“To kill a human being is to kill also the children and children’s children that might have come from him down through all the generations” (Potok 59). Aryeh Lev, Asher’s father, has inherited the task of saving Jewish lives and he values that job and the idea of life. As he stated above, he feels that the killing of a single person is the same as killing an entire generation. And yet, Aryeh devotes so much of his time to saving other Jews that he overlooks the one little Jew that he, above all other people, should be saving, Asher.
This is the reason why Asher is constantly able to annoy and become disapproved by his father; He is trying to get Aryeh’s attention, he is trying to get his father to save him and his Jewish beliefs (that regardless of what he does he keeps these beliefs, such as when he is at the beach house). While Aryeh is devoting time to saving other Jews’ lives, he is overlooking his responsibility to care for and educate his son. This, I feel, is one of the reasons that Asher continues to draw and paint controversial things, despite his father’s desires. He is provoking his father in order to get attention from him. Each time that Asher draws something that he knows in his heart is controversial, such as the naked people or Jesus from the library, it is his desire to get attention from his father that causes him not to second guess his actions.
Thus when Aryeh gets aggravated by his son’s actions, he should know that the source of Asher’s insubordinance is his desire to get attention from his father. Though he may not know this, he may actually be aware of it and hide behind his work. When Asher’s troubles come to face Aryeh he uses the excuse that “[he] will talk to [Asher] about [his studies] later.” Aryeh avoids his son’s troubles by the convenience that he has to travel to Europe. His relationship with his son is a vicious circle. Aryeh has to travel to Europe to save Jewish lives. By going away, he ignores the needs of his son, who almost purposefully aggravates his father for attention. Aryeh, unable to deal with his son, uses the convenience of his work as a way to avoid what must be done. His foreign travel further ignores Asher who continues the circle by continuing his art.