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Arielle Cohen

Ms. Everett

H American Lit.

25 May 2018

An Unsolvable Divide: An Examination of ​My Name Is Asher Lev

My Name is Asher Lev​ by Chaim Potok follows the story of Asher Lev, who lives in a

Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York, and his struggle with his father who does

not support his love for art. The book takes place in the post-Cold War era when Jews were

oppressed. Potok compares Asher and his father Aryeh’s differences in coping with the

knowledge of Jewish oppression and other evils of the world. Because Asher’s art leads him to

paint nudes and defile a Chumash (a holy Torah), Aryeh feels great shame and anger toward his

son. Aryeh holds on to religion as a way to stand up to anti-semites; Asher gradually lets go of

religion because he does not feel that same comfort. Although Asher and Aryeh misunderstand

each other, both are just trying to cope with an ugly world, as Asher relies on his art and his

dreams of his mythic ancestor to cope, while Aryeh relies on his religion.

Art and religion are both driven by empathy, and yet, Aryeh fails to understand the

meaning and importance behind Asher’s art, while Asher fails to understand how important

Aryeh’s religion is in a world that hates Jews. Asher’s art helps him understand Yudel Krinsky’s

hardships as Krinsky escaped from exile in Siberia to America. For example, after painting

Yudel, Asher reflects, “Now there was ice and darkness inside me…. It seemed to me then that

we were brothers, [Yudel] and I, and that we both knew lands of ice and darkness” (41).

Although Asher is young, he gains a greater understanding of the world in which he lives. Asher
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also begins to expand his understanding of other cultures outside of his Jewish community when

his mentor Jacob Kahn has him study the Bible, as well as other styles of painting, including

Cubism and nudist art. In contrast, Ayreh’s religious duty to build yeshivot (religious schools)

and spread Judaism around the world helps him understand the suffering of other Jews, but not

the suffering of other cultures outside of Judaism. For example, Aryeh states, “‘All the Jewish

people are one body and one soul…. If one part of the body hurts, the entire body hurts---and the

entire body must come to the help of the part that hurts’” (132). Aryeh explains how his religion

allows him to empathize with other Jews and help them through hard times. Perhaps art pushes

one to seek an understanding of many cultures while religion pushes one to seek an

understanding of others with the same beliefs. Although Asher and Aryeh both embrace

empathy, their means of achieving this creates a divide.

Art and religion also give Asher and Aryeh respective outlets for their emotions. For

example, when one boy at Asher’s school starts to bully him about his art, Jacob Kahn gives him

advice: “‘I do not sculpt and paint to make the world sacred. I sculpt and paint to give

permanence to my feelings about how terrible this world truly is’” (226). Directly after this,

Asher channels his anger into a painting of the bully. On several other occasions, Asher also

draws people like Stalin and the Rebbe to make sense of his anger towards them. In this way,

Asher uses his art to express his feelings about the evils of the world. Similarly, Aryeh is able to

relieve his stress through religion when he sings and prays to God. When Aryeh is upset after

Asher declares that he will not travel with his parents to Europe, Aryeh sings the zemiros

passionately at the dinner table. The text reads, “...he held his head in his hands and swayed

slowly back and forth” (108). However, while Asher and Aryeh both find an understanding of
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their own emotions through their respective art and religion, they can not seem to understand

each other’s ways of coping with the world.

Asher and Aryeh also use the idea of their “mythic ancestor”---Asher’s grandfather and

Aryeh’s father---in different ways. Asher uses his “mythic ancestor” to cope with the fact that he

has disrupted a family line of devoted Jews, while Aryeh uses his “mythic ancestor” to fuel his

drive to spread Judaism around the world. Asher draws some solace from the “mythic ancestor”

in that he is not the only one in his family who has led an immoral life. Asher explains, “The

nobleman was a despotic goy, a degenerate whose debaucheries grew wilder as he grew

wealthier. The Jew, my mythic ancestor, made him wealthier” (323). Here, Asher realizes that no

one is perfect and that even an ancestor of his did things that were wrong. Contrarily, Aryeh

draws something entirely different from this ancestor: the drive to bring “God into the world” for

the sake of atonement (324). While examining his “mythic ancestor,” Asher realizes that Aryeh

knows the “mythic ancestor” was not perfect, and that Aryeh performs his religious work to try

to redeem the corrupt actions of the past. Asher and Aryeh’s inability to reconcile their

differences comes from the fact that Asher has disrupted a line of ancestors who have devoted

their lives to Judaism, while Aryeh is unable to see that his own father had already done this.

Although art and religion can help people cope, both can also divide. Aryeh stresses the

importance of protecting the Jewish people and preserving Jewish culture, as he repeatedly yells

at Asher for becoming a goy and learning from the sitra achra, or “other side.” While this is a

response to centuries of Jewish oppression, it separates Aryeh from the rest of the world.

Although some people, like Stalin, have oppressed Jews, it is important to try to understand them

and their beliefs, just as it is important for those anti-semetic people to understand Judaism. Until
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people are able to have empathy for others who they don’t understand, there will be no social

progress in the world. As Aryeh stresses the importance of protecting Jews as a whole, he leaves

his own son Asher wondering, “I hurt, I thought. Who is coming to my help?” (132). Aryeh’s

work to understand the world ends up isolating him from the person he should be closest with:

his son. Similarly, Asher’s art isolates him from his family as well as his community. In the end

of the novel, after Asher’s parents see his painting of a crucifixion, the Rebbe tells Asher, “‘You

have crossed a boundary. I cannot help you. You are alone now. I give you my blessings” (367).

Because of Asher’s need to express himself through his art, he ends up being disowned by both

his family and the Jewish community. Even though Asher’s art helps him understand the world,

his family and culture, and his own emotions, it is ultimately what isolates him.

The divide between Asher and Aryeh is representative of the divides in everyday life

between people with different belief systems. It may seem simple to put aside one’s beliefs for

the sake of human connection, but Potok makes the point that it is not simple, through the

characters Asher and Aryeh. Even at the end of the book, the father and son are unable to

reconcile their differences. Asher states, “I packed my bags. We stood at the door. My mother

was crying. My father stood next to her, tall, heavy-shouldered, his eyes dark---and moist, I

thought. He said nothing, but he shook my hand” (369). Although Aryeh loves his son, he is so

ashamed and disapproving of Asher’s art that he allows the Rebbe to banish Asher from their

Brooklyn community forever. Potok shows that when people stubbornly cling to their beliefs, it

can lead to isolation. Asher is not willing to give up his art because it provides an outlet for him

to express himself. Aryeh is unable to forgive Asher’s path in life because Asher becomes an

“alien” to Aryeh and because Asher had “perverted” the “line of inheritance” (197). The two fail
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to have empathy for each other. It is interesting, however, that Asher does not actually renounce

his religion anywhere in the book; he only speculates how his art tears up his family. This could

mean that Potok’s point is not to denounce religion but to show how differing beliefs can tear

even the closest people apart.

In comparing Aryeh and Asher’s ways of coping with the world, Potok emphasizes the

idea that art and religion can create divisions. As Asher grows up, he tries to balance his interest

in art with his father’s vision of who he should be, but chooses art in the end. While Asher and

Aryeh fail to reconcile their differences, both are just trying to survive in a world that hates Jews.

The great irony is that, although they should have been working together towards the same goal,

they end up estranged from each other.

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Works Cited

Potok, Chaim. ​My Name Is Asher Lev.​ Random House, Inc., 1972.