scholar, teacher, Zionist. Considered a heretic by fundamentalist Hasidim.
Rabbi Isaac Saunders, Danny's father. Rabbinic sage, leader of a Hasidic sect. Wants Danny to succeed him.

Plot

The Chosen – a classic novel of growing up, friendship, compassion, the ties between fathers and sons, and the American experience – is set in the 1940's, in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. Two boys who have grown up within a few blocks of each other, but in two entirely different worlds, meet for the first time in a bizarre and explosive encounter--a baseball game between two Jewish parochial schools that turns into a holy war.

The assailant is Danny Saunders — intellectual phenomenon, moody, magnetic, tormented -- who feels imprisoned by the tradition that destines him to succeed his awesome father in an unbroken line of tzaddikim, great Hasidic rabbis, while his own restless intelligence is beginning to reach out into forbidden areas of secular knowledge.

The astonished victim of Danny's rage is Reuven Malter, the merely brilliant son of a gentle scholar--one of the relatively assimilated Orthodox Jews whom the Hasids regard as little better than infidels.

From the moment of their first furious meeting, the lives of Danny and Reuven become more and more intertwined. In a hospital room their hatred turns toward friendship. In his synagogue, before the assembled congregation, the formidable Rabbi Saunders makes deliberate mistakes in Talmudic discourse to test his son and his son's new friend. It soon becomes evident that it is only through Reuven that Danny's father can speak his heart to his own son and spiritual heir. And it is through the intensifying friendship between the two boys that the visions their fathers embody--the mystic and the rationalist--are brought into confrontation, and the mystery of Danny's cruelly austere upbringing in silence is gradually unraveled.

Themes

External themes

While the story is taking place, many references are made to outside events, including World War Two, the Holocaust, and the founding of the state of Israel. Potok reveals the reactions of different groups to each of these events.

Literary themes

Literary themes within the book include widespread references to senses (especially sight), the pursuit of truth in a gray world, the strength of friendship, and the importance of father-son relationships. Many themes common to Potok's works prevail such as weak women and children, strong father figures, intellectual characters, and the strength and validity of faith in a modern secular world.

Quotes

"Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? ... I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives the span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant... A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here."

David Malter, to his son, Reuven. p. 217

"A father can bring up a child any way he wishes. What a price to pay for a soul."

David Malter, to his son, Reuven. p. 262

"You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and dimension all its own."

Danny Saunders to Reuven Malter p. 259

"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."

Reb Saunders to Reuven and Danny, p. 263

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