The Chosen: Chapters 15–18

The grim faces of the teachers and the students in school reflected the newspaper headlines that told of Arab riots and attacks against the Jews of Palestine, Jewish defense measures, many of which were being hampered by the British, and continued Irgun activities.

The Arabs were attacking Jewish settlements in the Upper Galilee, the Negev and around Jerusalem, and were incessantly harassing supply convoys.

The Zionist youth groups in the school became increasingly active, and on one occasion some of the members of my group were asked to cut our afternoon classes and go down to a warehouse in Brooklyn to help load uniforms, helmets, and canteens onto huge ten-ton trucks that were waiting outside.

“Now I will be glad if I can go to the cottage this summer,” he said, and there was a wry smile on his lips.

He had gone to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to get his doctorate, had joined the Haganah and been killed trying to get a convoy through to Jerusalem.

He had gone to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to get his doctorate, had joined the Haganah and been killed trying to get a convoy through to Jerusalem.

One of his Talmud teachers described his devoutness and dedication to Judaism, his mathematics professor talked about his brilliance as a student, and one of the members of the senior class told of the way he had always spoken of going to Israel.

July came and brought sweltering heat, and the happy announcement from Dr. Grossman that my father was now well enough to be able to go to the cottage in August and resume teaching in September.

The war in Israel continued sporadically, especially in the Negev.

But the initiative had passed to the Israelis, and the tension was gone from it by now.

“I think it’s crazy and sadistic,” I said bitterly.

Rav Gershenson’s class became a particular joy, because the ease between Danny and myself now permitted us to engage in a constant flow of competitive discussion that virtually monopolized the hours of the shiur.

But he said it with a warm smile, and Danny and I were delighted by his oblique compliment.

Freud was a genius. But he was too circumspect in his findings.

"...He suggested I go into clinical psychology."
"What’s that?”
"Well, it’s the same as the difference between theoretical and applied physics, say. The experimental psychologist is more or less the theoretician; the clinical psychologist applies what the experimentalist learns. He gets to work with people. He examines them, tests them, diagnoses them, even treats them.”

That was all he said. Not a word about Zionism. Not a word about the silence he had imposed upon Danny and me.

“You ought to get yourself a girl,” I told him. I was dating regularly now on Saturday nights. “It’s a wonderful tonic for a suffering soul.”

Danny’s brother’s bar mitzvah celebration, which I attended on a Monday morning during the third week in October, was a simple and unpretentious affair.

The skin on his hands and face was milky white, almost translucent, showing the branching veins.

Yet at the same time his dark eyes burned with a kind of inner fire that told of the tenacity with which he clung to life and of his growing awareness of the truth that for the rest of his days his every breath would depend upon the pills he put into his mouth at regular intervals.

“I never thought of that,” he said slowly. “I’ll have to intercept the mail.”

Danny pushed himself relentlessly in his work.

But it was a cold mind, Reuven, almost cruel, untouched by his soul. It was proud, haughty, impatient with less brilliant minds, grasping in its search for knowledge the way a conqueror grasps for power.

It could not understand pain, it was indifferent to and impatient with suffering.

He laughed once and said, ‘That man is such an ignoramus, Father.’ I was angry. ‘Look into his soul,’ I said. ‘Stand inside his soul and see the world through his eyes. You will know the pain he feels because of his ignorance, and you will not laugh.’

Reb Saunders sat back slowly in his chair. And from his lips came a soft, tremulous sigh.

Whereupon Reb Saunders further stated that this was his son’s wish, that he, as a father, respected his son’s soul and mind—in that order, according to what Danny later told me—that his son had every intention of remaining an observer of the Commandments, and that, therefore, he felt compelled to give his son his blessing.

But no one dared to challenge Reb Saunders’ tacit transference of power to his younger son.

After all, the tzaddikate was inherited, and the charisma went automatically from father to son—all sons.

The Hasidic students sulked, scowled, glowered, and then forgot it too.