It follows the narrator Reuven Malter and his friend Daniel Saunders, as they grow up in the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, in the s. Rabbi Isaac Saunders We don't really think the Reb is an antagonist.
As David says, the Reb is "not a fraud. Reuven also deals with conflicts and change. Through his interactions with Danny and Reb Saunders, his perspective on the world is broadened. He deepens his empathy for others and enlarges his intellect.
Both Reuven and Danny are protagonists, and each is central to developing the novel's themes and driving its plot. How many pages is the chosen? Category: books and literature fiction. Is Dune hard to read? How long should you read a day? What is a tzaddik in the chosen? How long should it take to finish a book? How long does it take to say words? Reading Time by Word Counts. Word Count Slow wpm Average wpm words 6 minutes 2. How long does it take to read a page book?
How long does it take to read Harry Potter? What does Danny want to be in the chosen? The Chosen. Who is the chosen in the chosen? The main characters of this fiction, classics story are Reuven Malter, Danny Saunders. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator.
We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Some of the techniques listed in The Chosen may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.
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Sep 20, Jessaka rated it it was amazing Shelves: childhood-fiction-and-non-fiction , holocaust , history. How to make a unity of such disparate entitles—the war in Europe, a childhood eye injury, the mesmerizing quality and dark menace of certain books, Freud, religion, psychology, mathematical logic, sacred texts, scientific text criticism, Zionism, the Holocaust. The book was beautiful and memorable.
It teaches history and a few life lessons, but overall, I found it tedious, boring. I continued reading it because the story will last in my mind, and I knew that I could never consider that it was not a great novel. A rabbi teaches his son, Danny, the Talmud but otherwise never speaks to him. It is the Hasidic way to teach. The silence causes suffering, but it is through this suffering that he is to learn compassionate and how to find his own answers in life.
This is true. Finding my own answers in life, well, maybe there are no real answers, but that is now okay. Then there is the boy Reuven, whose father is a teacher that studies the Talmud with him, but they are Orthodox Jews. The relationship between the fathers and sons, and between the boys, made this story work somewhat for me.
I thought after the baseball game, and then the hospital stay that the book would pick up, but then Danny was interested in psychology, mainly Freud. I had lost interest in psychology after 3 college courses, and I continued to lose interest in it when some of the Jewish men that I had dated back then wanted to analyze me. So while Danny wanted to become a psychologist, his father wanted him to become a rabbi.
Psychology can do that, but religion can as well. I considered him stuck between a rock and a hard place. And so yes, there was religion, the long lessons that each boy had to learn when their fathers taught them the Talmud.
They learned it inside and out, and my own mind was screaming inside and out, yet I also knew that this way of learning could be applied to other curriculums. It is just that have grown sick of religion over the years, over my own struggles to find answers in life.
I am sick of the shunning that goes on in them, of the righteousness, of believing that your religion is right and all others can go to hell or wherever their lack of faith takes them. I wanted to read a book about Jewish boys growing up in Brooklyn, N. I thought more along the lines of their playing, not baseball, but in the creeks catching pollywogs.
I also thought more along the line of their stealing apples out of a fruit stand that was outside of a store. But then I thought about my own Jewish friends who were in college, and none of us where interested in anything other than college, and well, men.
We were past the age of pollywogs, but as I grew older I came back to the pollywogs. As I read this book I saw how the American Jews reacted to the end of WWII when they learned that 6 million Jews had been murdered with many being gassed and then burned in incinerators.
My mind went back to two weeks ago when my husband and I were driving past a funeral home, and the smoke was coming out of the chimney of the crematorium; I cringed, thinking of those gas chambers in Auschwitz. I thought how uncivilized it was and how horrible to have it at the edge of our town. Maybe there is a reason that hell is beneath the earth.
Yet we must care for everyone and not limit ourselves. And as the years went by in my own life, as I learned more about humankind, I grew to believe that there is nothing that man cannot and will not do to another human being once he considers him his enemy.
