Chaim Potok's novel The Gift...
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Chaim Potok's novel The Gift of Asher Lev is one of the author's usual sensitive and stirring portrayals of the pious tensions in the Hebrew community. Asher Lev is an outstanding artist who found stimulation and the quietude essential to his work in France. He is called back to America to attend his uncle's funeral. He was uncomfortable with the changes that transformed his old neighborhood, but he suffered greater shock when he toured the New York art galleries. What he saw convinced him that art had become a Mardi Gras. The ordinary had become king surrounded by popularization, shallowness, doubt and cynicism. He was convinced the century was exhausted. The real burden for Asher, however, was the attitude of his rabbinical father. The father complained bitterly that he did not understand his son's works of art. His confusion dated back to Asher's painting two crucifixions of his parents. In a painful dialogue Asher tries to explain that his art may be difficult for his father, because life is difficult. His father replies that life may be difficult and ambiguous only because we make it so. He asserts that the task of people who believe in God is to bring God into the world. Asher does not wish to contradict his father but indicates that the rabbi does not understand how pervasive the problem of evil is. It is the Passion Gospel that helps us to understand that the evil in the world is so pervasive that God alone could contend with it through the sending of a Son to overcome it. -- Huxhold
