888 Potok, Chaim
in strict silence, unless they are studying the Torah,
a body of religious teachings. That situation takes a
toll on Danny, although he respects his father tre-
mendously. Finally, each boy develops a relationship
with the other’s father, allowing him to embrace his
identity more fully.
Jeana Hrepich
IdentIty in The Chosen
The Chosen is a coming of age story that takes
Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders, two Jewish
young men grappling with their identities, as its
central subjects. It is also a story about their fathers’
high expectations for them and, in some cases, their
defiance of those dreams for the right to follow their
own.
Danny Saunders has a formidable mind. He
memorizes whole passages from the Torah, and his
analysis is impeccable. Each week on Shabbat after-
noons, Danny’s father, Reb Saunders, quizzes Danny
on the major tractates of the Talmud, a collection of
Jewish law. Danny answers questions that require
knowledge of minute details that astound his friend,
Reuven Malter, who sees these sessions as “a strange,
almost bizarre quiz.” Reuven does not yet under-
stand that Reb Saunders is training Danny to be
a good leader of their people, a group of extremely
Orthodox Jews who are fiercely loyal to their rabbi,
their synagogue, and their customs. However, Danny
has a rebellious spirit and a mind of his own.
On one hand, Danny feels responsible for his
father’s people, and his respect for his father is great,
even though he was raised in silence. Danny’s father
only speaks to him during their Shabbat “quizzes” as
a method to help Danny feel the suffering of other
people. Reb Saunders wanted to raise a son who had
both brains and a soul. Danny says, “I’ve begun to
realize that you can listen to silence and learn from
it.” While once he resented his father, now he begins
to understand and, in his eyes, benefit from the quiet
that engulfed him as a young man.
Still, despite his fledgling understanding of his
father’s choice to raise him in silence and his feeling
of obligation to his father and his people, Danny has
dreams of his own. As a young teenager, he spent
hours at the library where he read stacks of books
that his father would consider taboo. In fact, it is
Reuven Malter’s father, David, who begins to guide
Danny’s forbidden explorations. Eventually Danny’s
studies become even more controversial as he exam-
ines psychology, Freud, and psychoanalysis. When
he embarks on German, the language of the people
who so recently killed 6 million Jews, even Reuven is
taken aback. Nevertheless, Danny’s predilection for
the study of the mind consumes him, and his future
takes a drastic turn.
Danny realizes that his little brother, an ill, pale
child, could take their father’s place, leaving Danny
to follow his own path. Danny admits to Reuven
that the real reason he had concern for his brother’s
health was because his brother’s life as a tzaddik, a
Hasidic spiritual leader, and the next of kin to their
father’s dynasty, would allow Danny to pursue psy-
chology without abandoning the extended family of
his people. Danny says, “I think I had to justify to
myself having to become a tzaddik,” but his hopes
for his brother put an end to his expectations for
himself to follow in his father’s footsteps. The deci-
sion is not easy, however. Danny’s wife had been
chosen for him when he was a toddler, as is the cus-
tom in his community. Danny tells Reuven, “That’s
another reason it won’t be so easy to break out of the
trap. It doesn’t only involve my own family.”
Ironically, it is Reuven Malter who pursues the
dream of becoming a rabbi. His father had alterna-
tive plans for him, though, just as Reb Saunders
sought other results for Danny’s future. “I would
have liked you to become a university professor. But
I think you have already decided,” David Malter says
to his son after Reuven insists that he will become
a rabbi.
In a way, Danny fulfills the dreams Reuven
Malter’s father had for Reuven, and Reuven fulfills
the dreams Danny Saunders’s father had for Danny.
Neither young man becomes what he was expected,
but each becomes the best at what he set out to be.
Identity, then, cannot be shaped by a father’s wishes;
young men must forge identities for themselves,
according to the examples in The Chosen.
Jeana HrepichparentHood in The Chosen
Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders are an unlikely
pair in Chaim Potok’s The Chosen. Their fathers,