My Name is Asher Lev

by

Chaim Potok

Aryeh Lev Character Analysis

Aryeh Lev is Rivkeh’s husband and Asher’s father. He came to Brooklyn from Europe as a teenager, after his father’s murder. He is descended from a long line of scholarly Hasidic Jews who traveled to promote Torah study. After studying political science at the Ladover Rebbe’s request, Aryeh begins traveling himself to help persecuted Jews in other countries. He is especially concerned with the plight of Russian Jews and works to bring them to safety in the United States. Later, he travels to Europe himself to help rebuild devastated Jewish communities. Aryeh has a troubled relationship with Asher because he does not approve of Asher’s passion for art, seeing it as coming from the sitra achra and as distracting Asher from his obligations to his fellow Jews. As Asher grows older, Aryeh becomes particularly concerned about Asher’s incorporation of “goyisch” and Christian elements into his art, and he is distressed that Asher spends more time on drawing and painting than in studying Torah. He is never fully accepts Asher’s choices, although he continues to love his son.

Aryeh Lev Quotes in My Name is Asher Lev

The My Name is Asher Lev quotes below are all either spoken by Aryeh Lev or refer to Aryeh Lev. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Divine vs. the Demonic Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

“Asher, you have a gift. I do not know if it is a gift from the Ribbono Shel Olom or from the Other Side. If it is from the Other Side, then it is foolishness, dangerous foolishness, for it will take you away from Torah and from your people and lead you to think only of yourself. I want to tell you something. Listen to me, my Asher. About twenty-five years ago, all the yeshivos in Russia were closed by the Communists, and the students were scattered in different places in small groups. The only groups who continued to fight against this destruction of Torah by the enemies of Torah were the Ladover and Breslover Hasidim […] Asher, we have to make passageways to our people in Russia. We have a responsibility to them. […] They cannot make the opening on their side, so we must make it on our side. Do you understand me, Asher?”

Related Characters: Aryeh Lev (speaker), Asher Lev
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

I saw my mythic ancestor again that night, moving in huge strides across the face of the earth, stepping over snow-filled mountains, spanning wide and fertile valleys, journeying, journeying, endlessly journeying. I saw him traverse warm villages and regions of ice and snow. I saw him peer into the windows of secret yeshivos and into the barracks of Siberian camps. […] “And what are you doing with your time, my Asher Lev?” I thought I heard him say […] If You don’t want me to use the gift, why did You give it to me? Or did it come to me from the Other Side? It was horrifying to think my gift may have been given to me by the source of evil and ugliness. How can evil and ugliness make a gift of beauty?

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, Mythic Ancestor, Yudel Krinsky
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

I looked into my Chumash. I stared at the face staring back out at me from the page. I had slanted the eyes somewhat and given the lips beneath the beard a sardonic turn. The Rebbe looked evil; the Rebbe looked threatening; the Rebbe looking out at me from the Chumash seemed about to hurt me. That was the expression he would wear when he decided to hurt me. That was the expression he had worn when he had told my father to go to Vienna. I looked at the framed photograph of the Rebbe on the front wall near the blackboard. The eyes were gray and clear; the face was kind. Only the ordinary dark hat was the same in both pictures. I was frightened at the picture I had drawn. I was especially frightened that I could not remember having drawn it.

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, The Rebbe
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“What do they all want from me?” I said to my mother.

“They want you to study Torah. A boy your age should be studying Torah.”

I went into my room and stood by the window, staring out at the melting snow. I did not hate studying. I had no strength for it. My drawing needed all my strength. Couldn’t they see that? What did they all want from me?

I came into Yudel Krinsky’s store one day in February.

“You are a scandal,” he said to me in his hoarse voice. “The world knows you are not studying Torah.” He fixed his bulging eyes on me. “Your father journeys through Europe bringing Jews back to Torah, and here his own son refuses to study Torah. Asher, you are a scandal.”

