The Rebbe gives permission for her to enroll in college and study Russian affairs.ĭuring his early years at yeshiva, Asher stops drawing. Eventually, Rivkeh decides she wants to resume Yaakov’s work. Asher spends a lot of this time drawing pictures, which Aryeh feels are a waste of time. Rivkeh is “almost destroyed” by Yaakov’s death for months, she seldom leaves her room, and sometimes Asher hears her talking to Yaakov. One day, when Asher is six, Rivkeh receives news that Yaakov has been killed in a car accident. So did Asher’s Uncle Yaakov, older brother of his mother, Rivkeh. When Asher was small, his father, Aryeh, traveled extensively on behalf of the Rebbe. Unlike any of these ancestors, Asher, born in 1943 in Brooklyn, has a gift for drawing. Asher’s grandfather, an ingenious scholar, had also traveled as an emissary of the Ladover Rebbe, until he was brutally murdered by a Russian peasant. Observant Jews, on the other hand, work to “bring the Master of the Universe into the world,” like Asher’s ancestor. As a child, Asher was taught that non-Jews-people of the sitra achra-behave like the Russian nobleman.

After that, Asher’s ancestor began to travel, supporting Jewish scholarship and learning everywhere he went. The nobleman had burned a village and killed people during a fit of drunkenness. But Asher Lev casts far less spell in this revisit than he did two decades ago.Asher Lev introduces himself as “the notorious and legendary Lev of the Brooklyn Crucifixion.” He is also “an observant Jew.” Because Asher’s dual identity has generated gossip and myths, he will now offer a defense of himself.Īsher explains that he is descended from a “ mythic ancestor,” the estate manager for a wealthy Russian nobleman. The world of the Hasidim is intriguing, and Potok has knowledgeable insights to share about art. Even expected to give up his son, Asher merely utters a line about how he had hoped to see the boy grow up in his own home.Īs Asher sleepwalks through these pages, so too does the plot wander, despite some resolutions that form toward the end. Surrounded by neighbors who consider him an embarrassment, who taunt him as an impious sinner, Asher remains torpid. Artists slash ears off and stick shotguns in their mouths over such things, but Asher says and does little that reflects artistic agony. Despite international acclaim, Asher fears he may have lost his creative vision. Worse still, Potok never mines the conflicts Asher faces. New trees also they`ll put in.''` But often his dialogue, like his narration, falls flat. At times he recreates perfectly the syntax of Hasidic English: ''`They`re repaving this whole section of the parkway,` the driver said. Never a masterly stylist, here he often narrates what should be shown and describes many things too inconsequential to relate. Unfortunately, Potok`s early strengths are absent.

The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok