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At once exquisitely understated and elegantly articulated, Chaim Potok's MY NAME IS ASHER LEV focuses on a man who treads the nebulous boundary between the secular and the spiritual. His protagonist, Asher Lev, is a Ladover Hasid from Brooklyn who is raised in a world saturated with ritual and led by a charismatic Rebbe. Asher keeps kosher, attends yeshiva and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. But he's also an artist who's driven to render the world in all the raw beauty and power he sees in it. The inevitable friction this causes between Asher and his deeply religious community both inspires and impedes his artistic evolution.
As Asher enters religious school, the Rebbe acknowledges that his gift can't be denied and introduces him to Jacob Kahn, a renowned Jewish artist who was a contemporary of Picasso. Kahn, a non-observant Jew, takes Asher under his wing and mentors him, encouraging him to express himself even when it leads Asher to blasphemy.
A major focus of the novel is the tension between Asher and his deeply religious parents, particularly his father Aryeh. Although everyone in Asher's life recognizes his immense talent at a young age, his father steadfastly refuses to accept it, asking his son when he'll give up that "foolishness." Aryeh Lev is an almost larger-than-life figure in their Brooklyn Hasidic community, working closely with the Rebbe and traveling often. He does God's work, passionately dedicated to helping persecuted Jews start a new life in America and setting up Ladover yeshivas throughout Europe. The juxtaposition of his father's sacrifice for the Jewish people and Asher's own reluctance to assume such a responsibility is a particularly painful one for both of them.
His compulsion to paint not only alienates Asher from his childhood world, but also causes divisions between members of his own family when an uncle offers his attic for a studio space. One especially poignant scene comes when Asher is already a household name and his parents finally make it to one of his shows. They walk out in disgust at paintings that incorporate Christian iconography, works they consider deeply antagonistic to their faith.
As the novel traces Asher's struggle to express himself while remaining entrenched in the Hasidic community, Potok paints a luminous portrait of the artist's sometimes tortured existence without lapsing into cliché. His characters are deftly drawn --- as Asher grows into an adult, you acutely feel the crushing weight of his responsibility to the Jewish people versus a responsibility to his gift. The trouble Asher causes weighs heavily on his mind, yet he's powerless to stop himself. In one telling segment, he inadvertently draws a face on his Chumash, a Jewish holy book, much to the horror of his surrounding classmates. To the wise Rebbe, however, this only signifies that Asher possesses a gift that cannot be disavowed.
Those not schooled in Jewish tradition will encounter many unfamiliar terms, but they're couched in context, so Potok's attention to detail serves to breathe life into the text, not confuse the reader. The end result is a novel that deals with sweeping themes --- the nature of art, religion and family bonds --- with elegance and grace.
--- Reviewed by Jen Robbins
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