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Rivkeh Lev (speaker), Yudel Krinsky (speaker), Aryeh Lev
Page Number: 165
Explanation and Analysis:

I heard her sigh. “I wish I knew what to do,” she said. “I hope the Ribbono Shel Olom will help me not to hurt your father. Look where it’s taken us, Asher. Your painting. It’s taken us to Jesus. And to the way they paint women. Painting is for goyim, Asher. Jews don’t draw and paint.”

“Chagall is a Jew.”

“Religious Jews, Asher. Torah Jews. Such Jews don’t draw and paint. What would the Rebbe say if he knew we were in the museum? God forbid the Rebbe should find out.”

I didn’t know what the Rebbe would say. It frightened me to think that the Rebbe might be angry.

“I wish I knew what to do,” my mother murmured. “I wish your father was home.”

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Rivkeh Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, The Rebbe
Page Number: 171
Explanation and Analysis:

“Listen to me,” my father said. He was speaking suddenly in Yiddish. “I am killing myself for the Ribbono Shel Olom. I have broken up my family for the Ribbono Shel Olom. I do not see my wife for months because of my work for the Ribbono Shel Olom. I came home for Pesach to be with my family, to be with the Rebbe, to rest. And what do I find? You know what I find. And what do I hear? I hear my son telling me he cannot stop drawing pictures of naked women and that man. Listen to me, Asher. This will stop. You will fight it. Or I will force you to return to Vienna with me after the summer. Better you should stay in Vienna and be a little crazy than you should stay in New York and become a goy.”

Ribbono Shel Olom,” my mother breathed. “Aryeh, please.”

“We must fight against the Other Side, Rivkeh,” my father shouted in Yiddish. “We must fight against it! Otherwise it will destroy the world.”

Related Characters: Aryeh Lev (speaker), Rivkeh Lev (speaker), Asher Lev, The Rebbe
Page Number: 177
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

My father carried his burden of pain all through the celebration of my bar mitzvah. People knew of the Rebbe’s decision. No one dared question it. For the Rebbe was the tzaddik and spoke as representative of the Master of the Universe. His seeing was not as the seeing of others; his acts were not as the acts of others. My father’s right to shape my life had been taken from him by the same being who gave his own life meaning—the Rebbe. At the same time, no one knew how to react to the decision, for they could see my father’s pain. I had become alien to him. In some incomprehensible manner, a cosmic error had been made. The line of inheritance had been perverted. A demonic force had thrust itself into centuries of transmitted responsibility. He could not bear its presence. And he no longer knew how to engage it in battle. So he walked in pain and shame all through the Shabbos of my bar mitzvah and all through the following day when relatives and friends sang and danced their joy.

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, The Rebbe, Jacob Kahn
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

On Yom Kippur, I wept when I remembered my father’s weeping over the martyrdom of the ten sages. On Succos, I marched in the synagogue procession with the lulov and esrog my uncle had purchased for me. On Simchas Torah, I danced with a Torah scroll—and there on the edge of the crowd of thousands that always came to watch our joy on that day was Jacob Kahn. I pulled him into the line and we held the Torah together and danced. His small dark skullcap was as awkward on his head as was the grasp of his fingers upon the Torah. But we held it together and we danced.

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, Jacob Kahn, Uncle Yitzchok
Page Number: 268
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

Trapped between two realms of meaning, she had straddled both realms, quietly feeding and nourishing them both, and herself as well. I could only dimly perceive such an awesome act of will. But I could begin to feel her torment now as she waited by our living-room window for both her husband and her son. What did she think of as she stood by the window? Of the phone call that had informed my father of her brother’s death? Would she wait now in dread all the rest of her life, now for me, now for my father, now for us both—as she had once waited for me to return from a museum, as she had once waited for my father to return in a snowstorm? And I could understand her torment now; I could see her waiting endlessly with the fear that someone she loved would be brought to her dead. I could feel her anguish.

