His cousins, especially Younkel fight this and there is a painful estrangement. Meanwhile, Asher’s life becomes more complicated when he learns not only that his uncle had assembled a valuable and unusual art collection, a scandal to his sons, and that he had designated Asher as trustee of the collection, with any proceeds from it to be returned to the Ladover community. But the third?Ī week’s stay extends to five months at the plea of parents who want to know their grandchildren, and a Rebbe, who takes an unusual interest in Asher, and his son. Asher’s father Aryeh is the leading candidate. The third is our future.” On the minds of many is who will succeed the Rebbe if Messiah does not come first. Do you hear me, my people? Three will save us. “I say this as a message from the departed and from your Rebbe. He and his family return to Brooklyn for the funeral, and a reunion with parents and a community he hadn’t seen in years.Īt the funeral, attended by thousands, because Yitzchok had been involved extensively in efforts to fund the Ladover movement, the Rebbe makes a cryptic remark, a kind of riddle, than runs through the book. On the heels of a show in Paris, scathingly panned by critics as “repeating oneself,” he receives news of the sudden death of his Uncle Yitzchok died–the uncle who had encouraged his artistic career from buying his first drawing at age six onward. They now live in Saint Paul, near Nice where he has his studio, and a few close friends. He is married to Devorah, who after several miscarriages bore Rochelah and Avrumel.

For this he was exiled to France, where he pursues an increasingly successful art career while remaining an observant Ladover, heeding the teaching of its venerable Rebbe. One of these was My Name is Asher Lev and describes the awakening of a Jewish boy in this community to his artistic gifts, and the conflicts with his beliefs this raised, culminating in the scandal of painting a crucifixion scene set in Brooklyn as a portrayal of pain and suffering in the world. His novels were set in the Ladover Hasidic Jwish community of New York.

I first became acquainted with the work of Chaim Potok in the 1980’s. Summary: Asher Lev, exiled from a Brooklyn Hasidic community over a scandalous artwork portraying crucifixion, returns after twenty years with his family for the funeral of his uncle, only to find that he is being called upon to make a far greater sacrifice than the pain of exile.

The gift of asher lev