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Terms
Sitra achra refers to the “Other Side,” the “side of impurity,” or the “side of evil.” It is the opposite of the side of holiness. The term originates from Kabbalah, a school of thought in Hasidic Judaism that seeks inner, mystical interpretations of the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic texts. In the story, Asher’s father, Aryeh—and sometimes Asher himself—fear that Asher’s art is a gift from the “Other Side.” This creates tension, because Jewish people are expected to dedicate their lives to the pursuit of holiness and resist all that comes from the sitra achra.
Sitra achra Quotes in My Name is Asher Lev
The My Name is Asher Lev quotes below are all either spoken by Sitra achra or refer to Sitra achra. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 4
Quotes
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?
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Chapter 6
Quotes
“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.”
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Chapter 7
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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.
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Chapter 9
Quotes
I did not understand what had happened to bring on the idea […] I drew with a pen, working slowly, calmly, and with ease, the segment from Michelangelo’s Last Judgment of the boat beached on the Styx and Charon striking at his doomed passengers with an oar, forcing them onto the shores of torment and hell. I drew much of it from memory, but I wanted to be as accurate as I could, so I checked it repeatedly against a reproduction in a book I had purchased on Michelangelo. I drew the writhing twisting tormented bodies spilling from the boat. I drew the terror on the faces of the dead and the damned. I made all the faces his face, pimply, scrawny—eyes bulging, mouths open, shrieking in horror. I exaggerated the talons and painted ears of Charon; I darkened his face, bringing out the whites of his raging eyes. I folded the drawing and went to bed. […] He said nothing to me about the drawings. But he began to avoid me. His thin face would fill with dread whenever he caught me looking at him. I had the feeling he regarded me now as evil and malevolent, as a demonic and contaminating spawn of the Other Side.
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Chapter 14
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“I understand,” he kept saying. “Jacob Kahn once explained it to me in connection with sculpture. I understand.” Then he said, “I do not hold with those who believe that all painting and sculpture is from the sitra achra. I believe such gifts are from the Master of the Universe. But they have to be used wisely, Asher. What you have done has caused harm. People are angry. They ask questions, and I have no answer to give them that they will understand. Your naked women were a great difficulty for me, Asher. But this is an impossibility.” He was silent for a long moment. I could see his dark eyes in the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. Then he said, “I will ask you not to continue living here, Asher Lev. I will ask you to go away.”
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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.
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Sitra achra Term Timeline in My Name is Asher Lev
The timeline below shows where the term Sitra achra appears in My Name is Asher Lev. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...story, Asher always heard, “You see how a goy behaves […] The people of the sitra achra behave this way.” Jews do not.
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...a Russian Jew who remained a Jew.” He tells Asher that Stalin is “from the sitra achra .” Later, Mrs. Rackover explains to Asher that Yudel had survived 11 years in Siberia,...
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...Aryeh, “What’s new in the world?” She tells him, “It is a victory for the sitra achra to leave a task for the Ribbono Shel Olom unfinished.” Later, Asher goes to his...
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...them that she wants to finish Yaakov’s work. It would be a victory for the sitra achra , she says, if Yaakov’s work remained incomplete. Soon Asher will be starting yeshiva. Aryeh...
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...mother’s pain and hearing her angry words as if they were “demonic words, from the sitra achra .” He decides that drawing is “a futile indulgence in the face of such immutable...
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Chapter 2
...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...
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...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.”
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Chapter 9
...Ribbono Shel Olom is “sometimes unkind.” He doesn’t understand why God couldn’t have kept the sitra achra away from Asher. He asks that Asher never forget his people. When Asher asks Aryeh...
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Chapter 12
...doesn’t paint stories; he expresses his feelings. Aryeh says that sometimes feelings are from the sitra achra and should be concealed. Asher says that some people can’t conceal their feelings. Aryeh says...
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...Asher that someday, his attitude will hurt people; he’ll be doing the work of the sitra achra .
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Chapter 14
...many poorly taught Jews are involved, “their heads […] filled with the ideas of the sitra achra .”
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...and about Asher’s growing fame. Aryeh remarks that perhaps Asher’s gift “is not from the sitra achra .” He asks Asher why he looks so pale.
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...Asher; he understands. And he does not agree with those who attribute art to the sitra achra . But these gifts must be used wisely, he goes on, and Asher’s actions have...
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