The Chosen
Chaim Potok, 1967
Two Brooklyn boys—one a Hasidic rabbi's son, one a yeshiva teacher's son—form a friendship across rival worlds of faith, Talmud and America.
Chaim Potok
Chaim Potok was ordained a Conservative rabbi and served as a U.S. Army chaplain in Korea before becoming a novelist and editor.
Feels like friendship, faith and identity.
What makes a life mean something when it lasts no longer than a blink?
Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much, if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?...I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing; but the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing; but the man who lives the span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. Books by Chaim Potok
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