Art and Crucifixions Do Not Mix: The Dichotomy of the Sacred and the Secular
A Religious Analysis of My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
For Rabbi Yossi and Chanie Serebryanski. Thank you both for making this publication possible and for all the other countless things you have done and continue to do to support me.
In My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok, the protagonist, Asher Lev, overcomes his “inability to maneuver and question” the beliefs associated with Ladover Judaism, through drawing and painting (Cusick 126). However, he is not able to fuse the secular art that he creates with the sacred religiosity of his upbringing, resulting in a “core-to-core culture confrontation,” the way that a specific culture “sees the world, a way that it thinks the human experience” (Morgan 55-56). Asher receives praise for his art from the secular world, which employs the crucifix, appropriately displaying a symbolic crucifixion, although he is ostracized by his own community. In attempting to portray a cohesive relationship between the sacred and secular, he humiliates his mother, definitively destroys the relationship with his father, and disgraces his entire community. Due to the belief that art promotes the individual, a belief that promulgates an opposing philosophy to that of Ladover Judaism and breaking the second commandment by the using of a crucifixion in his most celebrated pieces of art, Asher is exiled to Paris, ultimately failing at his goal to convey a working relationship between the sacred and the secular.
Asher Lev’s art promotes the individual over the collective whole, which clashes with his upbringing. Edward Abramson reinforces this idea: “Judaism places more stress upon the Jewish people than upon the individual” (64). When Asher’s mother, Rivkeh is stricken with depression from the death of her brother, she wants Asher to draw beauty: “Asher, are you drawing birds and flowers and pretty things?” (Potok 17). Birds and flowers have an intrinsic beauty. They are considered to be beautiful by most, usually evoking positive feelings. Contrary to his mother’s desires however, he is “drawing twisted shapes, swirling forms, in blacks and reds and grays” (17). Asher’s drawings address his feelings, reflecting a situation that is only specific to him.
Asher’s decision to place his art over the community causes a breakdown in the relationship with his father, Aryeh because Asher begins to neglect his studies to pursue his art. Asher’s father tells him, “You can’t study Chumash, but this you have time for” (101). Aryeh’s work is for Torah and, therefore, indirectly for God. Aryeh wishes to spread Torah and Ladover teachings to Hasidic communities worldwide. Asher’s art, in comparison is self-indulgent and limited in its affectation. Furthermore, it employs no Jewish teachings, showing again a separation from the community: “The point is that art has nothing to do with the Jewish community—that is the problem” (Abramson 65). More importantly since God is an extension and integral part of the community, Aryeh deems Asher’s art useless and blasphemous.
When the Rebbe asks Aryeh and his family to travel to Vienna, so that he can further promote Ladover teachings, Asher does not want to go because he believes his art will be stifled (106). His inspirations are those people and places in Crown Heights. Furthermore, he believes that his father will suppress his gifts because his father will be with him instead of traveling. Asher is willing to sacrifice the unity of his family, a microcosm of his community for his art. Asher’s family tries to convince him to go to Vienna by saying, “Jews in Europe are starving for Torah…These are Jewish lives, Asher. Nothing is more important in the eyes of the Master of the Universe than a Jewish life” (110). His parents try to numerically define the value of a life. Asher refutes their argument, “I’m also a Jewish life, Mama. I’m also precious in the eyes of the Ribbono Shel Olom” (111). Asher argues that many lives are not unlike that of one specific life. A life, his life, still needs to be nurtured. He continues that his life and, more importantly, his talent should not be neglected because he is just as important as any other person in the eyes of God. Simply, one human life cannot be valued over another.
In addition to assigning value to his life, Asher realizes that his art has value, giving it meaning, and it is, therefore, not a hobby as his father would like to think: “Foolishness is something that’s stupid. Foolishness is something a person shouldn’t do…Please don’t ever call it foolishness anymore, Papa” (129). Asher bestows significance on his art, just as Aryeh does concerning his work for the Rebbe. By confronting his father and telling him that his work is not foolish, Asher fosters an assertive attitude that allows him to continue with his work more easily.
