My Name is Asher Lev (1972) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters/People edit see section history

• Asher Lev: Painting prodigy, son of an Orthodox Jewish family
• Jacob Khan: Artist and mentor of Asher. One who knows how walk in both camps, and yet remains true in his own way to each; his art and his faith.
• The Rebbe: Spiritual leader for the community.

Quotes edit see section history

• “" A regular Chagall," my uncle said. I turned in my chair and looked up at him. "No," I said. "My name is Asher Lev."”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• Only one who has mastered a tradition has a right to attempt to add to it or to rebel against it.

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• Someone once asked how it is possible to establish a connection between man and the Master of the Universe. The answer was that man must take the first step. In order for there to be a connection between man and the Master of the Universe, there must first be an opening, a passageway, even a passageway as small as the eye of a needle. But man must make the opening by himself; man must take the beginning step. Then the Master of the Universe will move in, as it were, and widen the passageway.

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• If you want to know how to do a thing you must first have a complete desire to do that thing. Then go to kindred spirits—others who have wanted to do that thing—and study their ways and means, learn from their successes and failures and add your quota. Thus you may acquire from the experience of the race. And with this technical knowledge you may go forward, expressing through the play of forms the music that is in you and which is very personal to you.

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• “So life would be precious, Asher. Something that is yours forever is never precious.”

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• You can do anything you want to do. What is rare is this actual wanting to do a specific thing: wanting it so much that you are practically blind to all other things, that nothing else will satisfy you.

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• … every great artist is a man who has freed himself from his family, his nation, his race. Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a “universal” without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere.

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• Seeds must be sown everywhere. Only some will bear fruit. But there would not be the fruit from the few had the many not been sown.

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• observant Jew working on a crucifixion because there was no aesthetic mold in his own religious tradition into which he could pour a painting of ultimate anguish and torment.

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• But it would have made me a whore to leave it incomplete. It would have made it easier to leave future work incomplete. It would have made it more and more difficult to draw upon that additional aching surge of effort that is always the difference between integrity and deceit in a created work. I would not be the whore to my own existence. Can you understand that? I would not be the whore to my own existence.

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• He should be careful of the influence of those with whom he consorts, and he runs a great risk in becoming a member of a large society, for large bodies tend toward the leveling of individuality to a common consent, the forming and adherence to a creed.

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First Sentence edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Two From Galilee, and followed by Semi-Tough.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Chaim Potok (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.54

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( P ) › Potok, Chaim
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics