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Thus what should be an occasion for paternal pride is a source of deeper estrangement. The line of inheritance had been perverted.” Because of Asher’s failure to follow in his father’s footsteps, or even to follow a path that’s comprehensible to Aryeh, Aryeh feels that the family line has been disrupted in some inexplicable way. This further grieves Aryeh: “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 In some incomprehensible manner, a cosmic error had been made. When Asher reaches the age of religious maturity and is about to celebrate his bar mitzvah, the community’s Rebbe intervenes in the family conflict and provides an artistic outlet for Asher by asking the famous sculptor Jacob Kahn to mentor him. Whose son was I? Did I want him to regret all the work he had done in Europe? Did I want to destroy the task he had chosen for himself? Did I want to shame him?” Aryeh sees Asher’s art as a direct affront to his own life’s work, even casting doubt on the reality of their father-son bond. After discovering that Asher has spent this time neglecting his own Torah studies and creating “pagan” art instead, “He was in an uncontrollable rage. The long-simmering tension between Asher and Aryeh comes to a head when Aryeh returns from six months in Europe, teaching Torah and establishing schools. Through the Lev family’s loving but apparently irreparable relationships, Potok argues that, even where genuine love exists, the differences between parents and children are sometimes irreconcilable.Īsher’s calling as an artist creates conflict between himself and his parents, especially his father. Although Asher eventually recognizes his similarity to his parents and develops compassion for them, he and his parents are unable to achieve full understanding by the end of the novel. While Asher shares his parents’ faith, his own ambition manifests as a passion for art, which places him at odds with his parents’ callings and even undermines their bonds.

Asher Lev is born into a deeply religious and driven family-his father, Aryeh, travels around Europe helping to reestablish strong Jewish communities his mother, Rivkeh, eventually assists Aryeh by earning her Ph.D.