Summary Of Chaim Potok's The Chosen

Danny and Reuven’s relationship was a link between father and son, but this grew into something more, something life-long and unchanging. This friendship was true, it meant a lot to both of them, and their parents. However, after large disagreements in both Danny and Reuven’s religious lives and families, Reb Saunders excommunicates Reuven from the Hasidic community and Danny’s life.

After Reuven initially wakes up, Danny visits him in the hospital to apologize. “‘I am sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll just bet you are,’ I told him. He…turned and walked slowly away.” After Reuven tells his father of the events, his father tells him that he should have listened. This response on David’s part initially caused Reuven to listen to Danny when he returned the second time.

On the other hand, Reuven and David mutually support the notion that the lines of communication between them should always be open. Whenever Reuven struggles with a problem or simply a question, regardless the significance, he comes directly to his father for assistance. David listens intently and offers a few suggestions or delivers a thorough answer to his son’s query. For example, when Reuven wonders about Danny, David answers with a lengthy and detailed account. This demonstrates not only the comfort they bear in talking to each other but also the patience they’ve developed that has stemmed from their communication. Despite their lack of communication, Reb Saunders and his son share the same admiration, respect, and trust for each other that are consistent with Reuven’s and David’s relationship.

In the book “The Chosen” by Chaim Potok, two boys named Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders meet for the first time as rivals in a baseball game, taking place in Brooklyn, New York during the year of 1944. These boys live in an Orthodox community that is shaped by Jewish faith and culture. During the baseball game, Danny throws a strong violent pitch which hits Reuven in the eye causing him to be hospitalized. Despite Danny’s Hassidic Jewish religion, the boys soon begin to become friends through Reuven’s time at the hospital. Danny and Reuven bond over their Jewish faith, family, values, and most importantly their hopes for the future. While Reuven is a more introverted boy who loves to read and gain knowledge, Danny

Although at first, Reuven’s pain blinds him to a possible friendship with Danny, he soon forgives him, and they learn to like each other. Within a week the boys are best friends, partially owing to the to their friendly attitudes and their ready acceptance of each other. It takes two to make friends, but Reuven’s friendliness helps the process

Danny is beginning to do something because it is what he wants and likes to do. Through this he begins to very slowly find his own voice. After the study session with Danny, Reuven goes home and tells his father about Danny and his conflicting feelings about Hasidism after reading Graetz and his interest in learning German and reading Freud. David is astonished by how great a mind Danny is but also worries about Danny reading behind his father’s back and the part he takes in it. “‘But he will come to me to discuss what he reads,’ he said.

While being an intelligent kid with a passion for psychology, he lived in a very strict and orthodox Jewish family. Even so, Danny tried to read as many books as possible, saying, “I read in the library so my father won’t know. He’s very strict about what I read” (80). Meanwhile, Reuven lived quite a more secular Jewish life. So after they met, he encouraged Danny to pursue psychology. Because Danny became good friends with Reuven, he invested his time much more into his fields of

His father finds out that he has been reading other works and continues to persuade Danny that his goal in life is to become a rabbi. However in the end, Danny is able to balance between his religion and his desire for outside knowledge. His father ultimately accepts Danny’s decision and allows him to go to Columbia University to study psychology. In

During Reuven and Danny’s last conservation with Danny’s father, his father says, “[The Master of the Universe] sent [Reuven] when my son was ready to rebel. He sent you to be my closed eyes and my sealed ears… What an effort it was for him to talk to me…Let my Daniel become a psychologist. I have no more fear now.” (pg 286-87) Reb Saunders was able to communicate with his son through Reuven, and understand that he did not want to become a rabbi. Danny’s strained speech about becoming Reuven’s friend is because he did not want to go against his father’s religious beliefs. However, after becoming Reuven’s friend he considered telling Reb Saunders that he was going to become a psychologist, completely destroying what his father believed in. At the end of the book, Reuven describes Danny: “His beard and earlocks were gone, and his face looked pale. But there was a light in his eyes that was almost blinding.” (pg 290) Thanks to Reuven, Danny is able to pursue his own career. The absence of Danny’s beard and earlocks proves his freedom from his father’s religious bindings, and the newfound light in his eyes show that he knows he has his own future ahead of him now. Danny becomes much less depressed, due to Reuven’s

Reuven’s father performs a public speech, which supports his own part of the Jewish faith, announcing the need to act and prepare the way for the Messiah. Reb Saunders, however, does not appreciate the speech, and, in fact, dislikes it. Reb’s sect of Judaism proclaims that they should wait for the Messiah and pray for Him to come. After the speech, Reb forbids Danny to interact with Reuven in any way. “Danny was not to see me, talk to me, listen to me, or be found within four feet of me” (230). Mr. Saunders insists that he will force Danny out of school if they have dealings with the other at any time. At this point, both Danny and Reuven, still best friends, struggle with not being able to physically be there for each

Reuven grew up as a popular jewish kid who lived with his dad at the end of WWII. Reuven is the curious outsider looking into a world of Hasidism. Even though he is the narrator and most of the book is based on Danny’s struggle, Reuven instills the same fascination he has with Danny to us. Reuven while interacting with Danny and Reb Saunders opens up to the world and broadens his perspective of it. After his time in the hospital

Danny excluded his own brother, proving it to him that “he wouldn’t fit in at all.” The close relationship between the brothers was strained between a sense of guilt and embarrassment. Danny was so distraught with his hurtful actions that he starts to dream, “making it happen a different way,” where his brother is shown the deepest request and admiration he deserved. Danny didn’t “strike” his brother angrily due to his insensitivity but because of the immaturity of sibling rivalry. “Sometimes there is a cruel persuasion you cant resist in the hurting of one who understands you best, even as it hurts you more.”

Elis has gone through many phases growing up. His parents had been worried that he didn’t speak much, cry much, as a little child. And that was the only constant, Elis was a quiet kid. Sociable but quiet. But his parents didn’t have long to worry, they never got to see the person he would become. It didn’t matter what they worried about. Still quiet, he didn’t back down from a fight; challenging the neighborhood bully and making friends her with her; befriending the tall, scary kid first even they met last. He learned quick and excelled. Things and subjects came almost naturally to him, if not he was never far behind and caught up quick. Stubborn in a way that made his brother sigh and think of clever ways to trick him into complying. And whether

Danny is reading Freud and psychology contrary to what his father believes. Not only is he reading Freud and psychology books, he is studying them just as he studies the Talmud. Danny has a brilliant mind, and maybe that

Reuven is very diligent and hardworking. When he was hit in the head by a baseball and couldn’t read, he had books read to him and he couldn’t wait to be able to read again. Compared to the average teenager, who would love to skip school and not read, Reuven has a strong desire to learn new things. He studies the Talmud with his father daily, and enjoys studying math. Being interested in math sparks him to attempt to read advanced books on symbolic logic such as Principia Mathematica.