Reuven works up the courage to tell David that he wants to be a rabbi, not a professor David supports his son's decision. Together, Danny and Reuven attend Samson Raphael Hirsch College and Seminary. This sends Isaac into a tirade against Zionism.

One night, Reuven suggests the establishment of a Jewish state as an answer against further tragedies like the Holocaust. When David suffers a heart attack, Reuven stays at the Saunders house. The next year brings World War II news of the Holocaust sends the Jewish community into shock and mourning. However, he still refuses to speak to Danny. He will not stop him because he knows he needs to give his son some freedom. Reuven also visits the Saunders house, and while Danny is out of the room, Isaac reveals to Reuven that he knows Danny sneaks to the library. Danny begins spending time with the Malters, and together with David and Reuven, he reads, studies, and discusses religion. David explains that a mind like Danny's only comes along once in a generation and that his brilliance should be applied to secular studies. Danny shares with Reuven that he reads books recommended to him by a man at the library-Reuven’s father, David. In fact, the Talmud is all that Isaac permits Danny to study, so Danny sneaks to the library to read literature and books about Sigmund Freud. Isaac never speaks to Danny except when they study the Talmud, the central text of Rabbinic Judaism. He yearns to become a psychologist, but Hasidic tradition proclaims that he must succeed his father, Isaac, as Rabbi. Reuven shares that his father wants him to use his talent for mathematics to become a professor, but what he really wants is to be a rabbi.ĭanny has a photogenic memory and is startlingly intelligent.

David, Reuven's father, scolds him for this, and when Danny returns to the hospital for a second try at apologizing, Reuven forgives him. When Danny arrives at the hospital to apologize, Reuven, still furious, sends him away. It strikes Reuven in the glasses, sending him to the hospital. During one play, Reuven pitches, and Danny hits the ball up the middle.

Reuven's modern orthodox Jewish school is playing a baseball game against a Hasidic Jewish school, and it is clear that only one boy on the other team has any talent-Danny Saunders. The story is narrated by Reuven Malter, a smart fifteen-year-old with a talent for mathematics. The Chosen has been adapted into a television movie and a stage play. He authored several books, including a sequel to The Chosen titled The Promise. Potok received an Orthodox Jewish education but was inspired to become an author after reading Brideshead Revisited as a teenager. Set in the 1940s in Brooklyn, New York, Chaim Potok’s historical fiction novel The Chosen (1967) follows two best friends as they grow from teenagers to young men, learning to balance their dreams, their religion, and the expectations of their fathers.

The promise book chaim potok