My Name Is Asher Lev
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this modern classic from the National Book Award–nominated author of The Chosen, a young religious artist is compulsively driven to render the world he sees and feels, even when it leads him to blasphemy.
“A novel of finely articulated tragic power .... Little short of a work of genius.”—The New York Times Book Review
Asher Lev is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. He grows up in a cloistered Hasidic community in postwar Brooklyn, a world suffused by ritual and revolving around a charismatic Rebbe. He is torn between two identities, the one consecrated to God, the other devoted only to art and his imagination, and in time, his artistic gift threatens to estrange him from that world and the parents he adores.
As it follows his struggle, My Name Is Asher Lev becomes a luminous, visionary portrait of the artist, by turns heartbreaking and exultant.
“A novel of finely articulated tragic power .... Little short of a work of genius.”—The New York Times Book Review
Asher Lev is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. He grows up in a cloistered Hasidic community in postwar Brooklyn, a world suffused by ritual and revolving around a charismatic Rebbe. He is torn between two identities, the one consecrated to God, the other devoted only to art and his imagination, and in time, his artistic gift threatens to estrange him from that world and the parents he adores.
As it follows his struggle, My Name Is Asher Lev becomes a luminous, visionary portrait of the artist, by turns heartbreaking and exultant.
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Community Reviews
This novel explores the tension between artistic expression and the Orthodox Jewish world that would set limits on that expression. As someone who grew up Jewishly traditional but chose Orthodoxy, I found Potok's characterizations very real and very balanced.
Asher Lev is born into a rabbinic dynasty and is expected to step up to his role, but his soul is that of an artist, and his calling cannot be denied. The story moves slowly but readers will be rewarded by the realistic conclusion and fully realized characters. As many other Goodreads reviews have noted, you don't have to be Jewish to be able to appreciate the universal aspects of the story.
Asher Lev is born into a rabbinic dynasty and is expected to step up to his role, but his soul is that of an artist, and his calling cannot be denied. The story moves slowly but readers will be rewarded by the realistic conclusion and fully realized characters. As many other Goodreads reviews have noted, you don't have to be Jewish to be able to appreciate the universal aspects of the story.
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