My Name is Asher Lev: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Asher starts school at the Ladover yeshiva. He is treated with special respect because of his father’s status as an emissary of the Rebbe and his mother’s illness, as well as the fact that Rivkeh is one of the few Ladover women who’s been permitted to attend college. Asher doesn’t remember much of his early years at school, although the mashpia, Rav Yosef Cutler, made an impression on him. The mashpia’s job is to teach the boys Ladover doctrines and to oversee “the development of [their] souls.” He also talks to them about Jewish persecution under the Communists. He reminds Asher vaguely of his “thunderous mythic ancestor.” He is taught religious subjects in Yiddish and secular subjects in English. While some of his secular teachers are Gentiles, there are no non-observant Jews at the yeshiva.

During these years, Asher’s “gift lay buried.” When his mother asks him why he’s stopped drawing, Asher claims that he hates it—“it’s from the sitra achra. Like Stalin.” Rivkeh says nothing else. Aryeh, meanwhile, assumes that Asher’s obsession with drawing has faded away, like other “ills of my childhood.”

In the summers, the family lives in a private Hasidic bungalow colony in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. Aryeh comes up during the weekends. Mostly, Rivkeh seems happy during these years, although occasionally the “dead look” will return to her eyes. Rivkeh no longer seems like Asher’s older sister. Rather, she is “an efficient organizer of the temporal traffic” of their lives. Both Asher and Aryeh must adhere to strict schedules, and Aryeh doesn’t travel very far. One day, when Asher returns home from school late, Rivkeh screams at him in rage. But mostly her days revolve around her studies.

Now that Aryeh has resumed his travels for the Rebbe, “he glowed with new life.” He helps establish new Ladover communities and acts as the Rebbe’s representative at events in other cities. At home, he obsessively searches for news about the Jews of Russia. In the Ladover building, his office is moved to the second floor (closer to the Rebbe’s). The Ladover community in Crown Heights continues to grow, with many new faces from across Europe, but none from Russia.

One weekend in the summer of 1952, Aryeh arrives at the bungalow community, looking as though he’s in pain. He tells Rivkeh, “They shot the writers.” He says it’s the work of the sitra achra. “I shouldn’t be here, Rivkeh,” he tells her. “I should be there.”

Throughout the weekend, Asher hears his parents talking. Aryeh “cannot reconcile” himself and feels that his father’s work is “incomplete.” He says that there is so much work to be done in Europe. Later, Asher asks his mother about what happened. She explains that Stalin ordered Jewish writers to be shot. Asher asks if his father is going to Europe, and Rivkeh, alarmed, quickly says no. Asher says he wishes his father wouldn’t travel so much. Rivkeh says he’ll get used to it, and that it’s a tradition in their family.

Sometimes during these years, Asher can’t sleep. When this happens, he goes into the living room and looks out the window at the parkway. One night he sees a man “with a beard and an ordinary dark hat” walking alone among the trees in the middle of the parkway. Some distance in front of the man, two tall, bearded men are walking, and another pair walks behind him.

One snowy Shabbos afternoon, Asher and his mother sit in the living room and talk. Asher asks if Siberia has this much snow, and Rivkeh says it has much more. Asher wonders how anyone could survive 11 years in such snow, the way Yudel Krinsky did. The next day, Aryeh goes on a journey to Boston. That night, Asher finds his mother in the living room, looking out the window at the snow. When the phone rings, she answers, trembling. “I warned you,” she says in a strange voice. Later, Rivkeh tells Asher that Papa is stranded in Boston because of the snow. He is staying with Rivkeh’s sister, Leah. At supper, Rivkeh has “a little of the dead look” she’d had after Yaakov’s death. Asher asks her about it, and she apologizes to him for being “such a mother.” She’ll get used to Aryeh’s travels, she says. She doesn’t want Asher to be frightened like her; she wants him to be happy. Right now, she can see that he’s unhappy.

After Aryeh returns from Boston, they soon hear that six Jewish doctors were arrested on the charge of planning to murder Soviet leaders. Aryeh fears that Stalin will use this to “start a blood bath.” He goes to a meeting with the Rebbe. Rivkeh fears that this means Aryeh will begin traveling more often.

That day at school, the mashpia calls a special assembly. He talks about the centuries of Jewish suffering under “the Russian bear” and leads the boys in prayer. After school, instead of going straight home, Asher walks to the stationery store where Yudel Krinsky now works. While he waits for Yudel Krinsky, he notices that the store has a display case filled with art supplies. He asks Yudel for a notebook and pencil, which Yudel cheerfully sells to “the son of Reb Aryeh Lev.” Asher asks Yudel about the Russian doctors and about Siberia. Yudel tells Asher that Siberia is “the place where the Angel of Death feeds and grows fat,” and that even Stalin should only have to experience Siberia for a short time. When Asher hurries home, Mrs. Rackover is disappointed in him for coming home late.

