The Chosen (1967). Content and Description

Although he was labeled a “Jewish-American” writer, Potok’s first novel received critical acclaim and is often required reading for high school students. The novel also became a commercial hit, gracing best-seller lists for six months after publication in 1967, even hitting the number one spot. The novel has also been adapted to stage and screen: in 1982 as a movie by Twentieth Century Fox, in 1987 as a musical in New York City, and in 2002 as a play cowritten by Potok.

The novel tells the story of an unlikely friendship between an Orthodox Jew, Reuven Malter, and a Hasidic Jew, Danny Saunders, spanning the years of 1944 and 1950. The novel is broken into three parts, each section exploring a specific problem in the boys’ friendship. In book 1, they meet and must confront their feelings of hatred toward each other; in book 2, they learn more about each other’s different beliefs, while coping with World War II; and in book 3, they have to deal with the silence between them that results from their fathers’ differing views toward the Zionist movement.

The novel opens on an inter-yeshiva (yeshiva is the name for the system of schools that teach Torah, Mishnah, and Talmud) baseball game between Reuven Malter’s and Danny Saunders’s schools. Most of Reuven’s team is afraid of the other team because that team has never lost and because Danny has a reputation as an intense athlete. Potok builds up the religious tensions between Orthodox and Hasidim when Danny refers to Reuven as an apikorsim, a term that is usually applied to a nonpracticing Jew. Reuven notes that “I was an apikoros to Danny Saunders, despite my belief in God and Torah, because I did not have side curls and was attending a parochial school where too many English subjects were offered and where Jewish subjects were taught in Hebrew instead of Yiddish” (chapter 1). However, the religious tensions between the two characters do not last through the first part of the novel; the term apikoros becomes a joke for the two later on in the novel.

When the baseball game begins to go in the favor of Reuven’s team, and he has managed to pitch two strikes against Danny, Danny intentionally hits the ball directly at Reuven, who, rather than duck, attempts to catch it. Because Danny had intended to injure Reuven, the ball moves too fast for Reuven to react in time and hits his glasses, leaving a shard in his eye. Reuven undergoes surgery to remove the glass, only to learn that his eye may never heal properly. While in the hospital, Reuven meets Billy, a blind boy, and Tony Savo, an injured boxer. Both of the characters serve as reminders to Reuven that health is fleeting, and he is most affected by Billy’s story. He does not want his sight to be permanently damaged.

His father, David Malter, visits him frequently and enigmatically instructs him to make Danny his friend, a concept in Judaism that carries heavy significance. As his father explains, acquiring a teacher and choosing a friend are two things that the Torah instructs a Jew to do for himself. Choosing a friend, in the sense that David Malter speaks, is something that is necessary for Jews to do in order to learn and understand themselves better. Friends are, as Aristotle wrote, two halves of one soul. A silent understanding exists between the boys throughout the novel, acknowledging the depth of their friendship— through hardship and ease—with the repeated statement “If only I’d have ducked.” When the visits of Danny Saunders and David Malter collide, Reuven and Danny recognize his father’s role in their friendship: David Malter had been instructing Danny on the non-Jewish books to read while in the library.

The first part of the novel closes as Reuven and Danny have established a firm friendship and Reuven’s eye has healed. As book 2 begins, Reuven remarks on how changed the world appears. He comments that “there was a newness everywhere, a feeling that I had been away a long time in a dark place and was now returning home to sunlight” (chapter 5). Before much of the narrative begins, Potok provides a lengthy section on the history of the Hasidic sect, as told through David Malter. This history is just one of several narrative interruptions in the text that help non-Jewish readers understand more about the novel and Jewish culture. The section is noted for its sympathetic approach to Hasidism as it provides a stark contrast to what Danny reads in Graetz’s History of the Jews.

Most of book 2 follows the development of Danny and Reuven’s perceptions of the world. Reuven, with his newfound eyesight, looks at everything with a different perspective, although he distrusts and disapproves of Reb Saunders’s treatment of Danny. When he meets Danny’s father for the first time, it is during a Shabbos service where Reb Saunders intentionally quotes the Talmud incorrectly to see whether Danny will catch the mistake. He does, and the two characters engage in a heated debate about Talmud and commentaries that intimidates Reuven, who cannot understand how a father and son only speak when discussing Talmud. Meanwhile, Danny, who has begun to read Freud and various writings on Hasidism, is disturbed by what he learns, although he never wavers in his faith. When Reuven questions him about it, Danny shrugs off the question and never seems unsettled by the conflict between Judaism and psychoanalysis. However, the more Danny learns about psychology, the less he wants to inherit his father’s position as tzaddik, a Hasidic rabbi.

As book 2 closes and book 3 opens, the impending creation of a Jewish state becomes the focus of the novel, and the two boys enter Hirsh University and are caught between fathers with two different sets of beliefs. When World War II ended, many countries felt obligated to help Jewish people because of the atrocities of the Holocaust (and arguably, many nations felt guilty for their inaction). The movement of Zionism, which advocated a country for Jews, separate from the rest of the world, developed; they believed Jews deserved this for the suffering and the loss they had endured. In 1947 the world agreed, and in 1948 the nation of Israel emerged.

In the novel David Malter becomes very active in the Zionist movement, whereas Reb Saunders stands in staunch opposition. Tensions escalate at Hirsh so that “there was almost a fistfight, and the two students were kept apart with difficulty by members of their respective sides [and] the incident left a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth” (chapter 13). After a large Zionist rally in Madison Square Garden, where David Malter had spoken, Reb Saunders refuses to let Danny interact with Reuven. The boys spend most of their first two years of college apart from each other: “Not Freud but Zionism had finally shattered our friendship” (chapter 13).

