Pete Yemc
Period 7
At the end of My Name is Asher Lev, The Rebbe remarks to Asher, “You have crossed a boundary. I cannot help you. You are alone now. I give you my blessings”(Potok 347). I found it strange that such a strongly bound group of people with their tight structure and isolationism, would not attempt to save one of their own, not attempt to draw Asher back from the world of the Goyim. The whole ending of My Name is Asher Lev caught me as a dull surprise. With the tightness of the Hasidic community, and the strictness that the Rebbe watches over his flock of loyal Jews, I had expected their to be a conflict between Asher’s desire to leave his culture and their desire to keep him there. This had been prevalent in the first few chapters between Asher and his father, but towards the end, the Rebbe allows Asher to leave the Hasidic world and even provides him the means to do it through Jacob Kahn.
Despite the fact that Chaim Potok probably was a Hasidic Jew (probably because I am not definitely sure), I believe that from my own impression of the Hasidic Jew culture, Potok did not accurately portray the actions of a true Hasidic culture. It is my belief that the Hasidic Jews, who censure and carefully scrutinize what those in their culture do (or read), would not allow one of their own to be pulled into a Goyish world without a significant fight or effort to prevent it. It would be my prediction that the Hasidic Jews would try to isolate Asher from his Goyish connections as occurred in The Chosen (also by Chaim Potok), when Danny Saunders was isolated from Reuben because of Reuben’s secular beliefs. However, The Chosen also does not illustrate a true Hasidic reaction, in my eyes, because in the end, the Rebbe allows and endorses Danny to become a psychiatrist. It has become my belief that a culture with as much of a cultish society as the Hasidic Jew culture appears to be would not allow one of their own to slip away from the flock.
Now this represents my belief from reading My Name is Asher Lev and viewing The Chosen, and is only my belief from what I have learned about the Hasidic Jew culture. Though I argue with Chaim Potok’s portrayal of the final events of these two novels, in retrospect I cannot see how one would agree with my view (a Catholic, and not that serious of one) over Potok’s (an almost definite Hasidic Jew).