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Reuven Malther #2

The Promise

chaim potok

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“A superb mirror of a place, a time, and a group of people who capture our immediate interest and hold it tightly.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer

Young Reuven Malter is unsure of himself and his place in life. An unconventional scholar, he struggles for recognition from his teachers. With his old friend Danny Saunders—who himself had abandoned the legacy as the chosen heir to his father's rabbinical dynasty for the uncertain life of a healer — Reuven battles to save a sensitive boy imprisoned by his genius and rage. Painfully, triumphantly, Reuven's understanding of himself, though the boy change, as he starts to approach the peace he has long sought…

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1969
Series
Reuven Malther

This edition

Format
368 pages, Paperback
Published
November 8, 2005 by Anchor
ISBN
9781400095414
ASIN
1400095417
Language
English
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

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chaim potok

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Herman Harold Potok, or Chaim Tzvi, was born in Buffalo, New York, to Polish immigrants. He received an Orthodox Jewish education. After reading Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited as a teenager, he decided to become a writer. He started writing fiction at the age of 16. At age 17 he made his first submission to the magazine The Atlantic Monthly. Although it wasn't published, he received a note from the editor complimenting his work.

In 1949, at the age of 20, his stories were published in the literary magazine of Yeshiva University, which he also helped edit. In 1950, Potok graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English Literature.

After four years of study at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America he was ordained as a Conservative rabbi. He was appointed director of Leaders Training Fellowship, a youth organization affiliated with Conservative Judaism.

After receiving a master's degree in English literature, Potok enlisted with the U.S. Army as a chaplain. He served in South Korea from 1955 to 1957. He described his time in S. Korea as a transformative experience. Brought up to believe that the Jewish people were central to history and God's plans, he experienced a region where there were almost no Jews and no anti-Semitism, yet whose religious believers prayed with the same fervor that he saw in Orthodox synagogues at home.

Upon his return, he joined the faculty of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and became the director of a Conservative Jewish summer camp affiliated with the Conservative movement, Camp Ramah. A year later he began his graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania and was appointed scholar-in-residence at Temple Har Zion in Philadelphia.

In 1963, he spent a year in Israel, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on Solomon Maimon and began to write a novel.

In 1964 Potok moved to Brooklyn. He became the managing editor of the magazine Conservative Judaism and joined the faculty of the Teachers' Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary. The following year, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia and later, chairman of the publication committee. Potok received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1970, Potok relocated to Jerusalem with his family. He returned to Philadelphia in 1977. After the publication of Old Men at Midnight, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He died at his home in Merion, Pennsylvania on July 23, 2002, aged 73.

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Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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Profile Image for Kimberly .
TakoTaco1
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
July 15,2025
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I've long had complex feelings about my Judaism.

I am a Conservative Jew, and was extremely observant during my childhood and adolescence. However, for several years, I drifted away from my religion. But over the past year or so, I have started to recommit to it.

My mother converted to Judaism before marrying my dad. Strangely enough, it has always given me an inferiority complex among my fellow Jews.

The Promise, similar to The Chosen, emphasizes the inter-religious discord among Jews. We follow Reuven's studies. His teacher, Rav Kalman, disagrees with the method of Talmudic study that Reuven and his father employ.

Reuven also spends a significant amount of time with Michael Gordon, a troubled boy, and his father, Abraham Gordon, who is also a controversial Jewish scholar.

Reuven's old friend Danny treats Michael, resorting to an intensive period of isolation when other therapies prove ineffective. Michael and Reuven developed a close bond the previous summer when they attended a disastrous carnival and went sailing together.

The various characters grapple with issues that many Jews (and people of other faiths) still encounter: modernity and tradition, family expectations and personal ideals.

Danny marries a modern Jewish woman in his father's synagogue. He discovers the cause of Michael's illness and helps him regain balance.

Reuven uses his own type of Talmudic interpretation during his examination, and Rev Kalman grants him smicha (ordination) despite his disagreement with that methodology.

Reuven's father leaves his job under intense scrutiny and commences a new one.

This book truly resonated with me. Chaim Potok is a masterful writer, and the topics he covers are captivating. I eagerly look forward to reading more of his books, especially Davita's Harp.
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shixiongdi
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
July 15,2025
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Well-written and with great insight into the Jewish religion, this book explores how a parent's choices can pressure their children.

I was particularly struck by the message about anger. It's okay to feel angry towards those who have harmed us, and it's also okay to feel angry at God. Michael was angry at his father, and Rabbi Kalman was angry at God for the loss of his parents in the Holocaust.

There's a profound subtext here. Even though the bad things that happen aren't God's fault, God can handle our emotions. Feeling them keeps us from closing off from others and from life.