But both religion and politics divides us like this, and other expectations do as well, and there is probably no way to get around it. Still, I have to hold on to the belief that some men will never change; they will always remain humane. Now, American politics reminds me of how Hitler came to power, and while I still read non-fiction books, when things get too heavy in regards to the news, I like to pick up a book about childhood memories; it is my own therapy. This book was not therapy.
But America, outside of the men and women in the military, has not faced war in their homeland since the Civil War, and I know that some Americans fear that this can happen here, or that our world will just be blown up. No one does that has not experienced it. At its core The Chosen is about the relationship between two Brooklyn boys Danny and Reuven, the world they grow up in, and their relationship with their fathers. Both are Jewish, but while they share the same faith, they belong to radically different portions of that faith.
Danny is Hasidic. What's more he is the son of a Rebbe and expected to take up the mantle with the passing of his father. Reuven, on the other hand, is part of modern Orthodox Judaism and is the son of a Talmudic teacher. Whi At its core The Chosen is about the relationship between two Brooklyn boys Danny and Reuven, the world they grow up in, and their relationship with their fathers. While growing up mere blocks from each other they do not cross paths until a baseball game brings them together So, not the best foot for a relationship to get off on.
Danny visits Reuven in the hospital and while Reuven is initially hostile to Danny his father convinces him to give Danny and chance and they begin to become friends. The relationship between the two boys blossoms as they grow up.
We discover Danny is brilliant, with a once in a generation mind who fears being trapped into the role of his people's Rebbe. His father only speaks to him when they discuss the Talmud and forbids him from reading world book such as Freud and Darwin.
Reuven, while still very smart, is much more mathematically inclined than Danny. In spite of their differences they become great friends, spending many evenings and Sabbaths together. This leads to the big clash in the book, Zionism. Immediately post-WWII, when the full horrors that had been visited on the Jews was made widely known there was a resurgence in Zionism , specifically a homeland in British Palestine.
While many Jews were in favor of a return to their historic homeland, the more religious ones such as Edah HaChareidis thought that their could never be a Jewish state until the return of Messiah.
Danny's father passionately felt this way while Reuven's father was an ardent Zionist. This matter was further complicated by Jewish terrorist attacks as well as attackes by Arabs and the British on Jewish neighborhoods and immigrants. It was a huge mess and naturally the boys are caught in the middle with Danny's father forbidding Danny from seeing or interacting with Reuven. Potok's writing in conveying all the emotions Reuven experiences throughout the book is stupendous.
We see him grow both as a person coming into his own as a man and his relationship with Danny. We see his evolving attitude towards his own religion and how he chooses it to affect his life. Naturally Potok, an orthodox rabbi himself, treats all these conflicts with a deft and empathetic hand. There are no good guys or bad guys, just people trying to navigate the turbulent times they live in.
Even the rather monstrous silent treatment Danny's father subjects him to comes from a place of love and compassion. The tragedy of the book is what circumstances people find themselves in through no fault of their own and how it affects their relationships with others. But such is the nature of life, so beautifully encapsulated by this novel. Aug 24, Emily rated it liked it Shelves: fiction , classics. I'm really struggling with how to review this book.
It was beautifully written. The relationships between Danny and Reuven and between Reuven and his father were real and touching. I enjoyed learning about different systems of Jewish faith and the interactions or lack thereof between their communities. The historic insights into WWII and its aftermath, particularly the realization among American Jews of the extent of the Holocaust and the formation of the state of Israel, were fascinating.
But I'm really struggling with how to review this book. His explanation toward the end of the book didn't really help.
It was obvious that he loved his son and was incredibly proud of him, and that he truly believed that he made the best choice he could at the time in how to raise his son with a soul, though he admitted when asking for forgiveness from Danny, "A wiser father I am not And I was especially disheartened that Danny said he may raise his own son in silence, too, "if I can't find another way.