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, Rivkeh Lev, Uncle Yaakov
Related Symbols: Window
Page Number: 325
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

Asher Lev, Hasid. Asher Lev, painter. I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. [] The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. Art was demonic and divine. [] I was demonic and divine. Asher Lev, son of Aryeh and Rivkeh Lev, was the child of the Master of the Universe and the Other Side. Asher Lev paints good pictures and hurts people he loves. Then be a great painter, Asher Lev; that will be the only justification for all the pain you will cause. But as a great painter I will cause pain again if I must. Then become a greater painter.

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, Rivkeh Lev, Jacob Kahn
Page Number: 367
Explanation and Analysis:
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My Name is Asher Lev PDF

Aryeh Lev Quotes in My Name is Asher Lev

The My Name is Asher Lev quotes below are all either spoken by Aryeh Lev or refer to Aryeh Lev. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Divine vs. the Demonic Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

“Asher, you have a gift. I do not know if it is a gift from the Ribbono Shel Olom or from the Other Side. If it is from the Other Side, then it is foolishness, dangerous foolishness, for it will take you away from Torah and from your people and lead you to think only of yourself. I want to tell you something. Listen to me, my Asher. About twenty-five years ago, all the yeshivos in Russia were closed by the Communists, and the students were scattered in different places in small groups. The only groups who continued to fight against this destruction of Torah by the enemies of Torah were the Ladover and Breslover Hasidim […] Asher, we have to make passageways to our people in Russia. We have a responsibility to them. […] They cannot make the opening on their side, so we must make it on our side. Do you understand me, Asher?”

Related Characters: Aryeh Lev (speaker), Asher Lev
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

I saw my mythic ancestor again that night, moving in huge strides across the face of the earth, stepping over snow-filled mountains, spanning wide and fertile valleys, journeying, journeying, endlessly journeying. I saw him traverse warm villages and regions of ice and snow. I saw him peer into the windows of secret yeshivos and into the barracks of Siberian camps. […] “And what are you doing with your time, my Asher Lev?” I thought I heard him say […] If You don’t want me to use the gift, why did You give it to me? Or did it come to me from the Other Side? It was horrifying to think my gift may have been given to me by the source of evil and ugliness. How can evil and ugliness make a gift of beauty?

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, Mythic Ancestor, Yudel Krinsky
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

I looked into my Chumash. I stared at the face staring back out at me from the page. I had slanted the eyes somewhat and given the lips beneath the beard a sardonic turn. The Rebbe looked evil; the Rebbe looked threatening; the Rebbe looking out at me from the Chumash seemed about to hurt me. That was the expression he would wear when he decided to hurt me. That was the expression he had worn when he had told my father to go to Vienna. I looked at the framed photograph of the Rebbe on the front wall near the blackboard. The eyes were gray and clear; the face was kind. Only the ordinary dark hat was the same in both pictures. I was frightened at the picture I had drawn. I was especially frightened that I could not remember having drawn it.

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, The Rebbe
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“What do they all want from me?” I said to my mother.

“They want you to study Torah. A boy your age should be studying Torah.”

I went into my room and stood by the window, staring out at the melting snow. I did not hate studying. I had no strength for it. My drawing needed all my strength. Couldn’t they see that? What did they all want from me?

I came into Yudel Krinsky’s store one day in February.

“You are a scandal,” he said to me in his hoarse voice. “The world knows you are not studying Torah.” He fixed his bulging eyes on me. “Your father journeys through Europe bringing Jews back to Torah, and here his own son refuses to study Torah. Asher, you are a scandal.”

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Rivkeh Lev (speaker), Yudel Krinsky (speaker), Aryeh Lev
Page Number: 165
Explanation and Analysis:

I heard her sigh. “I wish I knew what to do,” she said. “I hope the Ribbono Shel Olom will help me not to hurt your father. Look where it’s taken us, Asher. Your painting. It’s taken us to Jesus. And to the way they paint women. Painting is for goyim, Asher. Jews don’t draw and paint.”

“Chagall is a Jew.”

“Religious Jews, Asher. Torah Jews. Such Jews don’t draw and paint. What would the Rebbe say if he knew we were in the museum? God forbid the Rebbe should find out.”

