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Chaim Potok

Chaim Potok Books

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The Chosen

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The Promise

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Davita's Harp

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“You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it. ... You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture. It doesn't always talk. Sometimes - sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then. But you have to.”

PainSilenceListening
Book:The Chosen
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“For all the pain you suffered, my mama. For all the torment of your past and future years, my mama. For all the anguish this picture of pain will cause you. For the unspeakable mystery that brings good fathers and sons into the world and lets a mother watch them tear at each other’s throats. For the Master of the Universe, whose suffering world I do not comprehend. For dreams of horror, for nights of waiting, for memories of death, for the love I have for you, for all the things I remember, and for all the things I should remember but have forgotten, for all these I created this painting—an observant Jew working on a crucifixion because there was no aesthetic mold in his own religious tradition into which he could pour a painting of ultimate anguish and torment.”

ArtPainSufferingPaintingPaintJewTormentJudaismJewishHasidic JudaismAsher LevHasidic
Book:My Name Is Asher Lev
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“But it would have made me a whore to leave it incomplete. It would have made it easier to leave future work incomplete. It would have made it more and more difficult to draw upon that additional aching surge of effort that is always the difference between integrity and deceit in a created work. I would not be the whore to my own existence. Can you understand that? I would not be the whore to my own existence.”

Artistic Integrity
Book:My Name Is Asher Lev
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“In our time ... a man whose enemies are faceless bureaucrats almost never wins. It is our equivalent to the anger of the gods in ancient times. But those gods you must understand were far more imaginative than our tiny bureaucrats. They spoke from mountaintops not from tiny airless offices. They rode clouds. They were possessed of passion. They had voices and names. Six thousand years of civilization have brought us to this.”

MenYearsPassionWinningNamesVoiceEnemyCivilizationThousandOfficeSixAncientCloudsTinyOur TimeSpokesPossessedThousand YearsBureaucracyImaginativeBureaucratsAncient TimesFaceless
Author:Chaim Potok
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“We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much, if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?...I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing; but the eye that blinks, that is something.”

IfsWorldHumansMayMeanLongDoeEyePainSufferingValuesOur LivesLong TimeEternityChosenHuman LifeLong Time AgoBlinkBlink Of An Eye
Author:Chaim Potok
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“I will go wherever the truth leads me. It is secular scholarship, Rebbe; it is not the scholarship of tradition. In secular scholarship there are no boundaries and no permanently fixed views.” Lurie, if the Torah cannot go out into your world of scholarship and return stronger, then we are all fools and charlatans. I have faith in the Torah. I am not afraid of truth.”

IfsWorldViewsFoolReturnTraditionStrongerBoundariesFixedHave FaithNot AfraidSecularScholarshipLeading MeNo BoundariesCharlatansTorah
Author:Chaim Potok
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“I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.”

MenMayLongEyeLife IsGivenQualityLong TimeTinyChosenQuantityInsignificantLong Time AgoBlinkBlink Of An Eye
Book:The Chosen
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“A man is born into this world with only a tiny spark of goodness in him. The spark is God, it is the soul; the rest is ugliness and evil, a shell. The spark must be guarded like a treasure, it must be nurtured, it must be fanned into flame. It must learn to seek out other sparks, it must dominate the shell. Anything can be a shell, Reuven. Anything. Indifference, laziness, brutality, and genius. Yes, even a great mind can be a shell and choke the spark.”

MenWorldMindSoulEvilBornThis WorldGeniusGoodnessTinyTreasureFlamesIndifferenceSparksLazinessShellsUglinessBrutalityChokeGuardedGreat Minds
Author:Chaim Potok
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“Reuven listen to me. The Talmud says that a person should do two things for himself. One is to acquire a teacher. Do you remember the other." "Choose a friend," I said. "Yes. You know what a friend is, Reuven? A Greek philosopher said that two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul." I nodded. "Reuven, if you can, make Danny Saunders your friend." "I like him a lot, abba." "No. Listen to me. I am not talking about only liking him. I am telling you to make him your friend and to let him make you his friend.”

PeopleIfsKnowsShouldPersonsSaidTwoSoulBodyRememberTalkingTeacherPhilosopherGreekTwo ThingsAcquireTrue FriendNot TalkingListen To MeGreek PhilosopherAbbaI Like Him
Author:Chaim Potok
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“I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonic and the divine at one and the same time. The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. I was demonic and divine.”

TwoHandsPainForcePleasureCreativityCreationDivineAspectPain And PleasureDemonic
Book:My Name Is Asher Lev
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“Literature presents you with alternate mappings of the human experience. You see that the experiences of other people and other cultures are as rich, coherent, and troubled as your own experiences. They are as beset with suffering as yours. Literature is a kind of legitimate voyeurism through the keyhole of language where you really come to know other people's lives--their anguish, their loves, their passions. Often you discover that once you dive into those lives and get below the surface, the veneer, there is a real closeness.”

PeopleKnowsHumansKindRealSufferingCulturePassionLiteratureLanguageRichSurfaceAnguishHuman ExperienceClosenessOther CulturesVeneerMappingBelow The SurfaceKeyholes
Author:Chaim Potok
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