Two Parenting Perspectives in The Chosen 
In The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, there are many life lessons learned by the teenagers Rueven Malter and Danny Saunders, exhibited by two parenting styles and perspectives. The first parenting style is from David Malter, Reuven’s father. David Malter is like Reuven’s shepherd – more than a simple father, he is a father who provides shelter and does not try to control his son’s future – he guides him, and yet you could say that David Malter almost has Reuven’s future planned out. Reb Sauders is a leader of a sect, of the Hasidic Jewish tradition, from Europe. His parenting style is quite different from David Malter’s. Reb Saunders raises Danny in silence because the first born of the family must become a tzaddik. (A tzaddik is a high rank in Hasidism.) The tzaddik is the leader in the group of Hasids and the father passes it on to the son and so on, so Reb Saunders is preparing Danny. Reb Saunders never talks to Danny unless they study the Talmud.
The Chosen is about the life of two Jewish boys, living in Brooklyn, NY, during World War II, and how they meet and become friends. This all starts when Danny hits Reuven in the eye with a baseball. This hospitalizes Reuven, and Danny tries to visit him. “’You did a foolish thing, Reuven,’ he told me sternly, ‘you remember what the Talmud says: If a person comes to apologize for having hurt you, you must listen and forgive him.’” Mr. Malter is upset at Reuven’s rejecting a chance of friendship. But the week before, in a baseball game, with Danny at bat and Reuven pitching, Danny seemed to deliberately aim for him out of some demonic anger, and the ball seriously damaged Reuven’s eye. So when Danny comes to the hospital to apologize to Reuven, and Reuven, enraged, tells Danny to get out, we learn that there is another way to diffuse violent tendencies: if someone has hurt you and comes to apologize, you perhaps should listen and forgive, and then you can make friends. I really like this life lesson because you can also make friends with people you formerly looked on as enemies. I also learned that doing nothing about something is very easy but forgiving is very hard because you are putting whatever the person did to you in the past. I have also found it hard to forgive.
About half a year ago, a boy jumped on me at the swimming pool and distorted my backbone. That aggravated my immune system, which led to arthritis. He called me a month later to apologize, and once I realized it was that boy who had done this, I really wanted to yell at him and tell him to go away. I thought for a while and realized that he had not known my bones were really sensitive. So I forgave him but I don’t talk to him anymore, because he is now in a different school.
Learning from my experience, I have proof that no one knows that they are lucky until they are unlucky. “’No one knows he is fortunate until he is unfortunate,” my father [Mr. Malter] said quietly. ‘That is the way the world is’”. When I was in the hospital, I had so many blood draws, tests, and fluid tapping. Oddly enough, after that, I noticed how lucky I am. There are people all over the world who can’t even afford medical attention and have much more serious injuries. I envy so many of my friends and classmates who have never taken blood draws before, but remind myself that, for the most part, no one knows he is lucky until he is unlucky. It’s like moving a poor person to a mansion and making Bill Gates beg in the streets.
“We are like other people, Reuven. We do not survive disaster merely by appealing to invisible powers. We are as easily degraded as any other people. That is what happened to Polish Jewry.” David Malter informs Reuven that no matter how religious we are, God, or the “Master of the Universe” will not love us more than others, or just protect one of us. David Malter is not only teaching Reuven that religious people can’t just rely on invisible powers, but that some nonreligious people don’t even believe in these powers. And every single person in the world is as easily degradable as another. Think of it this way: you’re in the middle of a war and all you do is pray to God. There is almost no chance for you to survive.
“’Reuven listen to me. The Talmud says that a person must do two things for himself. One is acquire a teacher. Do you remember the other?’ ‘Choose a friend,’ I said.” This lesson stumped me a bit. Most of the people reading the quote think they have already made a friend and acquired a teacher until they have thoroughly thought about it. This passage says that in life, you must acquire a teacher and choose a friend, but not just any friend you made in school: it needs to be someone who considers you a friend and respects you. And acquiring a teacher, who knows? You may be a teacher someday and you need to remember what they taught you, right? Look, no matter how old you are, you can always learn new things, so perhaps we are always looking for a teacher? As far as choosing friends, I have had many friends, but some of these friends weren’t exactly what a friend is supposed to be; sometimes they have taken advantage of me and left the picture.