The separation of the characters causes Reuven to spend more time studying the Talmud. He begins to analyze the variant texts of the Talmud, an approach that plays a significant role in The Promise (1969), in which he is one of the main characters. The chronology of the novel begins to move faster, and at the close of chapter 15, the anti-Zionist movement at Hirsch ends because a graduate is killed during a skirmish in Israel. As Reuven begins his third year, Danny approaches him and explains, “‘The ban has been lifted’” (chapter 16).

The final two chapters focus on Reuven’s fear of confronting Reb Saunders about Danny’s interest in psychology. Potok provides hints at Danny’s anxiety about approaching his father about choosing psychology and not the tzaddik (in Hasidism, the rabbinical positions are inherited, and as the son of the rabbi, Danny would inherit the role of a rabbi/tzaddik); he has to consider the effect on him, his father, his family, the congregation, as well as a betrothed. Danny receives three acceptance letters from various graduate programs and, upon returning home, finds the letters left in the entry area of his home. Yet, his father does not say anything about the letters until weeks later. Invited over to the Saunders’ home during Passover, Reuven, Danny, and Reb Saunders finally talk.

The confrontation with Reb Saunders marks the conclusion of The Chosen. They meet in his office, at first discussing Reuven’s plans to enter the rabbinate. The final chapter centers on Reb Saunders. He provides explanations for raising Danny in silence and gives his blessing for Danny to go into psychology. Having taught his son to have a soul, to have compassion for people’s sufferings, Reb Saunders believes that “‘all his [Danny’s] life he will be a tzaddik. He will be a tzaddik for the world. And the world needs a tzaddik” (chapter 18). The novel ends with both boys’ graduating summa cum laude.

Critics herald The Chosen for Potok’s minimalist prose and the approachability of the Jewish world he creates. He explains an unfamiliar Jewish world without bogging down the narrative with technicalities of Judaism that might lose readers. Potok adds interruptions in the novel’s narrative to provide a basic understanding of Judaism—in the form of David Malter’s lesson on Hasidism or with short sentences explaining the meanings of Yiddish and Hebrew phrases. It is important to remember that The Chosen stands as the first of many novels where Potok explores his notion of “core-to-core cultural confrontation.” While neither character leaves the Jewish faith, neither character is as fully immersed in his culture as he was; Reuven and Danny have to concede certain aspects of their beliefs.

For Discussion or Writing:
1. In the opening chapter of The Chosen, Danny Saunders intentionally hits the baseball toward Reuven Malter, who does not duck but attempts to catch the ball, which breaks his glasses and causes a shard to enter his eye. As a result, Reuven has to undergo surgery to repair his eye. When he leaves the hospital, he remarks that “everything looked suddenly bright and fresh and clean. . . . And there was a newness everywhere, a feeling that I had been away a long time in a dark place and was now returning home to sunlight” (chapter 5). Is Reuven’s new vision a result of the surgery, or is Potok suggesting something more?

What might Reuven have experienced and learned while in the hospital that would affect his perception of the world? If so, how? Do any other characters undergo a change in physical sight (eyesight that worsens) that also suggests a change in their perceptions of the world? How does this character’s perspective change? How does this character relate to Reuven Malter’s experiences? Would you say that this novel, while dealing with the theme of vision and perception, supports Potok’s belief in core-to-core cultural confrontation? Why or why not? What choices do the two boys have to make in the novel, while changing their preconceived ideas about each other and their religious beliefs?

2. Think about the role perception plays in The Chosen. Reuven Malter is the narrator of the novel, but the story is not about just him; it is also about Danny Saunders. How does Reuven’s perspective influence the way you view Danny and his father, Reb Saunders? Why do you think Potok tells this story through Reuven, rather than Danny? How would the story have been different if both boys were either Hasidic or Orthodox Jews, in terms of what you have learned about both sects from the novel? How is Reuven able to help Danny, and how is Danny able to help Reuven? Why is it better for the characters that they are different? What lessons can they learn from each other? Why do you think David Malter was so adamant that they become friends?

3. Chaim Potok wrote a sequel to The Chosen, entitled The Promise (1969). In the novel, Reuven and Danny are much older and are both working on graduate degrees. Like the first novel, the story is not centered on only Reuven Malter; Michael Gordon is a teenager suffering from an unidentified psychological problem who can only open up around Reuven. In another book, Davita’s Harp (1985), Reuven appears again, although in this novel, he is still a teenager in yeshiva. In this novel, he refuses to accept an award from his yeshiva, an award that is the equivalent to the valedictorian award, because he knows that Davita deserves to receive it. Why might it be important for Reuven’s character development that he encounter such varied people and their sufferings? How might the lessons he learns with Danny, Michael, and Davita assist him later?

How does Reb Saunders’s belief that a rabbi needs to have a heart and compassion help you understand what Reuven has to experience before he can become a rabbi? Why is it so important for a rabbi to have these characteristics? Why might these characteristics be even more important in a post-Holocaust world? Reflect on David Malter’s statement “Now we will need teachers and rabbis to lead our people. . . . The Jewish world is changed. . . . If we do not rebuild Jewry in America, we will die as a people” (chapter 11).

4. In 1959 John Knowles published his famous novel A Separate Peace. In that novel, two boys, Gene and Phineas, become friends while enrolled in the summer session at the Devon School in 1942. How might this story parallel the friendship of Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders? How does World War II affect the narratives of both novels? Why might the characters view the war differently? What aspects of their culture might force them to consider the war from different perspectives? Are the two sets of friends similar to each other? How so? In what ways are they different? What might account for those differences? Compare and contrast these two sets of characters.