I'm not sure I even caught all of what was being communicated - it's that kind of book. There's something really compelling about the way Potok writes. It drew me in, and I felt like I was settling in to hear a story from a friend.

I do wish I had re-read The Chosen before reading this. I read it as a kid, and that was just too long ago! One downside to the book is that it was a bit slow in parts.

Overall, it's a thought-provoking read that offers a unique perspective on the Jewish religion and the human experience.
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LaLijaaa
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
July 15,2025
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A beautifully written, thought-provoking book that delves into the profound themes of faith and reason, loyalty and community, and, of course, the complex relationship between fathers and sons.

It is not quite on par with the prequel, The Chosen. However, it must be noted that the bar set by The Chosen is perhaps impossibly high. Interestingly, Potok poses many of the same questions in this book as he did in The Chosen. Just as Reuven related to Abraham Gordon, I find myself appreciating Potok's questions. Yet, I don't value his answers in this book nearly as much as those in his earlier work. This book places a much greater emphasis on the psychological aspect of man's problems and the purported solutions that psychology presents, mainly in the form of recognizing and admitting our deeply ingrained hatreds.

Overall, I am glad to have read it. However, if I were to recommend one, I would毫不犹豫地 recommend The Chosen over its sequel.
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Murthag04
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
July 15,2025
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So much of the religious world presented in this novel feels familiar and is similar to my own experience.

Reuven Malter finds himself at the crossroads of the Old World, ultra-Orthodox Judaism and the modern world. As the protagonist of the story, he largely manages to successfully bridge these two worlds and earns the respect of both. I am envious of his ability. However, not everyone is as adept. The other main character is driven insane by the intense and terrible tension between what cannot be preserved and what must be respected.

“I had never in my life come across a man who was so fanatical a protector of Torah that he didn't care whom or how he destroyed in its defense. I had never imagined that Torah could give rise to such a grotesque human being” (259).

“How can we teach others to view the tradition critically and with love? I grew up loving it and then learned to look at it critically. That's everyone's problem nowadays. How to love and respect what you are being taught to analyze” (298).

“They are remarkable people. There is so much about them that I find distasteful. But they are remarkable people.

“I wish they weren't so afraid of new ideas.”

“You ask for a lot, Reuven. The Messiah has not yet arrived. Will new ideas allow them to continue singing and dancing?”

“We can't ignore the truth, abba.”

“No,” he said. “We cannot ignore the truth. At the same time, we cannot quite sing and dance as they do.” He was silent for a moment. “That is the dilemma of our time, Reuven. I don't know what the answer is” (312).
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mugi_sama
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
July 15,2025
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The Promise

The Promise builds upon the themes explored in The Chosen. It delves into the relationships between fathers and sons, the complex issue of Jewish identity in the USA after the Holocaust, and the world of textual criticism. Just like The Chosen, it is a profound and moving work that展现了深刻的内心世界和诚实. However, in The Promise, we encounter Danny and Reuven as young adults rather than adolescents. Potok has crafted a sequel that is well worth the read.

I remember clearly the moment when I realized that particularity in literature is the key to true universality. It was while studying a poem that I understood that the more specific an author is with their characters, scenes, and language, the more room they create for readers to connect. Although I have no personal experience of attending a yeshiva in New York City in the late 1940s with a professor who survived a concentration camp, I can relate to the personalities, the faculty politics, and the tendency to take every idea to its extreme through my own educational experiences. After all, people are people.

Recently, I have picked up several of Potok's books, including the sequel to My Name Is Asher Lev. Based on The Promise, it seems that Potok writes sequels that are not essential to his standalone works but add a great deal of depth and richness to the world and characters he has created. While The Promise cannot be read without The Chosen, for those who were put off by the numerology and Talmudic tangents in the latter, I found the textual criticism passages in The Promise more interesting (albeit somewhat vague). Having studied biblical textual criticism (albeit very little and years ago), I had a frame of reference that helped me understand these passages better. I also recognized several of the medieval Jewish scholars mentioned in The Promise, which gave me a sense of accomplishment. However, I found that footnotes would have been more helpful than Potok's explanations of Hebrew/Yiddish/et c. words when characters use them in conversation. Sometimes the words are left in the original language and translated in the following sentence, while other times English words are used but Potok notes that the character used a different word in the next sentence. This can be a bit distracting from the narrative, although I'm sure it makes the audiobook easier to follow.

