My Name is Asher Lev
Author: Chaim Potok
(Fiction)
“My name is Asher Lev, the Asher Lev, about whom you have read in newspapers and magazines, about whom you talk so much at your dinner affairs and cocktail parties, the notorious and legendary Lev of The Brooklyn Crucifixion.”
This book and its sequel, The Gift of Asher Lev, should be required reading for any artistic/creative soul … or anybody trying to live with one! As both a writer and painter himself, Potok more than understood eyes that see in unusual ways as windows to a soul that, in order to thrive, must translate vision into form. One of his messages might be summed up as, “We who’ve been given creative gifts have to be true to our gifts or live as cripples.”
But, as we all know, living with creative people can be tough, often bordering on downright impossible! Potok had genuine compassion for friends and family struggling to understand a loved one’s creative obsession. He didn’t flinch from asking the hard questions like, where are the lines drawn? Should/can the artist take others’ feelings into account and still remain true to his calling? When does he have to stand, even if he stands alone and against the ones he loves best? When does a magnificent obsession become self-indulgent self-absorption?
One of the most wonderful things about these two stories is the fact that they acknowledge the indissoluble link between the spiritual and the creative, between God and the artist. God is a constant presence in this book, the Author of the artist’s calling, the Power that flows through the painter and out to an amazed world in unexpected ways. Asher Lev and his Orthodox Hasidic Jewish community struggle with questions like, what is true piety? Does the pious man always do the expected, follow the well-worn path? Is God deeper, more enigmatic and infinitely more surprising than we could possibly imagine? Can we be humble enough to allow for the possibility that His call for one man’s life might astonish the rest of us?
Come to think of it, that just might be the books’ most important message!