Despite the lack of support given to Asher by his father, the Rebbe begins to take notice of Asher’s artistic ability. Consequently, the Rebbe asks Jacob Kahn, a Jewish artist, to instruct Asher (192). The Rebbe wishes to shape Asher’s talent, “to save Asher for the Jewish community…if possible it must be channeled into the services of Judaism” (Abramson 65). The Rebbe and Jacob Kahn, however, have opposite philosophies; Jacob Kahn believes in the individual, leading Asher away from the community.
Jacob Kahn pushes Asher to the brink of individuality. He disobeys the Rebbe and has Asher compose a drawing of a nude model: “The human body is a glory of structure and form. When an artist draws or paints or sculpts it, he is a battleground between intelligence and emotion, between his rational side and his sensual side” (229). Jacob Kahn’s artistic exercise literally deals with the individual. Asher is taught that “[t]he body was a private and sacred domain” (173). In essence, one’s body is specific to oneself. It translates into originality. Asher’s reactions to the model’s body are new to him; and, therefore, they are individualistic.
Finally, Jacob Kahn asks Asher to study Matthew 2:16 in relation to a work of art, to ensure his future commitment to the craft (199). The verse symbolically describes sacrifices that Asher will be forced to make: “When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or younger, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men” (Matthew 2:16). The verse serves as an extended metaphor to describe Asher’s present and future circumstances. Herod, is symbolically the Rebbe, Kahn follows the role of the wise men, tricking him and leading Asher indefinitely astray. Moreover, the Rebbe destroys the chance for Asher to have a future in Crown Heights by exiling him. Through the exile, the Rebbe separates Asher’s family unit; he is now alone, the ultimate example of individuality.
Similarly, Jacob Kahn predicts that Asher will one day be completely alone because of his art: “In the entire history of European art, there has not been a single religious Jew who was a great painter” (Potok 213). Asher’s community has never supported those before him, so they certainly not support him. Once again, such a solitary and individualistic endeavor grates upon the community. Asher does end up alone; he is exiled.
Asher’s exile to Paris by the Rebbe is further complicated by Asher breaking the second commandment through use of the crucifixion in his Brooklyn Crucifixions, causing a more pronounced breach with the community: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them” (Exodus 20:4-5). When Asher is young, he repeatedly breaks the second commandment just by drawing and painting, because he creates an image. Asher’s mashpia or principal is the first person that says Asher is breaking the second commandment: “We do not interpret the second commandment the way others do” (Potok 133). The mashpia hopes that Asher will deny his gift, adhering to the second commandment. Asher is raised believing his artistic ability is from “the sitra achra, the Other Side, the realm of darkness and evil given life by God not out of His true desire…thereby making it possible for God to punish the wicked who help the sitra achra and reward the righteous who subjugate it” (188). The sitra achra works in conjunction with the second commandment; it serves as another reason not to create graven images. The sitra achra connotes something evil, where one is not is not in control. Asher, of course, does not wish to be evil. Adherence to the second commandment would dispel these notions and allow his complete inclusion back into the community as an observant Jew. Important ties to the community would be reestablished.
When Asher first uses the crucifix in his drawing, he sees it as an artistic figure, an aesthetic form and not as an inherently Christian symbol (172). This generality conveys the secular. However, Asher’s mother, Rivkeh explains the history and use of the crucifix, that it is used to kill people, including, “Tens of thousands” of Jews (170). In addition, Rivkeh explains that Jesus, the central Christian religious figure, is murdered by crucifixion, and that he and his teachings are responsible for the Crusades and the subsequent loss of “Jewish blood” (172-173). As a result, although Asher sees the crucifix as a secular symbol, the history behind it construes the crucifix to be sacred. In this way, the dichotomy of the sacred and secular is portrayed most clearly.
When Asher paints the Brooklyn Crucifixions, he breaks the second, more severe interpretation of the second commandment:
so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves, in the form of any figure- the likeness of any male or female, the likeness of any animal, that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. (Deuteronomy 4:16-4:18).
