I first read a Chaim Potok novel when I was 23. I opened the orange penguin edition of The Chosen on the top deck of a Glasgow bus on its way from Sauchiehall Street to Glasgow University. It was raining, mid afternoon and the street lights were already on. I was in the front seat, and I've never lost the child's fascination with travelling upstairs with a drivers-eye view, and particularly the wavy swing of the bus going round a tight corner, more exaggerated from on high.
I was soon immersed in a very different world of Hasidic Jewish culture, in pre-war Brooklyn, a society of Talmudic Judaism which was intense, fervent, strange and fiercely defensive. That book changed my entire view of Judaism, Jewishness and provided me with an entry into a world I have come to value, to some extent understand, and to sense at times a deep affinity with those who take prayer, worship, obedience and reverent love for the sacred texts of the Hebrew Bible with life affirming seriousness. Since then I've read Potok's novels, studied A J Heschel's volumes of philosophy and theology, much of Martin Buber's philosophy, immersed myself in Denise Levertov's poetry and essays, consulted Shalom Paul and Moshe Greenberg's commentaries on Amos, Isaiah and Ezekiel, revelled in Robert Alter's literary studies and translations, wrestled with the moral dilemmas of Elie Wiesel holding a world to account for the attempted murder of a people, and worked through the often dense but brilliant writing of George Steiner.
It wouldn't be true to say I owe all these intellectual field trips to discovering Potok's work. But there's no doubt my own theological worldview has been positively enriched by such encounters; my awareness of the truth and value of other faith traditions has been sensitised, and in turn my own learned lessons in humility have encouraged an openness and receptiveness to the truth that others bring to us as their gift. All this triggered by reading Conversations with Chaim Potok, in which he explains why and how he wrote the novels, and in particular, his concern to explore the experience of modern Jewish communities where people live at the core of two cultures, and in a nexus of colliding values.
Here is his apologia for writing 'at its best':
"Writing at its best is an exalted state, an unlocking of the unconscious and imagination and a contact with sanctity."
I have a feeling that Heschel, Buber, Levertov, Shalom Paul and George Steiner would underline that passage with a tick in the margin. If you haven't read Potok, be it far from me to tell you what to do, but….
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