Chaim Potok Dies of Cancer at Age 73
One of Yeshiva’s most famous Alumni; Wrote About Orthodox and Chasidic Communal Life

by Alan Goldsmith and Amitai Blickstein 

Chaim Potok, author, theologian, painter, and historian, died of cancer on July 23 at his home in Merion, Pennsylvania.  He was 73 years old when the cancer overtook him.

Potok was born in the Bronx, February 1929, to Chasidic immigrants of Polish origin, who sent their young son to yeshivos for his education.  The developing Potok simultaneously exhibited interest and talent in both literature and painting.  After reading Evelyn Waigh’s Brideshead Revisited, the teenaged Potok decided he wanted to become a writer, going so far as to say that “[the book] absolutely changed my life.”  However, Potok was discouraged from pursuing this career path from all sides – parents, Talmud teachers, and peers.  As Potok told an interviewer, his mother said, “You want to write stories? That’s very nice. You be a brain surgeon, and on the side you write stories.”

As a result from this social disapproval for his avowed calling, Potok came to the conclusion that Orthodox Judaism and Modernism were mutually exclusive.  It is ironic that as a result of this disenchantment with Orthodoxy’s relationship with the modern world that the New York City native decided to attend Yeshiva University, whose motto – Torah U’Madda – upholds the harmony that exists between the theological and the modern.

Potok’s break with traditional Judaism continued throughout his collegiate life such that after graduating YU summa cum laude in 1950 with a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature, Potok enrolled in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.  This embrace of modernism did not detract from the strength of his religious feeling, and in 1954 he not only graduated JTSA with a Master’s degree in Hebrew literature, but was also ordained a Conservative rabbi.  Credentials in hand, he served in the United States Army as a combat chaplain in Korea from 1955 to 1957, which formed the basis for two of his later novels, The Book of Lights (1981) and I am the Clay (1992). He also earned a doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, in 1965, following a year of research in Israel.

The next forty years of his life were spent editing, teaching, writing and painting.

His first novel, The Chosen (1967), dealt with the maturation of two Orthodox youths—one raised in a modern Orthodox home but taught in a more rigorous environment, the other the brilliant son of a hasidic rebbe who yearned to doff the mantle of religious leader and become a psychologist. Potok later wrote The Promise, a sequel to that novel.  In both of these landmark novels, Potok explores the tensions between the devout and secular, tensions that, critics have noted, reflect Potok’s own life and upbringing.  His books were quite popular, and were praised for opening a window onto the otherwise closed Hasidic community.

In addition to The Chosen, Potok is well known for his best-selling novel My Name is Asher Lev (1972), which dealt with the childhood and young adulthood of the title character, a hasidic boy with an exceptional ability to paint. As in his other novels, Potok explores intra-communal tensions, this time with the twist added by the confusion of material success.  Lev wins critical acclaim for his painting Brooklyn Crucifixion, which incorporated his parents into a scene reminiscent of the death of Jesus.  Potok saw a lot of Asher Lev in himself, and while writing the novel himself painted a piece he entitled Brooklyn Crucifixion.

Potok’s writing is laced with intricate details of synagogue prayer, Shabbos meals, the making of Havdala and the singing of zemiros. He tried to capture the ways in which Jewish ritual impacted the daily lives of the Orthodox heroes of his novels.

Yeshiva College Dean Norman Adler, who knew Potok from decades back, spoke with regard for him and concurred that Dr. Potok’s work was derived from inner tension. “I knew him quite well and have the greatest admiration for him as both a person and a creative artist,” said Adler. “He had a push-pull relationship with Orthodoxy. He was a combination of both characters in The Chosen….It’s reflected in his books, his paintings. The man had so many facets and contradictions.”

YC Senior David Druce, who also is editor of the Jewish Experience literary journal Mima’amakim, spoke of Potok’s contributions with fondness. “He was one of the first American Jewish authors to write about Judaism as not just superfluous from the past but as a living philosophy. To me he really symbolized Torah U’Madda.”

Perhaps what separated Potok most from others is that he gave his attention to the true conflicts, differences, and depths of the Orthodox community that so many others failed to capture.  While Potok never ended up taking a synagogue pulpit, he nevertheless had a tremendous impact on the Jewish community through his literary works, as well as the world at large.  Chaim Potok will be remembered as a Jew deeply committed to his people.