Many experiences arise out of seemingly minor events. I made my first friend by watching him play around on the first day of school. On the first day of kindergarten, I met a Peruvian boy playing around with some Legos. I didn’t like Legos, so I just sat next to him and watched. I felt like we were communicating silently and by the end of the day, we started talking to each other and sharing our differences. At the end of the year, we were best friends. It was the differences in between us that made our friendship, not our similarities. On another day, though, at his house, we were watching TV and all of a sudden we started fighting over which sport we should watch. I chose soccer and he chose football. We kept debating until both sports channels moved on to new topics. We both missed out. For the next week, my friend and I hated each other. But we made up and become better friends than ever.
“Reuven, as you grow older you will discover that the most important things that will happen to you will often come as a result of silly things.” This life lesson often reminds me of a chain reaction. Apikoros and Hasids are two different types of people, practicing separate branches in Judaism. Apikoros (Reuven’s group) and Hasids (Danny’s group) believe different things, and this leads to a larger conflict; insults start to pop up from time to time, and that is where violence comes in, and it will keep going until one person ends up hurt grievously.
The Torah is everything to Reb Saunders, and his people; without the Torah, they believe that they have only half a life; they believe that if they study the Torah, God will then notice them and lengthen their days. “’We see that without Torah there is only half a life. We see that without Torah we are dust. We see that without Torah we are abominations.’ He [Reb Saunders] was saying this quietly, almost as if it were a litany. His eyes were still open, and he was looking directly at Danny now. ‘When we study Torah, then the Master of the Universe listens, then he hears our words, then he will fulfill our wishes. For the Master of the Universe promises strength to those who preoccupy themselves in Torah; as it is written, ‘so ye may be strong’, and he promises length of days, as it is written, ‘so that your days may be lengthened.’” Sometimes even though I’m not religious, I study the Bible and learn about different religions. But I’m not sure if studying Torah actually lengthens your days.
“My father himself never talked to me, except when we studied together. He taught me with silence, he taught me to look into myself, to find my own strength, to walk around inside myself in company with my soul. One learns of pain of others by suffering one’s own pain, he would say, by turning inside oneself, by finding one’s own soul. And it is important to know pain, he said. It destroys our self-pride, our arrogance, and our indifference toward others. It makes us aware of how frail and tiny we are and of how much we must depend on the Master of the Universe.” Here, Reb Saunders justifies his use of the silent treatment, and its necessary pain, stressing that it helps his son realize how much we all depend on the “Master of the Universe”. And the silent treatment is used on Danny, according to Reb Saunders, so he can find his talents and his soul. “You can only feel pain of others if you’ve felt the pain before and [if you have felt] how frail and tiny we are… this leads to how much we depend on the Master of the Universe.”
Reb Saunders explains to Reuven, with Danny sitting by, how he had not wanted Danny to die like his brother. “Reuven, I did not want my Daniel to become like my brother, may he rest in peace, better I should have no son at all than to have a brilliant son who has no soul… And I had to make certain that his soul would be the soul of a tzaddik no matter what he did with his life.” In this lesson we learn that Reb Saunders would like any son as long has he had a “soul” and a “soul of a tzaddik”.
This is a sneak peek of life lessons that are given in The Chosen. I think that both parenting styles in this book are good (though I prefer the Malter approach) and teach us a lot about our lives and how parenting styles can affect the way people think, act, and mature. Reb Saunders would only have to use his silent treatment method if he was a tzaddik. If Reb Saunders was not a tzaddik, he could have raised Danny the way David Malter raised Reuven. But what if being a tzaddik is worth enduring the pain of the silent treatment?