Now Reading: Chaim Potok’s In the Beginning

I am reading Chaim Potok’s best selling book In the Beginning. I have always been fascinated with Jewish culture, customs and history. This book allows me to gain a deeper view to the culture of Jews and how Jewish children and young people make the transition to adulthood.

Potok manages to recapture the Depression era and World War II in his novel. The characters are so real and believable. David Lurie’s character, which I gather may be Potok’s autobiographical representation, may be dreamy and wistful and overly intelligent for his age. But his genius and his questions penetrate the heart of Jewish orthodoxy in a way that makes his family and his immediate relative cringe.

The novel chronicles David Lurie’s coming of age. And in doing so, Potok presents the culture crash between Judaism and the broader secular culture. He extols the Jewish culture while at the same time warns against cultural chauvinism. We read David Lurie saying that the world would be better off without the goyim (Gentiles) yet his father responds by saying “I doubt it! We would probably start killing each other.” Whoa! Such an honest appraisal of the human condition.

My salute goes to Chaim Potok. While I may be decades late in reading this bestseller, I am honored to have read it. The America of the 1930s-1940s comes alive to me through the eyes of young David Lurie.

~ by penstalker on 7 November 2008.