There are better ways to teach compassion, even to intellectual geniuses like Danny. For more book reviews, visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves. View 1 comment. This is one of the saddest and, at the same time, most beautiful books I have ever read. It is a story of the friendship between two very different Jewish boys growing up in Brooklyn. It is also a story of the relationships between fathers and sons.
Although the story is fictional, it provides an introduction to the history of Jews in Europe and even briefly touches on the very early days of the modern state of Israel. It is a story and a book that I shall never forget.
View all 3 comments. Mar 23, Vishakha rated it really liked it Shelves: american , national-book-award , reviewed , historical-fiction , immigrants , world-war.
Literature spun around the world wars has been my all-time favourite read; I find that the experiences born from human tragedies of this magnitude are honest and deeply affecting. They belong to different Jewish sects because of which their religious practices and even their family lives are poles apart -- the book focuses on and in a way compares their contrasting paternal relationships.
As these factors contribute in shaping their religious identities and personalities, they try to strike a balance between traditional family values and modernity in the world around them. The quiet strength of their friendship helps them to deal with the pressures of life and maintain their sanity in the face of the enormity and the hopelessness of war. And even if we are aware of their reasons, we are usually not ready to see things from a different vantage point.
This rings especially true when those people are conservative or follow orthodox religious practices. And just like Reuven, this book quietly takes a place in your heart with its simplicity and gentleness. Individual fulfillment should be the most important consideration in making such decisions.
Sadly, some of us do not have the luxury of choosing. Amongst the many lessons that I will take away from this book, the most important one for me is that a good heart is far more valuable than a brilliant mind, and we should take utmost care to sow in it the seeds of love and compassion. Overall, I really liked the book and will not mind reading it once again. View all 10 comments. Jul 16, Paul rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: fathers, sons, friends.
Shelves: fiction. Well, I just finished this book last night and I must say I was deeply moved by the whole experience. I remembered there was a reason I liked it so much back in high school.
I love the relationship between the two main characters, Danny and Reuven. They've reminded me that there are definite friendships that I cherish highly, and that true friends are hard to come by. But when they do, you know in your heart that you will never leave them for the rest of your life.
I guess after reading this, i Well, I just finished this book last night and I must say I was deeply moved by the whole experience. I guess after reading this, it's made me sit back and just realize that I do cherish and love my friends and that without them, I wouldn't be able to get through this life.
I really like the parts of the book where it focuses on the relationship between the two boys and their respective fathers. You can tell each father loves his son immensely, but in different ways. I also like re-learning all the things about the Jewish community, at least as much as Chaim Potok talks about. Not being Jewish, I've found a lot of the history that I didn't know about and the Jewish customs so very intriguing.
I've definitely been enlightened by this book, which I consider a good thing. Potok's writing is very direct as well as descriptive, and he has such a great way of writing. And there were one or two chapters that I was so moved by his writing, that I did indeed become a little teary-eyed. I highly recommend this book, especially if you want to reaffirm what true friendship means to you. Apr 01, Carol Brill rated it really liked it.
I was charmed by Reuven and Danny, and their ability to bridge differences to nurture their loyal friendship. That and how the author creates a strong sense of time and the orthodox Jewish culture and lifestyle in the mid 's engaged me. Some parts of the book were harder for me to enjoy. I slogged through many of religious details and history and the lectures and debates.
I loved Reuven's relationship with his father. Danny's with his was hard to fathom and heartbreaking. The non-religious his I was charmed by Reuven and Danny, and their ability to bridge differences to nurture their loyal friendship.
The non-religious history, especially the country's response to Roosevelt's death, the discovery of the horror of the concentration camps, and the resulting Zionist movement moved me and kept my interest. Feb 16, Werner rated it really liked it Recommends it for: Anyone with an interest in serious fiction. Shelves: general-fiction. Note, Dec. When I wrote the review originally, I didn't know how to do that. The central theme of The Chosen is the possible difference between our inherited religious tradition vs.