This interpretation is more severe because it mentions the prohibition of creating human images. In the Brooklyn Crucifixions, Asher not only paints an image of his mother, but also crucifies her. He paints an image that breaks the second commandment in two different ways; it is considered doubly anti-Jewish, and therefore, doubly controversial: “I drew my mother in her housecoat, with her arms extended along the horizontal of the blind, her wrists ties to it with the cords of the blind, her legs tied at the ankles to the vertical of the inner frame with another section of the cord of the blind. I arched her body and twisted her head” (Potok 329). In painting his mother this way, he embarrasses her and his father, and in the eyes of his community, completely rejects the religiosity of his upbringing. He shows that his mother is tied and literally helpless in improving the rift between her husband and her son, Aryeh personifying the sacred and Asher personifying the secular, creating “a painting of ultimate anguish and torment” (330). It is the image of the crucifixion and not the situation in which it is used that upsets the community, causing Asher’s standing in it to finally unravel. Asher steps out of the confines of the community’s expectation; after testing the tolerance of the community for so long, they are no longer able to tolerate, to accept.
The display of the paintings causes the Rebbe to exile Asher to Paris. The Rebbe tells 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…It is not good for you to remain here” (366). Asher has gotten on the community’s last nerve. He has picked the last straw; and as a result, he enters into unknown territory. The schism is complete; he is undeniably separated from his way of life and everyone in it. Asher is no longer exempt from following the second commandment. His community is ill-equipped to comprehend why a Jew would produce a crucifixion for any reason. While the Rebbe is proud that Asher’s art has gained a following, however secular the audience may be, he must exile Asher to appease the community. Via the exile, the community’s social order is no longer disrupted. Furthermore, in this one instance, individualism does not prevail. The Rebbe dismisses the interests of one in order to protect the interests of many.
In conclusion, My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok, dichotomizes the sacred and secular through the drawings and paintings of the protagonist, Asher Lev. Despite Asher’s efforts, he is unable to achieve a harmonious relationship between the sacred and secular, due to his art promoting the individual over the community, a belief that is contrary to his Ladover Judaism upbringing and also, that he breaks the second commandment to the point of no return: by crucifying his mother in a painting, evoking uncomfortable sentiments in his community, thereby causing discord, that is only relieved by his subsequent exile to Paris by the Rebbe.
Works Cited
Abramson, Edward R. Chaim Potok. “My Name is Asher Lev: Judaism and the Visual
Arts.” Boston: Twane Publishers. 1986. 58-81.
Potok, Chaim. My Name is Asher Lev. New York: Anchor. 2003. 3-
369.
Michael J. Cusick. “Giving Shape to Turmoil: A Conversation with Chaim Potok.” Mars
Hill Review. No. 7, Winter/Spring. 1997. 64-83. Reprinted in Conversations with
Chaim Potok. Ed. Daniel Walden. Jackson: UP of Mississippi. 2001. 122-140.
Meeks, Wayne A. Ed. et. al. The HarperCollins Study Bible: Newly Revised
Standard Edition. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
Morgan, Doug. “When Culture Confronts Faith.” College People. October, 1983. 8-13.
Reprinted in Conversations with Chaim Potok. Ed. Daniel Walden. Jackson:
UP of Mississippi, 2001. 55-62.
About the author:
Kelley A Pasmanick is a 37-year-old woman from Atlanta, Georgia. Pasmanick’s work has appeared in Wordgathering, Squawk Back, Praxis Magazine, The Mighty, Loud Zoo, The Jewish Literary Journal, Umbrella Factory Magazine, Breath & Shadow, Kaleidoscope,and Tiny Tim Literary Review. Pasmanick is a repeat contributor to The Handy, Uncapped Pen and Disabled World. Her work has also been reprinted in Queen Mob’s Teahouse and Disabled World.
In the artist’s words :
Kristina Afonso. I have been contributing art to the community since 2007 but have been practicing since very young. I attended the University of Alberta and graduated with a Bachelor in Industrial Design and graduated with honours. I have been a freelance artist for three years now and have created work for various clients. Some include abstract paintings and photography. I have shown in the following art galleries Revelstoke Visual Art Society 2012 Revelstoke, BC Canada Harcourt House 2020 Edmonton, AB Canada.