Dear one,
“You will remain an observer of the Commandments?” Reb Saunders asked his son, Danny, who then nodded “yes.”
This question, or a variant, Reb Saunders repeatedly asked throughout Chaim Potok’s sensitive portrayal of two Jewish cultures in conflict: Orthodox and Hasidic Judaism. In his The Chosen, you might recall that Potok explored the budding and then flourishing friendship between Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders; the former reared within the Orthodox tradition, the latter within the Hasidic tradition (i.e. extreme-Orthodox). Reuven is bright; Danny is brilliant—he has a photographic memory, with lucid comprehension—so brilliant that his father, Reb Saunders, afraid that his son will grow only as a great intellect, but without heart and soul, raises him in a tradition of silence: only in their shared study of the Talmud can father and son speak to one another.
Because of this painfully imposed silence, Reuven grows to hate Danny's father, Reb Saunders; but with gentleness, Potok not only depicts Reuven’s confusion and anguish, and equally Rev Saunder’s broken heart, but broaches a larger question: How can Orthodox and/or Hasidic communities keep their children within “the fold” —especially those children who are unquestionably prodigies? Thus Reb Saunders’ question to his son: “You will remain an observer of the Commandments?” is really a father’s deep longing: “Because of your brilliance, will you choose to be one of us … or have we lost you?”
In a recent blog, I considered Jesus’ upper-room word to His disciples: “A new command I give you that you might love one another”, whereby I asked: Can love be commanded? There as here, I answer that question: “yes”; but because of my recent rereading of The Chosen, I am also reminded of Jesus’ further, upper-room words: “If you love me, my commandments you will keep” (John 14:15). That is, for Jesus love is to be defined as obedience in action.
Thus when He was asked to identify the greatest commandments, Jesus combined two into an “inextricably-bound triangle”: “You shall love the Lord you God from all your heart, soul, mind, and strength … and neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:33). Accordingly, a person cannot sacrificially love the one and disparage or even hate one or both of the other two.
In these days of the virus with its multitude of rules and regulations; in these days of social unrest, when two American histories are in conflict (like two Orthodox traditions), will you and I obey the command to love, even though we might feel otherwise?
Wondering,
Stan
Obedient love?