Both boys in the book have to grapple with this; it's most obvious for Danny, "chosen" f Note, Dec. Both boys in the book have to grapple with this; it's most obvious for Danny, "chosen" from infancy to succeed his father as a rabbi of the super-orthodox Hasidim, with their almost medieval traditions a role he's not at all cut out for , but Reuven also faces it in his yeshiva, when he realizes that his own study of the Old Testament leads at times to different conclusions than those of his rabbinic tradition.
Himself Jewish, Potok doesn't demonize tradition; he delivers a serious, nuanced and balanced look at its role. Though they're presented here in a Jewish context, the religious issues he deals with here are profoundly important for Christians or persons of any faith as well. Like all great novels, this one has other dimensions as well.
The meaning of the title is also multi-faceted: Danny is "the chosen," but Reuven is also "chosen" across sectarian lines to become his friend; and at a deeper level, Israel itself was chosen by God as the vehicle for His revelation to mankind. For Gentile Christians like myself, another rewarding feature of this book is the window it provides into Jewish culture and thought, especially the American urban Jewish culture that had so great an influence on the shaping of our country in the decades after the story takes place.
Prior to reading this book, I really knew nothing at all about Hasidic Judaism, its origins or particular beliefs; so all of the historical information Potok seamlessly provides was fascinating to me. View all 6 comments. Jul 05, Elisabeth rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: anyone interested in history, Judaism, forgiveness or friendship,. My brother Matt suggested this book, and I'm very glad that I read it. And glad that he was there to fill me in a little more on the history it brings up.
It is very well written, and enjoyable as well as educational. It helped me better understand the Jewish faith and branches of Judaism, the horror of WWII, what is unique about American Jews, and some of the conflict over the Israel as a Jewish state.
Leaves you with a warm feeling and lots to think about. One is to acquire a teacher View all 4 comments. Apr 14, Alex rated it liked it Shelves: , new-york-literary-biography. There are a lot of Jewish people in Brooklyn.
One of them is my wife, but most of them aren't. They're both conservative; one major difference is that Hasidic Jews are anti-Israel, for complicated and dumb reasons.
I only heard about Chaim Potok and this book recently, which surprised my wife; for her, The Chosen was a core high school text. There's a lot of attention to analysis of the Talmud, a dizzying body of arcane arguments about religious details.
Some bookish men from both traditions dedicate their lives to learning about this stuff, which seems like a shame; here are these perfectly good readers who are not reading Middlemarch. If you want to know more about all that, you'll love this book.
I found it interesting, mostly. They respect each other, but disagree vehemently. Danny's father, in a story so crazy it must be true, hasn't spoken to him since he was an infant; they discuss Talmud together but otherwise don't communicate at all. He's trying to teach him compassion. I suggested to my wife that we try this with our kid, and she was like "Good luck keeping your mouth shut for more than thirty seconds," which is a decent point.
It's a glimpse into a foreign and exotic world, even though it's like two neighborhoods away from me, and it's all interesting but it feels a little "young adult" to me. The story is written in simple language, and the message is overstated to make sure you don't miss anything. I don't think it's particularly great literature. Jan 05, R. Rodda rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorites. The story of an extraordinary friendship between two boys raised by parents with opposing views about how best to practise the Jewish faith.
One boy is a genius whose father will go to extreme lengths to preserve his faith in God. I still shake my head at his actions but the power of this story is that it is not only unforgettable but it opens the curtain on Hasidic culture and contrasts it with the more modern but still devout Jew. A fascinating story, a page-turning friendship, and a rite of p The story of an extraordinary friendship between two boys raised by parents with opposing views about how best to practise the Jewish faith.
A fascinating story, a page-turning friendship, and a rite of passage with the boys becoming men on two very different paths by the end.
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