The next day, Aryeh tells Asher that the mashpia has given him a disappointing report: he says Asher is not studying. Asher doesn’t know what to say. It’s a school day, but he’s so tired he struggles to get out of bed.

After school, Asher visits Yudel Krinsky again. He buys another notebook, but he has more questions about Siberia. He asks Yudel what the world did when Stalin sent millions of people to Siberia. Yudel answers that the world did exactly what it did when Hitler killed Jews—that is, nothing. When Asher leaves, Yudel tells him that he doesn’t have to buy something just to talk to him.

Later that week, Rivkeh asks Asher why he didn’t tell her that he’s been visiting Yudel Krinsky’s store. Asher explains that he was afraid she would be angry. His mother says she is sorry and that she doesn’t want Asher to be afraid of her. Then they talk about Aryeh’s role in trying to help the Jews in Russia. While Rivkeh doesn’t like Aryeh to be away from home so much, it’s what the Rebbe has asked of him. And Rivkeh must also focus on her schoolwork. Finally, she says that Asher may visit Yudel Krinsky after school, but he must come straight home afterwards. Her eyes look dark.

One Shabbos, as Asher and Aryeh walk to synagogue together, they talk about the Jews in Russia and Aryeh’s travel. In the synagogue, Aryeh sits near the Ark while Asher sits in back with some of his classmates. Usually, the Rebbe only joins the service for those parts that must be prayed communally. In the service, the Rebbe’s head is completely covered with a tallis, and unlike most people in the synagogue, he prays without swaying or moving at all.

After the service, Aryeh goes to bed with a fever. Rivkeh calls the doctor, even though Aryeh insists it’s “foolishness.” The doctor comes and prescribes antibiotics for Aryeh’s bronchitis. That night, Rivkeh falls asleep while studying for an upcoming test. When Asher wakes her the next morning, she says, “Yaakov, I will pass the examination.” When her mind clears, she checks on Aryeh and sends Asher to buy newspapers for his father. Asher answers the telephone while his mother studies all day. The next morning, his father leaves on a scheduled trip, because, Rivkeh says, “The Ribbono Shel Olom wanted him to go.”

That afternoon, Asher goes to Yudel Krinsky’s store. Asher helps Yudel wait on customers by fetching a few items for him. Then Asher asks Yudel questions while helping him stock shelves. He asks Yudel if the Russians would send his papa to Siberia if he lived in Russia. Yudel says they certainly would, or they might even shoot him. At home, they eat a celebratory dinner because Rivkeh did well on her Russian history test. But as it starts to snow heavily, Rivkeh frets, staring out the window and asking Yaakov to be an interceder for her with the Ribbono Shel Olom. Aryeh returns home, exhausted and snow-covered, two hours later.

The next day in school, the mashpia talks to Asher’s class about Ladover history. The Rebbe’s grandfather, he says, had been imprisoned under the Bolsheviks. After his release, Jews came from all over the world to settle at Ladov and learn from him. That Rebbe sent out emissaries throughout Russia. His son and successor did the same, and some of those emissaries were exiled to Siberia. One of them (Asher’s grandfather) was murdered. The mashpia says that the Ribbono Shel Olom remembers these men’s suffering and that it will be rewarded in the next world.

After school, Asher returns to Yudel Krinsky’s store. It’s storming again, and Yudel says that Asher should go straight home. But Asher likes the warmth of the store and the way it smells of new paper and pencils. So Yudel lets Asher help him sort through paintbrushes, since “A Jew should not only talk, he should also do.” As they work, Yudel tells Asher about his former life in Russia. He had lived with his wife and children in a city in the Ukraine. With other Ladover Jews, he had worked in a hatpin factory with a Ukrainian boss who allowed Jewish workers to take the Sabbath off. Eventually, a Russian boss was brought in, and some of the Jewish workers were arrested as “enemies of the Soviet state.” Yudel was one of the ten exiled workers. At this point, he stops telling the story. He peers at the heavy snow as he begins closing down the store. He tells Asher that when it snowed in Siberia, it was sometimes colder indoors than out. He tells Asher to be careful walking home—“Snow is an enemy.”

The streets are icy, and it takes Asher a long time to walk home. When he reaches his street,  he sees his mother at the window. When she meets him at the door, she screams at him. She asks Asher, “What did I do to you […] Didn’t it occur to you what it means to wait?” She asks, “Ribbono Shel Olom […] What do You want from me?” Then she disappears into her room. Asher feels horrified. He lays on his bed and tries to stop trembling. Later that night, he hears his mother in the living room, chanting the Psalms and asking Yaakov, “I am only a little girl. What do you want from me?” They have no supper that night.

The next morning, Rivkeh tells Asher that he must remember to return home at a reasonable time, and he must come straight home when it snows. She apologizes for losing her temper. Asher apologizes for frightening her. She looks at him tearfully and says that she’s “trying very hard to get used to it.” Then she walks him to school, kisses him, and wishes him a good mark on his arithmetic test. But Asher fails the test.