A few weeks ago, my friend and colleague Nan Thomas got in touch with me, wanting to discuss Chaim Potok’s 1972 novel My Name Is Asher Lev. According to Nan, I had once recommended this book for discussions of calling and vocation among faculty and graduate students. I couldn’t remember making that recommendation, but it made perfect sense to me — the novel had served that exact role in my Christianity and the Arts degree at Regent College.[1. Many thanks to Loren Wilkinson, Maxine Hancock, and Dal Schindell for introducing me to this book.].
In addition to her role with InterVarsity Faculty Ministry, Nan also works for the Center for Faculty Development at Union University, and she had just finished reading My Name Is Asher Lev with a group of Union faculty. My conversation with Nan confirmed that this novel can be a powerful resource for considering calling and vocation.
My Name Is Asher Lev
If you haven’t read this wonderful novel, let me start by providing some context. I’ll do my best not to give away any of the important plot points, in case you want to read it yourself (as, of course, you should).
Chaim Potok, who passed away in 2002, was an American Jewish novelist (and, briefly, Army chaplain) who wrote several critically acclaimed novels about the world of American Judaism. Set in Brooklyn during in the 1950s and 60s, My Name Is Asher Lev follows a Hasidic boy (and later young man) named Asher Lev, whose artistic gifts and desire to become an artist creates problems within his family and their tight-knit, highly religious community.[2. Asher and his family belong to a fictional Brooklyn-based “Ladover†movement of Jews, which was based on the real-life Lubavitcher Hasidic movement.] Asher’s parents, Aryeh and Rivkeh, work for the Rebbe (the leader of the community) by rescuing and relocating Jews from the Soviet Union and other Communist countries and, later, by establishing Hasidic communities throughout Europe. [Read more…] about Calling, Vocation, and Asher Lev