There is a challenging aspect of psychological treatment in The Promise that Potok handles with great care. A young boy who is a danger to himself and others is isolated as a last resort before institutionalization in an attempt to force him to reveal the truth of his problems. While this approach works in the novel (with an unsurprising reveal that I could have guessed at a young age), I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't try the opposite and, for example, take him camping or send him to a warmer climate to live semi-feral (under supervision) for a while. Starving someone of their connection to nature seems cruel, even as a last resort. I found myself siding with Rav Kalman (the Majdanek survivor) when he questioned this method.
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slayze76
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
July 15,2025
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“‘We’re all full of rage. That’s something I’ve begun to think about these days.’
This statement reflects a profound thought that has crossed the mind of the speaker. In our modern and often chaotic world, it seems that anger and rage are emotions that many of us experience to some degree.
[…]
‘It would begin to teach you how to become aware of yourself. That’s what the soul is, I think. Self-awareness.’”
Self-awareness is indeed a crucial aspect of our inner selves. It allows us to understand our emotions, our thoughts, and our actions. By becoming more self-aware, we can better manage our rage and other emotions, and make more conscious choices in our lives.
The concept of the soul being related to self-awareness is an interesting one. It implies that our souls are not just some intangible essence, but rather something that can be cultivated and developed through self-reflection and self-awareness.
In conclusion, the ideas presented in these statements offer us food for thought and encourage us to explore our inner selves more deeply.

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Angyat
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
July 15,2025
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Percorsi di vita
"
There are many good souls among them. They help to keep the world alive."
(C. Potok)

"The Chosen", a beautiful book, is exactly the continuation of "The Promise".
The author, C. Potok, a New York Jew (the city where the two texts are set), seems to immerse himself so deeply in his narratives that he cannot easily detach himself from the characters. It happens in more of his written works that the destiny continues further, always with remarkable results.

Here, the two young protagonists, now on the threshold of adulthood (we are in the 1950s of the 20th century), with their talents and the dedication they have put in, are realizing long-cherished choices: Reuven as a rabbi and teacher; Danny embarking on the activity of a psychiatrist.
A young woman comes to insinuate herself between them.
To these characters is added an intelligent and fragile adolescent, emotionally disturbed, the son of a famous Jewish intellectual in positions of secularism. Almost as a counterbalance, in the diverse American Jewish world, there is a teacher of Reuven, who has come from the horrors of the Holocaust, whose severe orthodoxy finds a motivation in the shocking loss of all the people of reference: "Rav Kalman is trying to save what little is left of his world. (...) The extermination camps destroyed much more than the Jews of Europe. They destroyed man's faith in himself."

As I have said, the book is beautiful, an absolute superlative that is attributed sparingly. However, here we are faced with one of the best writers that contemporaneity has offered us.
The reader is led, with an almost protective hand and in an enveloping climate, in the meanders of the socio-cultural history and not only, but even more in the depth of the human being, of his secrets and his responsibilities.

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pbbuiter
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
July 15,2025
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The Promise presents a complex web of relationships and beliefs. Reuven and Danny have grown into young men with different career paths. Reuven is training to be a rabbi, while Danny is on his way to becoming a therapist. Danny is dating Rachel Gordon, and her troubled cousin Michael lives with them. Michael clearly needs professional help, and Reuven tries to assist, eventually enlisting Danny.

Danny, though still technically a Hasid, has made some changes. He has shaved his beard and forelocks and lives apart from the community. Reuven remains Orthodox, but discovers there are different degrees of orthodoxy at his yeshiva. He had previously studied with Rav Gershenson, a gentle and pious man, but now he studies with Rav Kalman, who has a very different approach.

Rav Kalman survived the Holocaust and has extreme views. He is a fundamentalist who believes the Torah is without error. This conflicts with Reuven's father, a renowned scholar who thinks there can be errors in the text. Reuven agrees with his father but is hesitant to oppose his professor. Rav Kalman is a difficult professor, but he believes he is fighting a battle of good versus evil to preserve the sanctity of scripture.

Adding to the complexity, Michael's father, Abraham Gordon, is a successful religious writer with views opposite to Rav Kalman's. The Orthodox congregation considers him excommunicated. Reuven, however, appreciates the spirit of his work and becomes involved with the Gordon family to help Michael.

Reuven faces numerous moral choices. If he is loyal to his father's views, he may lose his chance to be a rabbi. Associating with the excommunicated Gordon family could also disqualify him. And to make matters worse, Rachel, Reuven's love interest, falls in love with Danny.

Despite the complexity, Potok manages to hold it all together and bring it to a satisfying conclusion. Even Michael's severe mental illness is being treated by the end. The story may seem specific to a certain time and place, but the emotional issues are relevant today.

Chaim Potok finds common ground among the characters, even if not everyone is happy. In a world where everyone is shouting and not talking to each other, Potok shows that it is possible to come together.

[1] Sentiment is an appropriate part of a novel, but sentimentality can go too far.

[2] There is a small quibble about the opening scene involving baseball or softball. Danny's ability to hit the ball directly at the pitcher's head seems a bit unbelievable for a Hasidic kid who doesn't spend much time on sports.
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