I didn’t know what the Rebbe would say. It frightened me to think that the Rebbe might be angry.

“I wish I knew what to do,” my mother murmured. “I wish your father was home.”

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Rivkeh Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, The Rebbe
Page Number: 171
Explanation and Analysis:

“Listen to me,” my father said. He was speaking suddenly in Yiddish. “I am killing myself for the Ribbono Shel Olom. I have broken up my family for the Ribbono Shel Olom. I do not see my wife for months because of my work for the Ribbono Shel Olom. I came home for Pesach to be with my family, to be with the Rebbe, to rest. And what do I find? You know what I find. And what do I hear? I hear my son telling me he cannot stop drawing pictures of naked women and that man. Listen to me, Asher. This will stop. You will fight it. Or I will force you to return to Vienna with me after the summer. Better you should stay in Vienna and be a little crazy than you should stay in New York and become a goy.”

Ribbono Shel Olom,” my mother breathed. “Aryeh, please.”

“We must fight against the Other Side, Rivkeh,” my father shouted in Yiddish. “We must fight against it! Otherwise it will destroy the world.”

Related Characters: Aryeh Lev (speaker), Rivkeh Lev (speaker), Asher Lev, The Rebbe
Page Number: 177
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

My father carried his burden of pain all through the celebration of my bar mitzvah. People knew of the Rebbe’s decision. No one dared question it. For the Rebbe was the tzaddik and spoke as representative of the Master of the Universe. His seeing was not as the seeing of others; his acts were not as the acts of others. My father’s right to shape my life had been taken from him by the same being who gave his own life meaning—the Rebbe. At the same time, no one knew how to react to the decision, for they could see my father’s pain. I had become alien to him. In some incomprehensible manner, a cosmic error had been made. The line of inheritance had been perverted. A demonic force had thrust itself into centuries of transmitted responsibility. He could not bear its presence. And he no longer knew how to engage it in battle. So he walked in pain and shame all through the Shabbos of my bar mitzvah and all through the following day when relatives and friends sang and danced their joy.

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, The Rebbe, Jacob Kahn
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

On Yom Kippur, I wept when I remembered my father’s weeping over the martyrdom of the ten sages. On Succos, I marched in the synagogue procession with the lulov and esrog my uncle had purchased for me. On Simchas Torah, I danced with a Torah scroll—and there on the edge of the crowd of thousands that always came to watch our joy on that day was Jacob Kahn. I pulled him into the line and we held the Torah together and danced. His small dark skullcap was as awkward on his head as was the grasp of his fingers upon the Torah. But we held it together and we danced.

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, Jacob Kahn, Uncle Yitzchok
Page Number: 268
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

Trapped between two realms of meaning, she had straddled both realms, quietly feeding and nourishing them both, and herself as well. I could only dimly perceive such an awesome act of will. But I could begin to feel her torment now as she waited by our living-room window for both her husband and her son. What did she think of as she stood by the window? Of the phone call that had informed my father of her brother’s death? Would she wait now in dread all the rest of her life, now for me, now for my father, now for us both—as she had once waited for me to return from a museum, as she had once waited for my father to return in a snowstorm? And I could understand her torment now; I could see her waiting endlessly with the fear that someone she loved would be brought to her dead. I could feel her anguish.

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, Rivkeh Lev, Uncle Yaakov
Related Symbols: Window
Page Number: 325
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

Asher Lev, Hasid. Asher Lev, painter. I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. [] The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. Art was demonic and divine. [] I was demonic and divine. Asher Lev, son of Aryeh and Rivkeh Lev, was the child of the Master of the Universe and the Other Side. Asher Lev paints good pictures and hurts people he loves. Then be a great painter, Asher Lev; that will be the only justification for all the pain you will cause. But as a great painter I will cause pain again if I must. Then become a greater painter.

Related Characters: Asher Lev (speaker), Aryeh Lev, Rivkeh Lev, Jacob Kahn
Page Number: 367
Explanation and Analysis: