In the novel The Chosen by Chaim Potok, there are three important events that significantly put turns on Danny and Reuven’s friendship. The first important event occurs when Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter first meet each other at the baseball game. While playing the heated game, Reuven gets hit in the eye with a baseball that Danny has hit. The second event that is important is that, Reb Saunders, Danny’s father, puts a ban on Danny’s friendship with Reuven. The ban consists of Danny not being able to speak, see, or be within three feet of Reuven.
Comparing and Contrasting Mr.Malter and Reb Saunders The two father figures of The Chosen are Danny’s Father Reb Saunders and Reuven’s father Mr. Malter. Aside from being fathers, they represent the opposing views of Orthodox Judaism and Conservative/Reform Judaism. The two opposing faiths are introduced at the beginning of the movie while playing an almost unfriendly game of baseball. The narrator is Reuven and he talks about how the Orthodox dress, how they act, how they are repressive, and how he dislikes them and their views.
Also, since David was working so hard during the end of the book, Reuven felt obligated as a son to help his father’s dream to expand the Jewish population and form a new Jewish state. Becoming a rabbi would be the best way for Reuven to continue his father’s dream after his death. Reb Saunders also affected Danny’s career path. Reb Saunders said that Danny would not be a Jewish tzaddik for a synagogue, but a “tzaddik for the world. And the world needs a tzaddik” (Potok 287).
Reuven was glad that Danny came to visit again despite their previous encounter. after sending Danny away, he was surprised at his own actions and had come to regret it at the end. His own father reminded him that the Talmud says that if a person is willing to apologize for his own wrongdoing, then you must at least try to understand and forgive him and that is exactly what Reuven intends to do after feeling angry and depressed with himself from what he had said to Danny. Throughout this chapter, an unlikely friendship between the two boys develop. They begin to talk and learn more about one another rather than dwelling in fateful day of the ballgame; in other words, they let bygones be bygones.
When they meet at the baseball field they judge each other based on rumors they have heard or by the actions of the team. Reuven thinks of them as the “whole snooty bunch of Hasidim” (Chosen 62). Reuven thought Danny was a malicious person because he knew that Danny purposely tried to hit him. But later when Reuven opened up to Danny and stopped being so judgmental, Reuven realized that Danny was kind and just needed a friend. When Reuven is hit with the baseball, there is a chance he might be blind.
Reuven found a new appreciation of his health since he could have gone blind. Another example of perception change from the novel is when Reuven realizes Danny isn't how he appeared to be. During the story, Mr. Malter says “Things are always as they seem to be, Reuven?”. He says this because Reuven told him that it seemed like Danny hit him deliberately.
In his book The Promise Chaim Potok leads the reader on a heartbreaking journey full of spiritual conflict and decision. As a sequel to The Chosen, The Promise picks up with Reuven Malter, the main character and a Jewish man now in his mid-twenties, attending Hirsch University, a Jewish seminary in Brooklyn, New York. Reuven keeps his friendship with Danny Saunders, whom he met on a baseball field during his teenage years and later went to college with, even though they now go their separate ways as Reuven becomes a rabbi, and Danny practices psychology. During the summer Reuven dates Rachel Gordon, the niece of Abraham Gordon, a man excommunicated from the Jewish society, and meets Abraham’s son, Michael, a stubborn teen with a mental issue. Also, over the same summer Reuven’s father, David Malter, wrote a controversial book about the Talmud.
Growing older Danny starts to crave attention from Reuven, but Danny does not realize he reaches out for the wise advice of his great friend more than the friendship. Once Danny speaks to his father, “He [Reb Saunders] did not
Danny, a character from The Chosen, and I both struggle with personal desires versus family traditions and expectations. Potok depicts Danny’s struggles so seamlessly that I could greatly relate to it. For example, Danny consciously goes against his father’s expectations when he “[reads] in the library so [his] father won’t know” (Potok 80). His overwhelming desire to learn and read books overcomes the expectations of his father, which is parallel to the strong desire I have to be very expressive and free overcomes my mother’s expectations. The scene reveals that Danny is aware that he is going against his father, yet he still goes through with it willingly; it is similar to how I am aware that I am opposing my mother, but I refuse to surrender.
“I [Reuven] saw Danny all the time in school, but the silence between us continued. We had begun to communicate with our eyes, with nods of our heads, with gestures of our hands. But we did not speak to each other.” (Pages 255-256) Reuven and Danny were not allowed to speak to each other, so they communicated without speaking. They kept their friendship alive even though Danny’s father had tried to kill it.
The fact that Danny and Reuven stay friends through their own and their fathers’ differences is surely ironic, but it also shows their character. Even though their chosen careers may take them far from each other, they will most likely keep that friendship alive in the sequel. It is interesting to note the irony of their relationship when one knows that God orchestrates all things according to His purpose. Chaim Potok may not have been a Christian, but with a Jewish background, he must have known this. God’s plan in the lives of His people is always the best plan for them, yet they pursue their own way.
Having the gift of extraordinary retentive memory helps him remembers fast and seems much more smatter than other children. Tough environments give Danny characters of studious, thoughtful, and lonely. Being son of Hasidic Jews Rabbi and Hasidic people’s role model, Danny confronts high expectation from his people. With guidance from his father, Danny learned Talmud profoundly. Reb Saunders, Danny’s father, always questions him, and have debates on paragraphs of Torah with him.
From the time of Danny's youth, Reb recognizes his son's genius and lack of soul, at which point he makes the painful decision to raise his son in silence. Reb explains, "I did not want to drive my son away from God, but I did not want him to grow up a mind without a soul" (285). He sacrifices his own joy to teach his son about the suffering in the world and how to look into himself for strength. The Jewish community expects the eldest son, Danny, to inherit his father's position as tzaddik; however, Reb gives Danny his blessing to study and become a psychologist. Additionally, in front of the church, Reb announces his support of Danny's studies, which shocks many.
In “The Chosen,” Chaim Potok uses the relationship between Danny and Reuven to show the social and political problems that they dealt with. Reuven didn’t fully understand the Hasidic view on things; he asked his dad, Mr. Malter, many questions, that of which his dad knew most or just gave his opinions. Reuven was drug into Danny’s father, Reb Saunders’s, synagogue multiple times, where he learned more about the Talmud and the history behind the Hasidic religion. Reb Saunders’s was considered a tzaddik, by which everyone looked upon him as a god, but a tzaddik is just a pious leader that is a messenger between God and man. Also, with Reb Saunders being a tzaddik, he will have to pass down the role to his son, Danny.
Danny, however, seems to have only a mind, and how brilliant a mind that he has! It constantly seeks knowledge and absorbs it like a sponge, and it seems as if he does not have a soul, which can be dangerous to a religious person. It is revealed that Mr. Saunders had a brother just like Danny, and he went off in search of knowledge, eventually dying in a gas chamber at Auschwitz, and Mr. Saunders does not want Danny’s life to end in the same way that his brother did. So he brings him up in silence, so that Danny may reflect and develop his soul, to have compassion and not only seek
