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Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Name is Asher Lev, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Divine vs. the Demonic
Art and Religious Faith
Creativity, Self-Expression, and Truth
Family Conflict
Summary
Analysis
In March, Aryeh receives a phone call: Stalin is dying of a stroke. Later that week, Stalin dies. As Aryeh and Asher walk to the synagogue, Aryeh asks Asher if he knows where Vienna is. Asher doesn’t know. Aryeh says, “Geography you don’t know. Chumash and Rashi you don’t know […] Sometimes I wonder whose son you are, Asher.”
Stalin’s death immediately signals a huge shift not only for the Jewish community, but for the Lev family as well, opening up work opportunities for Aryeh that didn’t exist previously. But this moment also highlights Asher’s academic weakness—he’s familiar with neither the traditional religious subjects (Rashi was a medieval Torah commentator) nor basic geography, and Aryeh takes this as a personal affront to their family and their faith.
Themes
With few exceptions, “every adult inside [the] synagogue had experienced the tyranny of Stalin” in some way. Prayer is especially fervent that morning, “a tremulous crescendo of sound.” But the Rebbe remains still and silent. Soon, his quietness penetrates the rest of the synagogue. Asher concentrates on his prayers, feeling as if the words are “alive and moving inside me.” But after the service, when he greets Yudel Krinsky, Yudel says, “The dead do not return to life because a tyrant dies. The Ribbono Shel Olom was late.”
Asher’s fervent piety, as well as the significance of Stalin’s death for the community as a whole, is obvious in the emotional worship service that morning. But Yudel, whose memories of suffering under Stalin are fresh, tempers the scene with a reminder of what can’t be undone, even suggesting that God’s timing was late.
Themes
The next day, Asher can’t take his eyes off of a photo in the Times of Stalin in his coffin, surrounded by mounds of flowers. When he helps Yudel Krinsky in his store after school, Yudel says that “There are many Stalins in Russia.” But that night, Rivkeh says that while Yudel has a point, Stalin’s death does make a difference for Jews.
For Asher, Stalin is an emblem of all that’s evil, so the photo has a big impression on him. While Yudel makes the point that the evils of antisemitism remain alive in Russia, Rivkeh is aware that this is also a historic turning point.
Themes
The following Shabbos, while Aryeh is attending the Rebbe’s afternoon talk, Rivkeh has a talk with Asher. She tells Asher that they might move to Vienna. There is certain work—different work—that Aryeh must now do with Russian Jews. Stalin’s death has made this possible. Asher says that he doesn’t want to go to Vienna. Rivkeh caresses Asher’s face and tells him that if the Rebbe asks, they must go. Asher lays on his bed and feels tired, resentful of the fact that Stalin died when he did. Aryeh returns late that night and leaves early the next morning.
As both Rivkeh and Aryeh have hinted to Asher before, Stalin’s death means big changes for the family. But the news of Aryeh’s likely move is a crisis for Asher, seeming to trigger depression in him. He already feels conflicted about his father and cut off from his art. The possibility of leaving behind everything he knows feels like an exile of sorts.
Themes
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That week, Asher is sick. Through a fog, he sometimes sees his parents standing at his bedside. Yudel Krinsky comes to visit. He mentions that he visited Vienna once—“Before the war, it was known as a city of cafes and waltzes. It is a city that hates Jews.” Asher doesn’t want to move away from his street. He knows the people there and all the details of the neighborhood. He prays that the Ribbono Shel Olom will change the Rebbe’s mind. On Shabbos, after Asher is well, he asks his mother about Yudel Krinsky’s visit. Rivkeh says that Yudel was never there. On Monday, Aryeh comes home and informs them that the Rebbe is sending them to Vienna in October.
Asher’s sickness seems to be at least partially triggered by his fears and discontentment, similar to what happens to Rivkeh under stress—even to the extent of imagining people who aren’t really there. He imagines Vienna as a place where he will find only hatred and exile from what he loves. Asher’s distress signals the importance of physical locale to his sense of community and identity—the notion of leaving his familiar scenery and insular Brooklyn Ladover sect seems to shake his very sense of self.
Themes
The next day, Asher asks Yudel Krinsky about Vienna. Yudel explains that, like many people, he came to Western Europe from Eastern Europe by way of Vienna. He says, again, that Vienna hates Jews. That night, Asher asks his father why the Rebbe chose him to go to Vienna. Aryeh explains that they’re going to teach Ladover Jews all over Europe, opening new yeshivos in many cities. They will live in Vienna because it’s the center of Europe. He tells Asher that he will learn to like Vienna.
From Yudel Krinsky and his father, Asher gets two different perspectives on Vienna. On one hand, it’s an antisemitic place. On the other hand, it’s a gateway for reaching disconnected, struggling Jewish communities across Europe. Asher feels caught between these perspectives—in a way, caught between Vienna’s “divine” and “demonic” potential—and can’t fully grasp why his familiar world must be shaken up in this way.
Themes
After synagogue that week, Uncle Yitzchok tells Asher it’s an honor for his father to go to Vienna and travel for the sake of Torah, much as their own father had done. “My little brother is now a great man,” he adds thoughtfully.
Asher’s father is decisively taking his place within the succession of figures who’ve traveled and suffered for the sake of Torah. But Asher, too young to fully grasp this perspective, only knows that he’s losing what’s familiar to him.
Themes
During the Shabbos meal, Asher asks his father questions about Vienna—where he will study, what languages are spoken there. Later, he tells his mother he is afraid. He doesn’t want to fly, and he can’t speak German. Later, Rivkeh explains that there are more important considerations. They’re going to Vienna no matter what.
Asher has lots of misgivings about Vienna and its unknowns. However, those childishly expressed fears mask deeper concerns. Rivkeh sees the move to Vienna as nonnegotiable—meaning the stage is set for full-blown conflict.
Themes
That night, Asher dreams of his mythic ancestor, “pounding his way through the trees […] thunder in his voice.” Asher wakes up and looks out the window at the parkway. He sees a man “with a dark beard, a dark coat, and an ordinary dark hat” walking through the trees, and he isn’t sure if he’s dreaming or not. The next morning, he tells his parents he thinks he dreamed of the Rebbe, and he’s afraid to walk to school by himself. “It’s not a pretty world, Mama,” he tells Rivkeh.
As often happens when Asher feels fearful or conflicted about his position in the family, he has an ominous dream of the mythic ancestor. He sees the Rebbe walking outside. Again, in his young mind, the Rebbe and Asher’s fears of the unknown are tangled up in a way that’s hard to express. He remembers his discovery, earlier in childhood, that the world is not beautiful. Yet without art, Asher is unable to effectively make sense of what he’s feeling. This hints that he’s at a breaking point, needing to expression his fears in one way or another.
Themes
That day, when the mashpia comes to speak to Asher’s class, Asher finds himself drawing in his notebook during the lesson. When he realizes what he’s drawn, his hands tremble. It’s a picture of Stalin dead in his coffin.
After not drawing for years, Asher finally draws again—without even realizing it. Because Stalin is a symbol of evil in his mind, and Stalin’s death has caused such upheaval in his family life, the drawing shows how fearful and conflicted Asher feels about the different forces pulling on him—his desire to please his family, the struggles of persecuted Jews, his own unexpressed pain. Art is the only way Asher can express all this.
Themes
